chomiji | Reading Wednesday (Reply)

Having finished Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones, I had to do the sequel, The Year of the Griffin. I like this one better, but it's strange. The book is set in a university, albeit a magical one, with lead characters who seem in the 17 - 20 age range, and yet the target audience seems much younger, maybe 11 - 14. Some adult-ish things happen, but they are described very simply. For example, some foreign griffins show up. They are crude and rather bestial, and they make lead character griffin Elda (who first showed up in Derkholm) feel weirdly like lying down and giving in ... to sex, clearly, from my much older viewpoint. And I'm not plucking this from nowhere: Elda acts protective toward one of her classmates, hiding him under her wings, and the strange griffins mock her, saying she's clearly ready to be a mother. But would the young pre-teens and teens glom onto what's going on here? I'm not sure.

Now I'm doing a Saga re-read Because Reasons. This is the first time since I started the series 3 years or so ago that I have done a re-read. Holy mackerel, the deaths and the angst.

(For those who don't know this work: Saga is a science fantasy comics series by Brian Vaughan (author) and Fiona Staples (artist). It's about war, and families, and what happens when the two come together. The leads are Alana and Marko, soldiers from the opposite sides of a very long-term war, who hook up, marry, and have a baby. And now the entire universe is pursuing them from planet to planet. It's very violent, sexually explicit, and has some lovely things to say about families, of all sorts.)

I need to make some Saga icons. Also, this series is becoming popular enough that there are Funko Pop! figurines of the most popular characters, including Marko, Alana (either with baby Hazel or a gun), The Will, Lying Cat, and Izabel. I love Izabel in the series, but I don't care for her Funko figurine. There are also some more realistic action-figure-type figurines available of the first four. I also saw a plush Lying Cat, but it was just awful.

I took a brief tour through TVTropes' article on Saga and found the following wonderful quote from the author, ca. 2012 when it was just starting: "This is an original fantasy book with no superheroes, two non-white leads and an opening chapter featuring graphic robot sex. I thought we might be cancelled by our third issue."