Saga #1 Printings: How to Tell the 1st Print from Reprints (CGC Guide)

Saga, written by Brian K. Vaughan and drawn by Fiona Staples, launched in March 2012 from Image Comics. The series is a science-fiction/fantasy epic following Hazel, a child born to two warring species. Despite — or because of — its thin initial print run, Saga #1 became one of the most studied modern keys: five reprints in under four months, as thousands of new readers scrambled to catch up. The result is a market flooded with copies, but not all created equal.

This guide sticks to the verifiable: physical marks confirmed by the collector community, CGC values documented on GoCollect, and Comichron print run data. When a precise figure is not publicly sourced, we state it qualitatively rather than inventing it.

The five printings at a glance

Distinguishing between printings relies primarily on the color of the « SAGA » logo on the cover and the printing number notation below the cover price. The last digit of the barcode also encodes the printing (standard Image Comics convention).

Value sources: GoCollect (fair market value, CGC 9.8 grade). 1st print run: Comichron March 2012 via Comic Book Invest. All "Printing" notations appear directly below the price box on the cover.

The 1st printing: orange is the only reliable tell

The most common trap for new collectors: confusing the 1st and 4th printings, since both feature orange on their covers. The rule is straightforward — the 4th printing carries the explicit notation « Fourth Printing » below the price; the 1st has no notation at all. If you see the word « Printing » anywhere on the cover, it is not the first.

Additional checks for the 1st printing:

• Indicia (interior credits page): should read « First printing. » or show a March 2012 publication date with no reprint mention.
• Barcode: the last digit of the barcode sequence is « 1 » for the first printing — reprints increment this to 2, 3, 4, 5.
• Cover price: $2.99 US. All standard printings share this price, so it is not a distinguishing factor on its own.

Why is the 1st printing so sought after? With only 37,641 copies shipped to comic shops (Comichron, March 2012), Saga #1 was vastly under-ordered before the press piled on with praise. Stock-outs forced Image to rush three more printings in under six weeks. This is the same dynamic that played out with The Walking Dead #1 a few years earlier — and collectors remember the lesson.

The 4th printing: the rarest of the standard five

Ironically, among the five « standard » printings, the 4th is the scarcest: its estimated print run fell below 1,400 copies (source: Comic Book Invest / CBSI), compared to roughly 4,800 each for the 2nd and 3rd. Its CGC 9.8 value (~$270) therefore exceeds those of the 2nd and 3rd printings. This is the unusual case where a later reprint is actually harder to find in top grade than the print that preceded it — worth bearing in mind if you spot a high-grade 4th printing.

The Diamond Retailer Summit variant: the true grail

Beyond the five printings, there is a sixth version: the Diamond Retailer Summit variant (also referred to as the « RRP » or Retailer Incentive edition). Distributed to approximately 500 copies to retailers attending the Diamond Retailer Summit ahead of C2E2 in April 2012, this variant is recognizable by its entirely different cover — a tightly cropped character composition in vivid colors that bears no resemblance to the standard cover layout used across all five printings.

In CGC 9.8, documented sales have exceeded $2,500 (GoCollect). Raw, ungraded copies of this variant surface very rarely; when they do, they command strong prices. CGC has certified over 200 copies of this variant in total, with roughly 110 graded at 9.8 — a notable concentration of top-grade copies given the tiny population, suggesting retailers stored their copies carefully.

One key point for context: Saga has no film or television adaptation as of June 2026. Brian K. Vaughan has consistently resisted adapting it, viewing the series as medium-specific to comics. The series' collector value is driven entirely by critical acclaim (multiple Eisner Awards, including Best Continuing Series in 2013 and four awards in 2017 — Best Writer, Best Penciller/Inker, Best Cover Artist, and Best Continuing Series) and the documented scarcity of early printings. No screen adaptation is factoring into these prices.

What the eBay median tells you (and why it misleads)

Our estimator shows a €6 median across 46 listings for Saga #1 all editions combined (June 2026). That figure reflects the mass of reprints in circulation — the 2nd, 3rd and 5th printings are far more common and pull the average down. For the 1st printing alone, budget a meaningful multiple of that median; for the Diamond Summit variant, the figures cited above apply.

Checklist before buying a Saga #1

• Check the logo color: pure orange = first printing candidate.
• No "Printing" notation: any printing notation on the cover rules out the 1st printing.
• Last digit of the barcode: should be « 1 » for the first printing.
• Interior indicia: confirms the publication date (March 2012) and the absence of any reprint mention.
• For the DRS variant: the cover is radically different — if it resembles the standard cover in any way, even with altered colors, it is not the Diamond Retailer Summit variant.