It’s a busy time for writer Brian K Vaughan. Not only is his critically acclaimed post-apocalyptic graphic novel Y: The Last Man wrapping up with issue 60, he’s also got a bunch of new comic book projects in the works, a couple of screenplays, and the fourth season of Lost now airing Stateside. SciFiNow recently caught up with the prolific writer for an update.
Does it feel strange to reach the end of Y after half a decade?
It’s the longest I’ve ever done any one thing, so yes, definitely. It’s five and a half years of writing, but before that, there was maybe a year between the time I pitched the idea to Vertigo to when they finally gave it the green light, so it’s been a big part of my life for nearly seven years.
You’ve also just finished a screenplay for your other ongoing series, Ex Machina?
I just turned that in two weeks ago and that was much more difficult than Y, which translated somewhat more easily. Ex Machina was a real challenge, but fun to write, so I’ve done both of those and I’m just working now on two new things: another adaptation and an original thing, neither of which I can talk about just yet.
Your graphic novel Pride Of Baghdad has just been released in paperback. Were you surprised by the overwhelming critical reaction to that book?
It was really nice, but I played a very small part in it. I lucked into – maybe luck is the wrong word to use – but I found a tragedy that was so clearly resonant about a lot of what was going on in the Iraq war, and found the perfect collaborator to bring it to life, so I felt I was along for the ride, but I knew the story removed a lot of the challenges of talking about war and how it affects civilians. It would have been really difficult to do if I had tried to tell the story through the eyes of Iraqi civilians, but because animals transcend race or creed or nationality, there was an instant connection that I knew readers would be able to make, so I didn’t feel bad about exploiting that.
You recently worked on a Faith mini-series for Dark Horse’s Buffy comic, after Joss Whedon approached you about working on one of the aborted TV movies. Was the series fairly consistent with what you would have done in the movie?
We never got beyond talking about the broadest outline of what it might look like as a movie, and comics are a completely different world. We didn’t have to worry about actors’ availability for supporting cast – so Giles might not have been involved if we had done it as a movie, but I can’t imagine the story without him, he feels so right in the comic – and getting to do things like a big midair fight with flying gargoyles would have been very difficult to do on a direct-to-DVD basis, but in comics, there was no question, so that was one of the joys of the medium. I think as great as it would have been to work with those actors in particular, I think the story probably worked best in comics.
Has the mini-series whetted your appetite for doing more Buffy in the future?
Joss and Dark Horse have been really nice about inviting me back any time. It is supremely tempting, especially with characters that I love that I didn’t get to write during my arc, like Oz who I like a great deal. But with Y ending right now, I feel this obligation to fill that vacuum with something new, and there are so many other Buffy writers, especially with the strike causing them to have plenty of time on their hands, that are much more deserving. So for now, it’s best to let them step up to the plate, but never say never.
Let’s talk about Lost. Looking at the dramatic structure of Y, you seemed very well suited to work on the series.
That’s flattering and I hope they recognised that my brain sort of works in the same way, that structurally, I’m very comfortable in this environment and I have the kind of ideas that would work, but I didn’t just want to come in and be a guy who is comfortable there and could occasionally throw out ideas. I really wanted to contribute as a writer. When it comes to just writing a flashback, there is a huge difference between writing for actors and writing for something that’s going to be filmed, and writing something for comics. That transition has been hard, and it’s something I had to learn on my feet, but it’s been fun. I came aboard in the middle of ‘The Man From Tallahassee,’ which was about the midway point of the season, and that was the one where Locke gets thrown out of a window and we find out how he ended up in his wheelchair. That was the first episode I came in for and I’ve been there ever since.
Are there any characters that you feel a particular empathy for?
Almost all of us have a really hard time writing Jack. He is really difficult to write and really belongs to Damon, who owns that character. I love watching him and hate writing him, because he’s so difficult to write. Every writer enjoys writing Hurley, who very much writes himself. I guess I like writing the bad guys, Ben in particular, so any time I get to write Ben, I’m happy.
Do the writers know everything they need to know about the series or do Damon and Carlton still keep a few secrets to themselves?
Unless they’re playing their cards very close to their vest, we know as much as they know, and they know a great deal. Definitely coming into the show as a fan, I was like, “I wonder if they’re just making it up as they go along!” but I found out that like Y, they definitely know exactly how the show ends, they know all of the secrets of the island, and they know where we’re going. I think with television, you have to be much more fluid as you’re going along, because you never know what production realities are going to come up and how you’re going to have to make adjustments as you go. We definitely continue to make adjustments, but as far as knowing exactly what the island is and what the secrets of the show are, they have been very generous about revealing them to the writers. We wouldn’t be able to write the show if we didn’t know.
When will we be seeing your first episode of season four?
Drew Goddard and I co-wrote the second episode, and I was fortunate enough to work with Liz Sarnoff on what looks like it might be our season finale, which is episode eight, so I sort of got to bookend the season. I’m really happy with everything we’ve done so far this season, but I don’t think I’m allowed to talk about them. I wish I could, but I’d better err on the side of caution just in case they’ll fire me for saying anything!
Imagine Publishing Ltd, Richmond House, 33 Richmond Hill, Bournemouth, Dorset, BH2 6EZ
Registered company 5374037 (England) : VAT No 864 6042 18
Directors: Damian Butt, Steven Boyd, Mark Kendrick, Harry Dhand, Andrew Hartley, Sam Watkinson
