A (Spoiler Free) Guide for New Girl Genius Readers

This page is intended for people who have come across Girl Genius for the first time by reading the new Girl Genius omnibus Agatha Awakens and may be uncertain how to continue following the adventures of Agatha Heterodyne or for anyone who is confused about all the different forms in which Girl Genius has been made available and how they relate to one another.

This guide is referred to as "spoiler free" because no information that refers to plot developments that might "spoil" the story for someone who hasn't read all of it that is available yet will be given on this page. However, be aware that the Girl Genius wiki, by its very nature, abounds with spoilers; so use caution when clicking on links that will take you away from this page. If you are not caught up with the story already, you may find out things you were not meant to know (or at least didn't want to know in advance).

The Comic
The primary form of Girl Genius is an ongoing, epic comic, created by Phil and Kaja Foglio. This guide lists the various ways you can read the whole work, distinguishing between the different print editions and providing "jumping off points" to the web comic, so you can easily continue reading the story on the web from the point at which any of the printed volumes leave off. The "jumping off point" links start with the phrase "Continue reading," to make them easy to distinguish from links to other parts of this wiki or other web sites.

Web
Girl Genius is available to read for free on the Girl Genius web site and is ongoing, with new pages published every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The online version of the story

Be aware that the web version of the comic includes additional material inserted into the main story. This material consists of either single page insertions (such as the comic versions of Phil and Kaja Foglio's Hugo acceptances speechs) and short stories, such as "Revenge of the Weasel Queen." These short stories are usually not part of the main Girl Genius story. They can be best thought of as stories that are told about Agatha Heterodyne within the Girl Genius universe.

Navigation
Navigating the story on the Girl Genius web site is done by means of a single enormous drop down menu, near the bottom of the web page, right under the Start, Back, Next and Today buttons (or the Start and Back buttons only, if you are on the most recent page). You will see a single line of text (representing where the page you are viewing belongs in the story) with a drop down arrow (that looks like a small black triangle) to the right. If you click on the drop down arrow, you will see a scrolling text box containing a list of all of the section titles for the online version of Girl Genius. Exactly what you will see when you view the drop down menu will depend on the device and browser you are using to read Girl Genius, but it will be some kind of control that lets you scroll through a long list.

Once you make a selection from this menu, you must click the "Go" button to the right, to actually go to the selected page. Each entry in the navigation menu is the title of a small section of the web comic, except for the volume titles, which take you to the first page of each volume of the Girl Genius story. The titles of the various volumes are listed in this menu in the following format: ---First Page of Volume ELEVEN--- Each title refers to a page or sequence of pages in the comic. The title is intended to be (more or less) descriptive of the story contained on that page or in that sequence of pages. The exceptions to this are menu entries for volumes titles (as already mentioned) and entries for extras, which are either side stories or single pages containing Girl Genius related images, such as ads featuring Girl Genius characters, comic versions of the Foglios' Hugo acceptance speeches, or photographs of the Hugo Awards themselves.

As you navigate the web comic using the Next and Back buttons, the text in the navigation menu will always reflect the section of the comic you are viewing. As long as you are viewing the same section, the text will remain the same, but, as soon as you move from one section of the comic to another, the menu text will change to reflect that.

Kaja Foglio is in charge of maintaining this menu and she often doesn't update it for long periods of time, making navigation of the end of the web comic a tedious matter of going through it one page at a time.

Print
This article will adopt the naming scheme being used by Phil and Kaja Foglio in their online store to distinguish between the various print editions of Girl Genius. The original graphic novels are referred to as studio collections and the new book from Tor is referred to as the color omnibus. The List of Published Volumes provides more detailed (but not necessarily spolier-free) information about the printed editions of Girl Genius.

The Foglios have used specific naming schemes in the titles of the books in the various Girl Genius print edition series to make it easier to keep them straight. Titles in the studio collection series start with "Agatha Heterodyne," titles in the color omnibus series start with "Agatha" (first name only), and the titles of the prose novels (see below) start with "Agatha H."

Studio Collections
The Girl Genius saga is available in print as a series of graphic novels called studio collections published by Airship Entertainment, a company founded by the Foglios for this express purpose. The story in this form is available in a series of paperback and hardcover volumes, currently ten in number, with an eleventh volume due to be published soon. The table below has links to the main articles on each volume in the Studio Collection series in the first column and links to the first page in the web comic that immediately follows the last page of the printed book in the second column, enabling you to pick up the story where the printed volume left off.

