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Comic book writer Brian K. Vaughan deserves every bit of his reputation for writing smart science fiction. His Y: The Last Man, about the last man on Earth, was equal parts sweeping adventure and commentary on gender. Ex Machina took West Wing -style politics and filtered them through the weird adventures of a mediocre superhero-turned-mayor of New York.
Storyboard Podcast:
Episode 77:
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https://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/Storyboard/Storyboard_077.mp3It’s been a couple of years since Vaughan has published new comics, which is why the debut this month of his new series, Saga, is nothing short of awesome.
The book — previewed in the gallery above and distinctly NSFW (especially in the two pages exclusively premiered by Wired) — is pretty darn great. It’s grand sci-fi fantasy, about two aliens who fall in love even though their planets are on opposite sides of a war.
“Despite being Romeo and Juliet, rather than killing themselves at the end of the story they decide to run away and have lots of sex,” Vaughan says. (He’s the guest on this week’s episode of the Storyboard podcast, which you can hear or download above.) “They have a baby, and not everyone in the universe thinks that’s such a good idea.”
The family goes on the run, and you can expect a few classic Vaughan touches: crazy sci-fi, humor, adventure, death, violence, sex and cursing. What’s unusual about this series, co-created with artist Fiona Staples, is that the vast galaxy in which it is set originated as a “paracosm,” an imaginary world Vaughan created for himself as a child.
“I just thought it was a disease of mine, not something I should share with anyone,” he says.
But after having kids — and being told by various friends that it was a terrible time to bring children into the world, and to start a new, creator-owned comic book, Vaughan changed his mind.
Saga is about creation and the act of creating, but because it’s set against a galactic war, Vaughan gets to talk about babies and families while ignoring diaper bags and minivans in favor of naked androids with televisions for heads.
Vaughan also writes for Hollywood — he spent three seasons as a staff writer on Lost, and is still working on a screenplay for Y: The Last Man. (It’s in development hell.)
But Saga is the kind of mad comic book that could never be a movie — the closest approximation would be The Lord of the Rings with spaceships and an R rating for language, sex and violence.
That’s exactly what Vaughan was hoping for when he started the project. “I miss things like Sandman, Cerebus or Preacher, where I felt this was really using the monthly comic format in a way no other medium could,” he says. “I just really like comics.”
If you’re jonesing for Vaughan’s return to TV, he’s working on a series adaptation of Stephen King’s Under the Dome, about a town that is, as promised, trapped under a big transparent dome. And yes, Vaughan has already heard all the Simpsons movie jokes.
Like the books he’s best known for, his latest has an endpoint. It’s further off than the five-year timeline that Y and Ex Machina followed, but it’s there — the narrator, after all, is the baby born in issue No. 1. Vaughan didn’t say if the eventual end of Saga would be as filled with tragedy and heartbreak as his other books. But if the debut issue is any indication, the ride is going to be just as much fun.
The double-size Issue 1 of Saga goes on sale March 14 for $3.[#iframe: https://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/Storyboard/Storyboard_077.mp3?_=1]
