Girl Genius

Girl Genius is the name of the collected early histories of Lady Agatha Heterodyne, from her last days living in Beetleburg to whenever the Transylvania Polygnostic University grant runs out for the Professors Foglio and their associates. Put another way, Girl Genius is the Foglios' long-running gaslamp fantasy graphic novel, with eight volumes in print as of May 2009, and new pages coming out three days a week on http://www.girlgenius.net. It tells of the journey of a young woman who discovers she not only has great hidden talents for Mad Science, but is the heir to both a heroic legacy... and an evil which nearly destroyed a world which runs on steam, aesthetics and fabulous improbabilities.

The series started as a quarterly "dead-tree" print comic, with extras like paper cutout novelties on the inside covers. In 2005, the Foglios decided to take what many saw as a risk and change to a webcomic format, updating three times a week, with trade paperback reprints of collected material published about once a year. Girl Genius 101 started reprinting the material in the print comics from page 1; the Girl Genius Advanced Class contained brand-new material posted simultaneously with the older pages.

The experiment was wildly successful; their official fan group on Yahoo! had message numbers climb exponentially for the three months after the launch. Sales became quite healthy, allowing them to create and sell proprietary items such as winged trilobite pins as well as the books and the remaining copies of the original comic issues.

Girl Genius, Volume VIII: Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones has been nominated for the inaugural "Best Graphic Story" Hugo Award; winners will be announced during AnticipationSF, August 6-10, 2009.