Girl Genius Omnibus Volume One: Agatha Awakens [Hardcover]

Phil Foglio (Author), Kaja Foglio (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 28, 2012 | Series: Girl Genius Omnibus

Girl Genius, the multiple Hugo Award–winning steampunk webcomic by Phil and Kaja Foglio, now collected in hardcover!

 

The Industrial Revolution has become all-out war! Mad Scientists, gifted with the Spark of genius, unleash insane inventions on an unprepared Europe. For centuries, the Heterodyne family of inventors kept the peace, but the last Heterodyne disappeared twenty years ago, leaving their ally Baron Klaus Wulfenbach to maintain order with his fleet of airships and army of unstoppable, if not very bright, Jaeger Monsters.

 

At Transylvania Polygnostic University, Agatha Clay dreams of being a scientist herself, but her trouble concentrating dooms her to be a lowly minion at best. When her locket, a family heirloom, is stolen, Agatha shows signs of having the Spark in a spectacular, destructive fashion and captures the attention of the Baron—and the Baron’s handsome young son, Gilgamesh.

 

Swept up to the Baron's Airship City, Agatha finds herself in the midst of the greatest minds of her generation, as well as palace intrigue, dashing heroes, and an imperial cat. Agatha may be the most brilliant mind of her generation and the key to control of the continent, but first, she just has to survive.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Winner of the 2009 and 2010 Hugo Awards for Best Graphic Story

 

"A sly and witty graphic novel."

—School Library Journal, Best Adult Books for High School Students 2003

 

"If Jules Verne has written comics, he wouldn't have written Girl Genius. He would have been jealous of it, though."

—Comics Buyer's Guide

 

"The Foglios appear to have been liberated by the [webcomics] format—and that sense of buoyant imagination and unbridled fun runs through every page."

—The Onion A.V. Club

 

"A manic, hilarious, adventure-filled gem of a comic. The series is made of win and I have only one regret: that I didn't know about it sooner. Do yourself a favor and go read it, NOW."

—The Book Smugglers

 

"Girl Genius is unique. Buy it."

—Comics Buyer's Guide

 

"Bursting at the seam with creativity, humor, and outright weirdness . . . an infectious and incredibly fun read."

—Sarah Kuhn, IGN

 

"Girl Genius is brilliant. It really is. It's fun and funky and unlike almost anything else, and it's Phil and Kaja Foglio doing what they do best."

—Eric Burns, Websnark.com

 

"It's appealingly drawn and cleverly written and cheerfully pulpy in all the right ways."

—Shaenon Garrity, The Webcomics Examiner

 

"Professionally executed artwork and a spanking story that makes it a timeless work of literature."

—Shiny Shiny: a Girl's Guide to Gadgets

About the Author

PHIL and KAJA FOGLIO are the co-creators of the Hugo Award–winning and Eagle and Eisner Award–nominated webcomic Girl Genius. Phil Foglio illustrated Robert Asprin's MythAdventures series, and Kaja Foglio contributed art for Magic: the Gathering. Kaja and Phil were married in 1993. They have a son and a daughter, and live in Seattle.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; First Edition edition (February 28, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765331322
• ISBN-13: 978-0765331328
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 0.8 x 10.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #95,619 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

PROFESSORESSA KAJA FOGLIO is the current Head of the Department of Irrefutably True History at Transylvania Polygnostic University. She first became aware of the power of Creative History while listening to the excuses of her fellow students who had failed to produce their homework. Her doctoral work brought recognition to the long hidden canis operisphagus, or "homework-eating dog" which, as we now now, infests most of our major schools and universities. She first became interested in the history of the Heterodyne family during the infamous "Nymphenberg Pudding Incident" when she was mistaken for Agatha by an angry mob of dessert chefs from whom she barely escaped. Her subsequent research has brought her the grudging acclaim and jealous rivalry of many of her academic colleagues. She enjoys airship racing, Hyrulian Electro-Mechanical Shadow Puppetry and illustrated novels.

PROFESSOR PHIL FOGLIO spends most of his time in the field, collecting legends, folk songs, anecdotes and gossip relating to Sparks and their effects on village society and "folk science". This is a bit odd, as he was originally hired by Transylvania Polygnostic University to teach Modern Dance. He first became interested in Heterodyne stories while doing research on simple automatons and was actually present when the Lady Heterodyne unleashed her "Battle Circus" upon Baron Klaus Wulfenbach. Through subsequent research, bribery, and rampant speculation, the professor has managed to fill in a great many of the narrative gaps in the early life of Agatha Heterodyne. He enjoys botany, mechanical illustration, entomology and -in moderation- modern dance.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Most affordable way to start collecting Girl Genius March 7, 2012

By Kristine Adam

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is not about the content of the book. If you're curious about the story and hesitant to buy the book I strongly recommend you check out the Girl Genius website--the entire story is online, it's just never as comfortable to curl up with a good browser window.

I bought the Tor color omnibus version largely because of the cost. There are a *lot* of Girl Genius books now, and my budget was limited. If you are a very serious fan and don't have teen/tween kids stealing your books then you might prefer the individual books.

