Saga
Alana and Marko, soldiers from opposite sides of an interplanetary war, fall in love and desert their armies to raise their newborn daughter Hazel in a hostile universe that wants their family dead. They are pursued by Robot royalty, mercenaries, and the secret police of both their governments across a galaxy populated by creatures from across the spectrum of science fiction and fantasy. Hazel narrates her own story in retrospect, giving the narrative a fatalistic quality that heightens every moment of danger.
Saga is the most commercially successful original creator-owned comics series since Sandman, reaching sales figures usually reserved for superhero franchises while telling an intimate story about parenthood, war, and the cost of love in a chaotic universe. Fiona Staples' painted art — fully realized alien environments and characters rendered with emotional directness — redefined expectations for monthly comic book illustration.
Launched by Image Comics in 2012 as the direct market was consolidating around superhero content from Marvel and DC, Saga demonstrated that creator-owned titles could compete commercially with franchise properties if they offered genuine originality and emotional investment. Vaughan and Staples' refusal to sell film or television rights for years made the series a statement about creative integrity in an era of IP-driven entertainment.
Viz Media's translation of Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon into English, timed with the Pokemon anime's American debut, introduced millions of children to manga as a reading format. Tokyopop's subsequent decision to publish manga in the original right-to-left format, rather than flipping pages, normalized authentic Japanese reading experiences and triggered a decade of unprecedented growth in graphic novel sections of bookstores.
Webtoon's mobile-first vertical scroll format — optimized for smartphones rather than print pages — created a new medium that exploded to 80 million monthly readers by 2020. The platform democratized comics creation globally, with Korean webtoons like Lore Olympus and Tower of God attracting Western audiences as large as any traditional publisher.