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Saga #42's Black Pages Were There To Mop Up The Tears

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https://twitter.com/fionastaples/status/824285203988238336

Yesterday saw the release of Saga #42 by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples from Image Comics. Was this the answer to life, the universe and everything?

I really hope not. Cos it was a toughie.

It also worked far better in print than in digital. By stint of doing the kind of thing that comic books do so well, using the actual act of turning a page to generate emotion.

Because in this issue there was death. Of characters old, new, unseen. And then, as the comic book concluded with a full black page with one caption, the page is turned. To a double page spread of black. And again. And again. And the back cover, also black, with only the UPC box to break the darkness. Eight pages of black, one after the other, hammering home the finality of the death we've just witnessed. And no light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how many pages you turn, your act of lifting the page making you complicit in the hopelessness of the action.

https://twitter.com/jpraise_dmc/status/824300318448123904

And the end of the issue. Of the arc. And no new Saga until at least May.

The reaction was, in retrospect, expected.

https://twitter.com/TeeganReed/status/824563669753364480

https://twitter.com/EaRayos/status/824436488033206274

https://twitter.com/HeyNicJohnson/status/824279783605501952

https://twitter.com/josepharieh/status/824239399659511811

https://twitter.com/Coleo_Kin/status/824236237921906689

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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.
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