Saga #1 goes into fifth print run, defies conventional wisdom

Vaughan and Staples’ epic Saga #1 sales were already “getting to the 70,000 mark” as of its fourth printing run, according to Image Publisher Eric Stephenson. (That number does not take digital sales into account.) Image is now pushing the book into a fifth printing run after already overprinting the first, second, and third runs.

If my reviews haven’t convinced you to check out Vaughan and Staples’ great new series, maybe this will.

One of the best parts about these sales figures is what they say about the comic and graphic novel consumers. The fans are hungry for great, new stories. This goes against the conventional wisdom of a timid industry at the moment. But Saga proves that Brian K. Vaughan was right when he said this on the Wired Storyboard Podcast with Adam Rogers.

Adam Rogers:
You said this was supposed to be a horrible time to start writing a new monthly book. Why? Why is this worse than it ever has been before?

Brian K. Vaughan:
Well, not necessarily just any new monthly, but original books I think are hard. … The market for comics is like everything else. It’s undergoing huge changes now. … It’s this contraction of, “Are we moving to digital? Numbers are going down.” … It’s sort of a very conservative time, I think, where people are like, “Look, we can’t take too many chances. Let’s fall back on our classic characters and try to do them really well,” which I totally understand. But, I’m happiest making new things. I guess the conventional wisdom is: people aren’t looking for that right now, and that books that are wholly new are having a much harder time than books featuring characters that we all grew up with. Like I said, that’s the conventional wisdom. I don’t think it’s true. I think people are always aching for something new. But it is a little harder to get people excited about it sometimes.

(This was a great episode by the way, if you want to listen to the full show.)

The industry is lucky to have people like Vaughan, willing to go against the tide because, “people are always aching for something new.” He is absolutely right. The only problem is that it’s hard to make the kind of waves that Saga has if you don’t have a name like Vaughan attached to it. Saga is a phenomenal series so far, and well deserving of the praise it’s received, author notwithstanding. But it does pose an interesting question for both the industry and the consumers: if the exact same, head-and-shoulders above the pack series was written by someone else, would it have anywhere near the same level of success?

Release information on reprints and upcoming installments:
SAGA #1’s fifth printing (APR128195) is scheduled to be in stores on June 13, the same day as SAGA #3’s second printing (APR128087). SAGA #4 (APR120555) will be in stores on June 20.

[Connor Cleary is an author, video game columnist and critic, and a freelance web-slash-graphic designer. He is a reviewer at GameShark and an occasional opinion and analysis columnist at Gamasutra. His freelance design business is Four Stair Multimedia and Design. You can follow Connor @The_Blue_Key, or at fb/TheBlueKey, or check out his writing archive on tumblr, The Blue Key.]