I got a chance to speak with Brian K. Vaughn recently as he drove from his time walking the Writers Guild of America picket line. So as he negotiated the Los Angeles traffic, he answered some questions about writing, names and the upcoming end to “Y: The Last Man.”
The Comic Book Guy: Why do you write?
Brian K. Vaughn: Why do I write? Well I that’s an interesting question. I guess it’s sort of like a compulsion I guess. Ever since I was a little kid. It’s not a career chose. I guess it’s more like writing chose me. I’ve just always had stories in my head and it’s just sort of a compulsion to get them out. So, I don’ know. Its more of an addiction that it is a job. I sort of feel like I have to do it.
CBG: Another sort of weird question I tend to ask writers, Where do you come up with your names?
BKV: “Where do I come up with names?” That’s a great question. You know, for the big ones, stuff like Yorick in “Y (The Last Man)” I spend a really long time thinking of something that’s going to be memorable. I never like names to be too familiar. In some cases it’s my protagonist. There I’ll look all over the place. In the case of “Y” I wanted a good Y name and I knew he was going to be sort of a writerly type so I started looking to Shakespeare names. But more recently, if I’m just looking for sort of supporting character names, I’ve started going to the letters to the editor from Times or Newsweek cause it’s a really good cross section of average American’s. So I’ll steal a first name from someone in Time and then a last name from someone in Newsweek. So that is my secret. If you just want a really need a good average all-American name I get it from there.
CBG: The Comic Book Guy: That’s a pretty cool idea actually. I’ll have to write that one down. Well, I guess I have it here.
BKV: The other question is what’s your process of writing? Do you have a definite story in mind when you sit down or do you just have the general components?
I usually spend a really long time thinking about a story before I even begin typing so by the time I sit down to put pen to paper I usually have a good idea of the beginning, the middle and the end. And then I’ll usually start writing out some pretty broad guidelines for myself. If I’m writing a comic book I usually start penciling into a page. Y’know, page one through three is going to be the opening scene, I know roughly this will happen then this will happen in this scene. Then I go straight to the typewriter and get to work. And in comics I usually do all the dialogue firs since dialogus are always the easy part for me. Then I’ll go back and break up those dialogue sections into specific panels. Some you just spit out fully formed, you just sit down at the typewriter. And some are a much longer process. But, you know that’s usually the process. The thinking, the pencil, the typewriter is usually the way it goes.
CBG: What drew you to comics?
BKV: I was always in love with comics ever since I read my first one as a little kid.
I don’t know, I just love the imaginative storytelling. You can do anything, unlimited by special effects. You’re only limited by your imagination. I fell in love with writers like Alan Moore who really understood the medium and that it was different from books and movies which I also loved. But I liked the idea of taking a medium that sort of had this cult following and really learn to perfect writing for this really small medium.
CBG: What was that first comic, do you remember?
BKV: Probably a Spider-Man book would have been my first. One day when I was home sick from school my parents bought home a Spidey book. So I think early Marvel Comics, superhero stuff was my early exposure to comics.
CBG: So when did you start discovering the more niche markets?
BKV: It was probably in high school I started to get into (DC Comics)Vertigo (Label). You know, Neil Gaiman, Peter Milligan and then, like I said, Alan Moore was my first love. Then I think by the time I got to college I started experimenting … Heh, sounds like I’m talking about drugs. But I started experimenting with “Optic Nerve,” “8-Ball” and “Love and Rockets.”
You know, I’m not one of those guys that fell away from comics and came back. I’ve always loved comics. And I’ve never abandoned superhero comics I’ve always loved them. But I do think my tastes diversified starting in high school probably.
CBG: Who else do you read?
BKV: These days I read everyone. DC sends me everything they publish and I read that stuff but Chris Ware is a big passion of mine. I really love Chris Ware’s stuff, ‘Optic Nerve,’ like I said. But I love mainstream guys too, Warren Ellis (I read everything he writes), Joss Whedon, Garth Ennis is someone I’ really excited about . I read everything.
CBG: Now, what was behind the decision to end Y? I know I read that you’d always envisioned it as a finite story.
BKV: Yeah. From the ve
ry first issue I always knew it was going to be a 5-year-run, it was about the last boy on earth becoming the last man on earth and I sort of knew what that story was going to be and what becoming a man was going to be for Yorick.
But yeah, I really like stories that have a beginning, middle and end. I was really influenced by Watchmen and Sandman and Preacher. Much as I love ongoing series I really like watching a story come to its proper conclusion.
CBG: One more name question I just remembered right now. Why Ampersand (for the name of Yorick’s monkey)?
BKV: Why Ampersand? Hmm … I’m trying to remember the origin of that. I mean, I knew that Yorick was going to be an English major geek and I knew that I wanted to give him a monkey and I’m sort of a punctuation nerd. I love obscure punctuation names and I guess because a monkey’s tail looks like an ampersand when it curls up. It just, I don’t know, it felt right I guess.
CBG: I wanted to ask you about, um, you’re going back to (ex) Machina soon. Do you have any definite plans beyond the ongoing stuff.
BKV: Yeah, issue No. 50 is going to be the last issue for Ex Machina. The whole series willcover, roughly in real time, the first four years of Mitchell’s time in office, maybe his last term in office. 50 is the planned ending for that one.
