A Distant Soil
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Distant Soil is a science fiction/fantasy comic book series written and illustrated by Colleen Doran, and is the work for which she is best known. The story, which Doran created at the age of twelve, centers on a young girl who is born heir to an alien religious dynasty, and explores issues of politics, gender identity, and tolerance. Its strong characterization and elegant art style has inspired the Young American Library Association to profile the book in their quarterly journal, and it has been nominated for the Spectrum Award for Best Science Fiction in the Other category in 2001.
A Distant Soil was originally published by Wendy and Richard Pini's WaRP Graphics, but Doran subsequently left the company due to an acrimonious dispute with Richard Pini, whom she alleged was attempting to claim copyright on her work. The WaRP version of the story was never reprinted, despite its unusual all-pencil style, although in one collected volume of the new series Doran did reprint the short Distant Soil story "R & R" that had appeared in a WaRP anthology.
After leaving WaRP, Colleen went on to completely rewrite and redraw the entire A Distant Soil series to that point from scratch, initially for Starblaze Graphics. When Starblaze dropped its graphic novel line Doran began self-publishing it under the Aria Press imprint, starting from the beginning yet again. (The ending of the Cold War necessitated some revision to political references in early chapters.)
Some years later she moved the series to Image Comics where it is now in multiple printings as a series of graphic novels. The first volume has had four printings, and it is now in its fourth collected volume. It has sold, collectively, more than 500,000 copies.
