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Saga will return! Brian K. Vaughan announces new issues at NYCC after 3+ year hiatus for acclaimed series
The hiatus has ended! Fans of the sprawling, award-winning comic epic Saga will be thrilled to know that the best-selling series from Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples will officially return very soon with Issue #55. It's been more than three years since a new issue has been released in the series.
Vaughan dropped the news at New York Comic Con 2021, during the virtual panel “In Conversation with Brian K. Vaughan.” The conversation turned out to be with Staples herself, and the news was that the series will return. Fans can also take heart: future issues will remain at the $2.99 per issue price point.
Saga has been on a hiatus ever since Issue #54, which was released in April of 2018. It left readers with a giant cliffhanger, and marked the halfway point of Vaughan’s promised run of 108 issues. As Vaughan and Staples revealed, the fantasy adventure epic will resume on January 26th, 2022.
“Fiona and I have made more money in the three years we haven’t been publishing," Vaughan joked during his NYCC panel. "So this is your fault.”
The long hiatus should not be taken as a sign that Vaughan was no longer interested in the series. “Other than my own family, collaborating with Fiona Staples on Saga is the most important thing in my life,” he said in a statement. “I can’t thank readers and retailers enough for their patience. I think our next 54 issues will be even more shocking, strange, and spectacular than the first 54, so we can’t wait to be back on the shelves at your local comic shop soon.”
You read that right: readers can look forward to another 54 issues, which would fulfill the original promise of 108 in total.
“I've really missed connecting with readers through the pages of Saga,” Staples said, adding, "I'm thrilled to roll up my sleeves and dive into this world again. The next arc is already going places I never imagined. I'm so grateful that we're able to keep doing this.”
As if all of this wasn’t enough, Issue #55 will be a double issue; it will contain 44 pages of story featuring one of the most unique families in comics. It will also hit shelves in time for the 30th anniversary of the title’s publisher, Image Comics.
Eric Stephenson, Chief Creative Officer and Publisher at Image, said, “I can think of few better ways to celebrate what Image is all about than by welcoming back one of the most incredible storytelling teams in comics history as they embark on the second half of a true epic-in-the-making.”
Just to crack the surface of Saga’s success, the title has won a Hugo Award, multiple Eisner Awards, multiple Harvey Awards, a British Fantasy Award, and more. The Simpsons, The Big Bang Theory, and Supernatural have all made references to it.
Vaughan continued the conversation with fans following the announcement, talking more about Saga as well as his entire body of work, which includes Y: The Last Man and Paper Girls. A television adaptation of the former is streaming now, and a show based on the latter is in the works. Possibly because of this, one fan asked Vaughan about which medium he prefers to work in.
“At the end of the day, comics are what brought me to the dance. They’ll always be my first love," he said. He likes how they can be strange and idiosyncratic, and far less "focus-tested." For Vaughan, it will always be “comics forever.”
The wait is almost over, and the saga of Saga will resume. Mark your calendars for January 26th, 2022, and get excited for more to come.
Click here for more of SYFY WIRE’s continuing coverage of New York Comic Con 2021.
