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juushikaTitle: Saga Volumes 4 (Issues #19-24)
Author: Brian K. Vaughan
Artist: Fiona Staples
Published: Berkeley: Image Comics, 2014
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 150
Total Page Count: 182,470
Text Number: 537
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: This was unexpectedly disappointing. Perhaps I simply lost momentum when I took a break between reading issues #1-18 and 19-24, but I think the tropes are also to blame: fridging female characters to create male character arcs, rape threats, and adding internal conflict to an established relationship in order to revive it range from unlikable to outright distasteful. The unpleasant tone also made the series's consistent and ineffective gratuity more obvious. I will continue this, in the hope this volume was a fluke—but it truly didn't work for me.
Title: Saga Volume 5 (Issues #25-30)
Author: Brian K. Vaughan
Artist: Fiona Staples
Published: Berkeley: Image Comics, 2015
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 150
Total Page Count: 182,620
Text Number: 538
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: An exploration of the gray areas of domestic violence from a sympathetic male PoV with the conclusion that maybe it's not that bad; the dismissal of a slur by another sympathetic character—I can no longer be sustained by a rational depiction of breastfeeding and some well-realized female characters: the tone is driving me away. Also lost is the balance between difficulty and emotional payoff; in earlier issues, glimpses of domestic tranquility offered reprieve and catharsis, but by now the series has become a litany of loss and suffering. I'm certain I'd better tolerate all these flaws had I not come up for air between issues and in doing so lost some of my reading momentum. But, that momentum lost, I may drop Saga entirely.
Author: Brian K. Vaughan
Artist: Fiona Staples
Published: Berkeley: Image Comics, 2014
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 150
Total Page Count: 182,470
Text Number: 537
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: This was unexpectedly disappointing. Perhaps I simply lost momentum when I took a break between reading issues #1-18 and 19-24, but I think the tropes are also to blame: fridging female characters to create male character arcs, rape threats, and adding internal conflict to an established relationship in order to revive it range from unlikable to outright distasteful. The unpleasant tone also made the series's consistent and ineffective gratuity more obvious. I will continue this, in the hope this volume was a fluke—but it truly didn't work for me.
Title: Saga Volume 5 (Issues #25-30)
Author: Brian K. Vaughan
Artist: Fiona Staples
Published: Berkeley: Image Comics, 2015
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 150
Total Page Count: 182,620
Text Number: 538
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: An exploration of the gray areas of domestic violence from a sympathetic male PoV with the conclusion that maybe it's not that bad; the dismissal of a slur by another sympathetic character—I can no longer be sustained by a rational depiction of breastfeeding and some well-realized female characters: the tone is driving me away. Also lost is the balance between difficulty and emotional payoff; in earlier issues, glimpses of domestic tranquility offered reprieve and catharsis, but by now the series has become a litany of loss and suffering. I'm certain I'd better tolerate all these flaws had I not come up for air between issues and in doing so lost some of my reading momentum. But, that momentum lost, I may drop Saga entirely.
