“Pete’s Overly-Detailed Explanation of Why He Doesn’t Love Saga, Which Nobody Asked For
Part II: The Grossening
There’s a thing Saga does that I don’t care for. The volume before this starts off with a super close-up of a TV-head baby being born. We see the head emerging from the vagina, we see mom’s butthole, we see everything, and we see it close.
In this one, we’ve got a dragon sucking itself off. Which is sort of commented on like, “Well, that’s what a dude does!” and I was like, “Excuse me, I’m sure we would if we could, but we can’t. So no fair blaming us for being horny enough to blow ourselves. We don’t have the option!” I was so close to just googling “Do snakes blow themselves?” that I can’t even right now.
There’s a lot of graphic blown-off heads, people slicing through people, all kindsa shit. A butt sex joke in the guise of talking about sexing a spider woman in the spinneret.
And it’s not that the existence of these things offends me. It’s that I feel a little like Saga is doing some stuff to be edgy rather than doing it because it really believes in it, as story. I think Saga does that stuff because it’s funny.
And maybe, only two entries into this, I’ve found something that I don’t think is a problem in the book, but with the audience.
Saga is one of the comics that comes along every so often that grown-ups can read. And they can feel very with it. “I totally read comics, I read Saga like all the time!” And while part of the appeal is that it has real-feeling characters and good writing and art, part of the appeal, the audience needs to admit, is that it’s fucking ridiculous.
We have a horn head man who shoots a stick like an anti-aircraft weapon. We see a giant’s diseased scrotum. There’s a cat that can tell if people are lying. There’s a magic sword whip thingie. There’s a seal man in little overalls (which, if he dies, I’ll never forgive you, Brian K. Vaughan). There’s a bestselling series of erotic novels written by a cyclops. There’s a topless spider woman. There’s a drug that makes you see your ex-girlfriend. There’s nothing about this that is NOT silly.
I feel like Saga is a bit of a pedestal book. It’s one that’s okay to like as an adult. People don’t view it the same way they do something like a superhero book or manga. But I think we all just need to admit that we’re glad something super fun is acceptable to read as a discerning adult. I think we’re all so fucking relieved that it’s mature to read something this wacky. It’s almost like we can have fun with a book.”