Saga #37

Saga, Issue #37 begins the seventh arc.  I don't know how many arcs there are going to be.  Y - The Last Man had 10 arcs or 60 issues, and if Saga lasts as long, it could be running until 2018 or later.  So, Hazel is reunited with Marko and Alana, and Alana is pregnant with their second child.  I'm not quite sure how much time has passed in the Saga-verse, but Hazel is about half the height of her parents, five years old, according to the story.  Sophie has grown, as well.  She's a bit older, she's wearing glasses, and she's still with Gwendolyn and the Lying Cat.

This title was out two or three weeks before I got to it.  To save money, I've subscribed to a few titles straight from Image.  Well, I don't really save that much money, more like I had money a couple of summers ago, and I wanted to ensure that I could read my four favorite titles - Saga, Velvet, Lazarus, and Southern Bastards - for the indefinite future, ordering 12 issues of each.  But I do love this title.  I'm wearing a Saga tee shirt as I write this, but it's most likely pirated, as Red Bubble is known for not paying for the artwork it prints.

What makes Saga great is its characterization.  Long-running titles from One Piece to In Search of Lost Time have made their readers fawn over returning and new characters.  It's a lot different from, say, Isaac Asimov's original Foundation series in that each new situation had new characters.  Only later, as Asimov expanded the Foundation - Robot - Empire - universe into over a dozen books over nearly 40 years that he began reintroducing old characters.  Saga is famous for bringing back stars of its earlier arcs; some of them I actually forget about and have to look up, and some I'd never forget.