This is how an idea becomes real.

Last week I checked the first five volumes of the Image Comics series Saga out of our local library. And read them all in one day. And read them all again this weekend. And it's not even close to the end of the story. But then neither is life. Where to begin, where to begin ... Saga's a science fiction/fantasy (it's hard to say it's one or the other due to elements of both science and magic throughout the story) tale that begins with the birth of Hazel, the narrator who provides today's title -- to a man Marko and a woman Alana who are on opposite sides of a galactic war.


But ideas are fragile things.


And the home worlds (more accurately, the home planet of Alana and the home moon of Marko) are in such a position that razing their opponents' surface and destroying their world would pretty much wipe them out too. SO the war between the science-dominant "wings" (so called because they sprout from Alana's people's backs) and the magic-wielding "horns" (so called because ditto for Marko's people's heads) has gotten to the point where it's waged on nearly every other world in the galaxy BUT Landfall and Wreath.


Most don't live long outside of the ether from which they were pulled, kicking and screaming.


(Hazel's opening narration continues in italics here.) Reviews of this series drawn written by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (oh, volume one which contains the first six issues, ISBN 9781607066019) range from calling it "this sexy, subversive ongoing epic" to an incredible cross between Star Wars and Romeo and Juliet ... I've also seen A Game of Thrones cited as an inspiration, but as I know very little about that George R. R. Martin series, I'll stick with the first two. Anyway, volume one ends with Marko, Alana, and Hazel getting off the planet Cleave with ...


That's why people create with someone else.


... some help from the ghost of a girl blown in half by a landmine. And this sets off representatives and hirelings of BOTH armies, Landfall's "wings" and Wreath's "horns" after them in a rocketship grown in a forest, and wood doesn't show up on most sensors. But it works, just as citizens of the Robot Kingdom with box TV sets for heads that flash what they're thinking and a bounty hunter's partner is a cat (called a Lying Cat, no less) that is an organic lie detector. I can almost see this as a science fiction Once Upon A Time with it's emphasis on family. (Many families; keep reading.)


Two minds can sometimes improve the odds of an idea's survival...but there are no guarantees.


As for this weekend with MY family -- get your head out of that book! -- Sunday we got pretty stuffed between a pancake breakfast served by Lutheran Campus Ministries at my church (I had to scarf my meal before teaching first and second graders the story of Ruth in Sunday School) and then headed to Christ Lutheran for their annual Swedish meatballs and rice pudding dinner! Then we went walking and playing -- Martha's really kept up with the former to lose weight -- in Oak Park both days at a lovely 73 degrees! And now starts up the week ...

Which I promise to get to tomorrow, David