Name: Girl genius
ISBN: 9781890856403

Phil Foglio

a gaslamp fantasy with adventure, romance & mad science

Girl genius

Sarah Sammis

My husband started reading the Girl Genius web comic last summer and I've read much (but not all) of the series with him. Since we've been enjoying the online version, we bought the first (currently only) omnibus (although volumes 4 and 5 are available in print form too). I'm hoping that once volume 6 is in print, a second omnibus will be published. This first omnibus contains volumes 1, 2 and 3 of the comic.

The title character is Agatha. In these first three volumes she comes to terms with her importance and her hidden talents. She has always enjoyed building things but hasn't had much luck until her amulet is stolen. Turns out she might be a powerful spark after all. If that's the case, she'll be very interesting to Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, the most powerful spark (and man) in Europe.

Agatha lives in Europe but as realized in the Foglio's own special version of steampunk that they call "gaslamp fantasy". It's a world of clockwork robots (clanks), giant airships and other oddities.

The omnibus version is printed in grayscale (the first volume actually was never colored). The individual "collections" are printed in color and the online version is in color too. The lack of color makes some of the pages a little difficult to read but the story is still so much fun that it is worth the effort!

If you have the omnibus and want to read more, the story continues with "crashing the airship", the first page of volume 4. The web comic is up Volume 8 so I have some catching up to do.

Girl genius a gaslamp fantasy with adventure, romance & mad science