SAGA Volume 3: By Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples
Collects Issues 13-18, Published by Image Comics.

Finally got around to Saga volume 3, and it doesnt have the same wow factor I felt with the first two volumes. Granted it’s still one of the best series being published today, but the first series hit me with the grand spectacle of this whole new universe Vaughan & Staples had created. The second volume played nicely as it cemented our characters story arcs and showed us a little bit about where we are going.

For me Volume 3 felt a little like an exercise in Vaughan demonstrating his writing skills around his like and dislikes around the art of writing. Since a central characther in this arc is the author Heist, Vaughan seems to exorcise some demons he has about other writers and the education of writing.

He even spends a few pages musing on the writing phrase “Kill Your Darlings”

It’s hard to tell if he’s making a stance that writers should focus on what they love or not?  It hampers the progress of the story and at times it distracts from the plot causing part of this episode of Saga to feel essay centric and less grand scale epic awesomeness of the first two volumes.

Saga is a sweeping intergalactic ,well, Saga, but here’s hoping later volumes remember it is a big show, and perhaps not the perfect forum for a lecture on the art of writing.

One wonders if Vaughan whose work on Y The Last Man, was not just entertaining, but one of the most important political and social comics ever, wants Saga to be that kind of comic.

I’d be okay if it decides to just entertain.