ellyssian | Recently Read: Girl Genius Volume 4

kajafoglio: Girl Genius Volume 4: Agatha Heterodyne and the Circus of Dreams

I really have to thank

phantom_wolfboy again (perhaps "again again") for pointing out Girl Genius in the first place. He included a quote in his e-mail signature, and it had a link. I followed it and found out the Foglios were behind it.

Like many people who predated Magic: The Gathering, I first saw the work of Phil in the pages of Dragon Magazine - a few pages of comics in the back called What's New, with Phil & Dixie. Half the time, I picked up Dragon just because of that comic. You could say that we even named Brandon after Phil (well, Brandon's middle name, anyway,) but that wouldn't be quite true because I just thought of that now. I loved his work back then, though, and was happy to see him still keeping busy when I saw his work appear in Magic, but to actually find a whole comic by Phil and his talented wife Kaja was beyond excellent. That it was a gaslamp fantasy - a more accurate label than "steampunk" - was even better.

It was actually in the middle of the storyline in this volume that I came across Girl Genius. Since they publish first on the web, and then later in collected format, I'd already read a good chunk of this, but it's so much nicer to have it in hand.

I won't go into detail on what happens - best way to find that out is to read it for yourself. As this is a part of an ongoing storyline, it can't really be taken completely on its own, but if any of the first four had to suffer that fate, this one might actually handle it the best. Of course, this is one of those stories you'd prefer didn't come to an end... you just want to keep reading more and more...