The Tor edition is just slightly smaller than the Airship Press edition. (Approximately 1" shorter and slightly narrower pages.) The size is still very readable, much larger than the old black & white omnibus edition. The book is a standard hardcover with dust jacket, just like most other hardcover novels you'll find on Amazon. The paper is perhaps not as nice quality as the Airship versions, but you get what you pay for. The quality of the images is great, and the book is nice to read. While it doesn't include any extras, it does have a handy introduction to the main characters and simplified cover pages to mark where each of the original books starts.

I'm really glad that the Foglios have managed to get this color omnibus printed, and I'm hoping that more will soon follow.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One man's meat... March 10, 2012

By William H. Ansley

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Agatha Awakens (the first part of the Girl Genius saga) received one rather negative review here, which I think contains some unwarranted criticism. However, there is a lot of subjectivity involved in whether someone thinks something is good or not. Fortunately, you can check this story out for yourself before you buy it. The all of Girl Genius is available to read for free on the web. Just type "girl genius comic" into the search engine of your choice and you won't have any trouble finding it. If you have questions about the different editions of Girl Genius in print, search for "girl genius wiki" and click on the "A (Spoiler Free) Guide for New Girl Genius Readers" link on the wiki home page.

Personally, I have found Girl Genius, the first part of which is included in Agatha Awakens, to be one of the funniest things I have ever read. It is not even described as a comedy by its creators (husband and wife team Phil and Kaja Foglio) because humor is in Phil's DNA, so the fact that anything he writes will be funny goes without saying. Phil is also the artist, as well as a co-writer, and an extremely accomplished one. His style is unique and very cartoony, so it certainly won't appeal to everyone, but he has a firm gasp of anatomy when he needs to use it and a great knack for drawing insanely complicated mechanisms and detailed backgrounds, which comes in very handy for a steampunkesque science fantasy tale set in a parallel-world Victorian era setting. One thing that appeals to me about Phil's art is that it bares almost no resemblance to manga. While well-executed manga-style art can be beautiful to behold, the manga influence is so pervasive in comics today that any escape from it is refreshing. He is also brilliant at laying out the pages of his comic, with very clear, clever, and effective panel layouts, so I really don't understand how anyone could say it is hard to follow the order of the panels on any of the pages of Agatha Awakens. This comic has a lot of dialog and, very rarely, I have been confused over the order in which to read the word balloons, but it has never been more than a momentary confusion.

The negative reviewer also complains about the speech of the Jaegermonsters, humans transformed into very strong, very tough and near immortal super-soldiers by Mad Science. They speak with a comic Germanic accent, written out phonetically, which is hard to read at first, but it really doesn't take that much effort to decipher and reading it becomes effortless in short order, at least if you find the story entertaining in the first place.

Another complaint is that nothing happens in Agatha Awakens, which is completely untrue. The story is full of action and adventure. What the reviewer may be complaining about is that there is almost no resolution of any of the mysteries raised in this first part of the story by the end of Agatha Awakens. This is deliberate, however. The Foglios are telling an epic tale here; one which has already gone into its twelfth volume (Agatha Awakens is made up of the first three volumes, by this count) and is only half over. So, if you don't want to get into this for the long haul, beware of starting the story because it may find it to be habit forming.

The only complaint that has any justification is about the coloring of this volume. While is isn't that bad, the color in most of Agatha Awakens was done by a different artist than is currently coloring the story and it doesn't come up to the level of the excellent work now being done by the current colorist Cheyenne Wright.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent omnibus edition of first 3 books March 5, 2012

By D. Garrett

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

As a big fan of Girl Genius, I wanted to have the books and in hardcover editions, but the early books are long out of print and very scarce and expensive. This is a welcome addition to all fans of Girl Genius! The book is only slightly smaller than the original ones from the Foglio's own publishing company Airship Entertainment, but you get the first 3 books in one nice hardcover for an incredibly small price. I am not a big reviewer on Amazon, but when the first (and as I write)only review came out, it was very negative, and I just felt that it was unfair. They did not like the Jaegermonsters and the Germanic sounding words they use, they did not like the art, they said that nothing happens in the three books. Well, if you do not like the art, there is nothing I can say. If you do not like the use of this kind of dialog, then this is not your cup of tea. But to say that nothing happens in these 3 books? That is just not right. I will not go into the plot, but Agatha goes from student, to "prisoner" on the Castle Wulfenbach, attacked by slaver wasps, escaping into the wilderness. We meet a ton of interesting characters, like Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, the Baron, Othar Tryggvassen Gentleman Adventurer, Krosp the king of the cats, Bangladesh Dupree the pirate queen, and many more. The first book was originally in black and white, and was recently colored, this edition has the colored version, but it is muted, a sepia-tone coloring. The colors starting in book 2 are vivid, but I like that. I like the expressiveness of the characters as drawn by Phil Foglio. I hope that this series is continued by Tor and that they do all the books in this omnibus format, it will be fun to have in a matching set. The Girl Genius story is now on volume 12 and the whole series is archived online for anyone to read. There is a lot more to read after this book and the Foglios say that we are only now half way through the story.