More Rewrites

Nothing real interesting going on today. Just going at that second draft of the non-fiction kiddy book and contemplating a few images that popped up over the weekend thanks to conversations with the Fiance. They are nice images, and I’d really like to stick them in a story somewhere, but I think it’ll be a loooong time before the appropriate story crops up, because right now it’s just a singular image and feeling, with no real connection to what has happened before, or what will crop up after. Assuming I don’t forget entirely, maybe the story will make itself known before 2010 rolls around.

I recently got around to finally picking up the latest trade paperback compilation of Brian Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man. If you ever needed definitive proof that comics are no longer about people in tights busting the hell out of each other, this, my friends, is it. The premise is that a “plague” of some kind simultaneously hits every area on the globe, killing any high order mammal with a “Y” chromosome. In other words, all the men in the world suddenly die at the same time. Except for a geeky escape artist named Yorick, and the monkey he was training. The rest of the story is about Yorick teaming up with some exceptional women to get down to the bottom of why he is the last surviving man on Earth, and it is one HELL of a story. Just the ideas Vaughan throws out and some of the speculation that goes into how the world would survive without men is incredibly unnerving. For example, the only nation with a standing army left is Israel, and that’s only because it was mandatory for the women to enter National Service there. All other nations are more or less completely without defenses. Not that they really need it, because with the death of the men, most of the motivation and drive to wage war sort of evaporates anyhow. Tori Amos sets up an artist’s colony in the UK. Models suddenly find themselves useless and scorned, totally adrift without power they once enjoyed.

Mindboggling stuff. If you ever get really bored and are looking for something with no tights in it, a lot of good characterization, some truly funny moments, and ideas that make you just stop and stare with your mouth open once you seriously consider them, then PICK THIS ONE UP. The series itself still continues as a monthly (Though Vaughan has promised that this one has a definite end) but there are five trade paperback compilations currently available.