CBG: And Pride (of Bagdad) was really different from almost anything I’d been reading just because of the fact that you had talking animals which was a little off from most comics but it definitely was a good solid story to tell.
Where did that inspiration come from?
BKV: I guess at the time there were things I really wanted to do. I really wanted to a talking animal comic just because is felt like a challenge to do something different. And I loved books like The Secret of Nihm. And comics have done talking animal comics so well. Whether it’s “Scrooge McDuck” of “Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles” or “Mouse” comics have always done talking animals well. So I wanted to do a talking animals book but I also wanted to do a book about Iraq. This was 2003 and sort of the beginnings of the Iraq War and I knew I wanted to write about that. And I heard this true story about four lions that escaped the Bagdad Zoo and it suddenly felt like both ideas could combine into one really interesting concept.
CBG: And what was the inspiration behind Y?
BKV: “Y” was really wanting to do a book about gender. It felt like comics had never really talked about gender in sort of a sophisticated way.
Whenever they talked gender it was always like, y’know …, “Should Catwoman’s boobs be smaller?” “should she be called the Invisible Woman instead of the Invisible Girl?” I really wanted to talk about gender and it felt like this was sort of a sci-fi hook that would let me talk about gender.
CBG: One of the things about the book is that a lot of women seemingly moved into traditionally masculine roles. I mean the Amazons are sort of a weird sect unto themselves but did you feel this was a direction you were going to go with these characters?
BKV: I think the direction that Pia Guerra and I wanted to lean was that maybe these aren’t gender roles, maybe they’re just human roles. And if you sort of remove the idea of gender, that doesn’t mean that there’s going to be an end to war. War isn’t a distinctly male pursuit, there have been plenty of female world leaders that have been just as hawkish as the most war-like male leaders. And you know you have female suicide bombers.
It didn’t feel like violence was something that was masculine. That humans are really complicated andn eliminating the men wouldn’t mean the end of things that were associated with men.
CBG: Oh rats, I had a question and I don’t seem to find it right now. Oh well, on the subject of artists, Who do you like as artists operating out there and is there a reason you gravitate toward any of them as far as storytelling goes?
BKV: Well I mean I’m lucky enough to work with some of he best artists in comics but really different artists.
I think Pia Guerra is one of the most accessable
people in comics in that she’s a really clear storyteller. If you’ve only read the Sunday comics before, you can follow “Y: The Last Man.” And that was really important, cause we wanted to write a comic for people who maybe hadn’t read comics before.
And for “Ex Machina” I knew I really needed the city to be a character because to have these far-out outlandish stories it still had to feel absolutely real. And Tony (Harris), his work is always really grounded in reality.
Niko Henrichon, for “Pride of Bagdad,” it’s almost impossible to find artists that are good at drawing animals. But he was great at it and he could also have the animals feel lifelike and human without it feeling too cartoonish or Disney.
I like them all for totally different reasons, I hope my stories played to their strengths. They’re all great artists.
But there are plenty of people I’d love to work with. Frank Quitely on All-Star Superman right now, I think is amazing and, well, plenty of people.
CBG: You mentioned that you read lots of superhero comics, which do you just have to read as soon as you get them?
BKV: That’s interesting, gosh. Well, I don’t know if you’d count the Punisher as a superhero but I think Garth Ennis’s “Punisher” is one of the best crime books ever written in any medium. “All-Star Superman” is a big one for me. Grant Morrisons “(All-Star) Batman” has been terrific too, Bendis’s “Powers” I think is an awesome book. But those are just the ones of the top of my head.
That pretty much covers what I wanted to ask in general. At this point I usually turn over the floor and ask if there’s anything you have to say.
Well I guess to plug this thing I’ve got coming out, I think in the middle of December. Darkhorse is doing a hardcover collection of this book I did called “The Escapists.” it’s inspired by a Michael Chabon novel called “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” and I did a mini-series that I’m really proud of that I think a lot of people missed it when it first came out. But, Darkhorse just did this beautiful new hardcover collection. It’s got an Alex Ross cover and Michael Chabon wrote an original short story as an introduction for it and it’s got a cover in it by Frank Miller and James Jean and just a lot of incredible people so I’m really proud of it. It’s called “The Escapists” and comes out in the middle of December so I hope people will check it out.
Also, “Pride of Bagdad” is coming out in soft cover really soon so those are the two things that, if people are curious to check out my work, I’d really recommend.
CBG: Cool, well I have one thing I would like to ask you. What would your dream project be? You don’t have to pitch it, you can just put it out and know it will hit shelves. Existing characters or someone that ou wanted to create, if you have a storyline that you wanted to tell what would it be? If you’re willing to tell.
Well I guess that’s the thing. I mean I am working on three things now but I haven’t announced them so I guess I’ll just keep the quiet but I will say that they’re all creator owned. And it’s not that I’m a snob about superhero comics but I’ve been doing Marvel and DC characters for almost eleven years and I’ve gotten to do everyone that I’ve ever wanted.
Spider-Man is probably my favorite character. I love him. I love Batman, love Superman, I’ve been lucky enough to write them all so, I think from here on out it’s just going to be creator owned stuff.
At first it’ll probably be more graphic novels like “Pride of Bagdad” but after a little while I might try to do another ongoing series. Something like “Y: The Last Man.” For now I’d be on the lookout for another creator owned original graphic novel, hopefully next year.
