When is Saga Coming Back - The Mid-2021 Update

It has been nearly 3 years since the last new issue of Saga.

By Zack Quaintance — Here we are again attempting to answer when is Saga coming back, and while I wish there was more concrete information to share, the answer so far is not in 2021, at least not through August, anyway. Image Comics — the publisher of the Saga comic — just released its comprehensive list of what will be coming out through August (known to us in the biz as solicitations), and folks? Saga ain’t on it.

Meanwhile, the book’s writer, Brian K. Vaughan, last weighed in on the creative team’s progress via an Instagram post on January 22, noting…

“…yes, Fiona and I are still hard at work on Saga, and we remain hugely appreciative of the four of you left who haven’t completely lost patience with our extended intermission. Hard to believe as it may seem, I promise these new issues will be worth the wait.'“

If I had to guess (based on lightly-informed speculation), I’d say the earliest we might get a new issue of Saga would be November, with the idea being to get buzz for the series sparked for the holiday shopping season. This could also mean an announcement in July, around the time of San Diego Comic-Con online…but hey, that’s little more than a guess.



When is Saga Coming Back?

So yeah, we still don’t know. When it does come back, we’ll likely find out via an exclusive announcement on some website like The Hollywood Reporter. In the meantime, this message of “we’re working on it, but it just isn’t ready yet” has essentially been the standard cruising altitude for the question of when is Saga coming back for about two years now. Or rather, it was the line from Vaughan at both of the last comics events he appeared at, those being New York Comic Con 2019 and Baltimore Comic Con 2019.

Saga’s writer, Brian K. Vaughan.

To recap, Saga’s last issue went on sale July 25, 2018, featuring one hell of a devastating plot twist (I even wrote about why Saga #54 hurts so badly). The creative team let that pain linger for about a month, before letting fans know they would be taking a hiatus to re-charge (you can read Vaughan and artist Fiona Staple’s exact words about why via Entertainment Weekly, but fair warning, here there be spoilers).

Since debuting in 2012, Saga has been one of monthly comics brightest stars and biggest sales success stories, doing big business both in single issues and in terms of the many different varieties of collections it puts out, which have found their way to independent bookstores across the country, and not just those with a comics focus. The story is centered on a family on the run throughout the galaxy, trying to hide a daughter who is the product of forbidden love between two warring species. The creators have said that the story is currently halfway finished, meaning when it does come back, we have another 54 issue run headed our way.

We’ve done an issue-by-issue re-read project, which I’ve long been meaning to re-edit and clean up, since the original publication was a bit rough. And now that Saga coming back in 2021 is starting to seem increasingly unlikely, hey! Maybe I’ll have time to do just that…

In the meantime, we have a list of 5 Other Comics Like Saga. If you’re still looking to catch up (you’ve got time) you can read Saga digitally online, or you can buy the entire series to date in one giant Saga collection.

Best Comics of 2021 (So Far) Lists

Don’t forget to check out our weekly new comics reviews as well!

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.