Y: The Last Man

While non-comics readers can't be blamed for regarding comics as an ecosystem so overgrown with the kudzu of soap-operatic superheroes that all other species are choked out, the genre mix on modern shelves in fact compares favorably to the racks of new releases at Blockbuster or Borders. Even so, the only time the medium rises to the attention of readers, much less the general public, is either via superhero stunt (such as the deaths of Superman and Captain America) or the literary pleasures of a particularly meaty graphic novel as recommended by The New York Times, et al.

Meanwhile, the American appetite for episodic storytelling has been greatly whetted by what everyone agrees has been an uncommonly good period for television, with viewers demonstrating real affection for networked narratives doled out one dollop at a time, featuring a diverse cast of characters entangled in their own personal plots. This pleasure in stories by installment is not a phenomenon that other media can key into very successfully — movie serials haven't been seen in half a century, and that no one has tried to replicate Stephen King's success with the serially published The Green Mile suggests traditional publishing pays the idea little mind. Aficionados of great TV shows, however, can tell you how sublime it is to get that weekly fix, or to settle down with a box set and know you have both two dozen stories to look forward to and an overarching story to which those pieces contribute. It's a model for which the comics publishers are finely tuned. So what might a comic with natural appeal to, say, the Lost-loving crowd look like?

Well, exhibit A is Y: The Last Man, which published its 60th and final issue last week — and a strong testimonial to such appeal is that its writer, Brian K. Vaughan, was hired by the Lost writing staff last year. An apocalyptic espionage road-trip romance thriller epic, Y takes its high-concept premise — what if some doofus were actually the last man on earth? — and spins from it a deeply affecting, thoroughly satisfying yarn that counted many non-comics fans among those who eagerly anticipated each volume. We take a look under the hood to see just why Y is such a knockout.