The remainder of the Girl Genius story will be brought out in studio collections, as well as the new color omnibus editions, so if you are already a proud owner of some studio collection titles, don't worry; your collection is not obsolete!

Color Omnibus
In February 2012, science fiction and fantasy publisher Tor started publishing color omnibus editions of Girl Genius. Currently, there is only one volume in this series, which collects the story from the first three studio collections. Clicking on the title below will bring you to the main article for the omnibus volume and clicking on "continue reading" will bring you to the first page in the web comic that immediately follows the last page of the printed book the title of which is given in the column to the left, enabling you to pick up the story where the printed volume left off.

The color omnibus is broken up into three sections that correspond to the three studio collections that make it up:


 * Agatha Heterodyne and the Beetleburg Clank
 * Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City
 * Agatha Heterodyne and the Monster Engine

These sections are referred to as chapters in the color omnibus edition. This volume does not have the extra material that is included in the first three studio collections: the short story "Agatha Heterodyne and the Electric Coffin", included in Beetleburg Clank and "Trelawney Thorpe, Spark of the Realm in: The Crown of the Sleeping King" in Airship City.

Click on the title of a short story below to view it on the web.


 * "Agatha Heterodyne and the Electric Coffin"
 * "Trelawney Thorpe, Spark of the Realm in: The Crown of the Sleeping King"

The remainder of the Girl Genius story not covered in the volume above will be published in future color omnibus editions, so you don't need to buy books in the studio collections series to complete your Girl Genius collection. You can read the rest of the story on the web for now and buy the remaining color omnibus editions as they are released.

Black and White Omnibus
This book is obsolete but is included to help people distinguish it from the new color omnibus in situations where such confusion is possible, such as ordering books online. This book is titled Girl Genius Omnibus Edition #1. It does not have the subtitle Agatha Awakens.

In 2006, the Foglios published their own omnibus edition of the first three studio collections. This was printed in black and white and was only available in paperback. This book was also in a smaller format than the color omnibus from Tor (8 by 6 inches, as opposed to 10.3 x 6.7 inches). Now that Tor is printing the color omnibus series, there will be no further volumes in the black and white omnibus series. It is no longer being sold in the Airship Entertainment online store.

Comic Books
Girl Genius was originally published as a series of comic books, which ran for 13 issues. These were reprinted in the first four studio collections. The remaining studio collections reprint the comic pages from the web site. After issue 13 of the comic books was published, the Foglios decided to stop publishing the individual comic books and moved the entire work online. (An initial volume called Girl Genius: the Secret Blueprints was published before issue #1 of the comic books. It contains background information on the world of Girl Genius and is sometimes referred to as issue #0. It has not been made available on the Girl Genius web site, but is is available in PDF form, see below.)

PDF Editions
The studio collections are also available in PDF editions from the online seller Drive Thru Comics. These PDF editions are, for the most part, identical with the print editions of the studio collections, although they may contain the contents of an earlier printing of a book than the current print edition. You can also find Girl Genius: the Secret Blueprints available in PDF form from this seller.

The Prose Novels
Phil and Kaja Foglio are in the process of adapting their graphic story into prose form, rewriting it as a series of novels. One reason for this is that it lets them include a lot of background information that they couldn't fit into the comic version of the story.

Two Girl Genius novels, Agatha H. and the Airship City and Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess, have been published so far. Agatha H. and the Airship City covers about the same material as the first color omnibus but from a slightly different point of view and with some added details. Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess covers the same material as the main story in the studio collections Circus of Dreams, Clockwork Princess, and Golden Trilobite. When the second color omnibus comes out, it will most likely contain the main story pages from these three studio collections.

Girl Genius Radio Theatre
Occasionally, Phil and Kaja Foglio have written "radio plays" involving the characters and settings of Girl Genius. These have been performed by the Foglios and their friends and associates, usually at various conventions the Foglios have attended. Some of these performances have been recorded and are available online.

The "radio plays" are not part of the main Girl Genius story. They can be best thought of as stories that are told about Agatha Heterodyne within the Girl Genius universe.