BRIAN K. VAUGHAN
You couldn’t possibly have a Top 10 Comic Writers list without the name Brian K. Vaughan, could you? The revered scribe of Y: The Last Man makes this list, not because he penned CBS’ sleeper hit of the summer in “Under the Dome” (and not because I had the pleasure of “carding” him in front of my restaurant), but because of a mere four letter word: Saga. The second year of Vaughan’s multi-layered, romantic sci-fi yarn arguably went better than the first, most certainly for readers if not for our star-crossed Sonny and Cher.
Vaughan writes so much of his subtle romanticism tongue-in-cheek, more often than not switching gender mentality; if you ever lived in L.A., you’d understand the effect this winged woman has on this horned man, why a child comes off more of a dangerous weapon than mere burden, and so forth. As much fun as these two zany space-shot lovers can be, it’s the interplanetary hunt for these two that keeps the heart racing. Saga also reminds me of Robert Kirkman’s Invincible (perhaps my all-time favorite comic series) in that it’s nearly impossible to not relate to its entire wacky ensemble, and the fact there’s certainly no holding back. BKV’s tilt is just as fucking tragic as it is fuzzy.
Not to be completely outdone, 2013 saw witness to another tasty sci-fi BKV treat, this time in the form of digital-only comic The Private Eye. What if everyone was a watchdog? In this comic set in a 2070’s Los Angeles, Vaughan bashes Facebook in a far more brilliant way than the lot of us who can’t resist spending 5 minutes away from it. He builds a world where the paparazzi refuse to take punches to the face, where privacy is basically a curse word, and where folks dress as if every day were Comic-Con. Crazier? It’s also where there’s no more internet.
Though BKV has been collecting countless admirations from the web for years, I’m sure he wouldn’t have it any other way
– Travis Moody / GHG