Michael Chabon's The Escapists
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Inspired by the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, this story of three aspiring comics creators with big dreams, small cash, and publishing rights to one forgotten Golden Age hero--The Escapist--is Brian K. Vaughan's love letter to his chosen medium. The lives of these creators Max, Denny, and Case--latter day versions of Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay--are brilliantly woven together with the world of their creations.
Discovering his late father's decades-spanning vault of Escapist memorabilia at the age of six, Max became a fan of the Master of Elusion almost overnight. After exhausting the extensive stash of Golden and Silver Age comics, he needed more--and started writing his own Escapist stories. Now nineteen, he's determined to make the character a sensation once again. Together with his friend Denny Jones, and their newfound artist Case Weaver, Max relaunches The Escapist comics. Through a couple risky publicity stunts--including one that makes national news--the creators risk criminal charges to get the word out about their publication. Will it be enough to make the book a success? Or just enough to get them in jail?
Interwoven with Max's struggles are the comic-within-a-comic stories of The Escapist himself, his ally Luna Moth, good old-fashioned death traps, betrayal, and a touch of romance.
Mulitiple award-winning author Brian K. Vaughan (Saga, Y--The Last Man, Ex Machina) successfully crafts the perfect partner to Michael Chabon's masterpiece.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Vaughan (Saga) takes a playful metafictional approach to imagining the rebirth of a classic comics hero, set within the world of Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Chabon opens the volume with a prose introduction in which his Sam Clay character, the co-creator of the comics hero the Escapist, meets a young Vaughan at a Cleveland comic con in 1986. The graphic novel portion begins with contemporary teen Maxwell Roth discovering his deceased father's collection of Escapist comics and memorabilia. When his mother also dies, leaving him a large life insurance policy, Max buys the rights to the series so he can relaunch it. He recruits pal Denny Jones as letterer and newly met artist Case Weaver for the rest. Vaughan tells a very human tale of young fans turned creators, as they promote their labor of love while confronting legal troubles and the threat of "selling out." An excellent stable of artists Jason Shawn Alexander, Eduardo Barreto, Philip Bond, and Steve Rolston create the interstitial breaks into new Escapist comics, which flow from the story line of Max's ongoing saga. Max's universe is illustrated with an accessible and colorful feel, while the comic within the comic has a darker and edgier mood. There are even bonus pixelated "Golden Age" pages from the "original" Escapist, contrasting with the updated look developed in the relaunch, and an appendix collecting various covers imagined by the artists including Paul Pope. Great fun for pop-culture fans.
