Baby Got Books

This post is actually doing the work of what should have been four posts. I procrastinated so long, that I had read the first four volumes of the Y: The Last Man graphic novel series before I had posted on the first. The series is written by Brian K. Vaughn, Pia Guerra, et al. The first four volumes include: Vol 1: Unmanned, Vol. 2: Cycles, Vol. 3: One Small Step, and Vol. 4: Safeword.

I first heard of this series after reading a post by Jessa Crispin over at Bookslut. I can’t find the link, so I have no idea what she said about it. Time went by. Then I started to notice that Boing Boing drooled all over the most recent volume. (Here is their take on Vol 1). Then I heard a review of the latest installment on NPR by David Lipsky - on the same day that Nitro had posted on his book, Absolutely American. Maybe you can let that kind of coincidence go by, but I can’t. So I hustled over to my comics graphic novels purveyor, and bought my first volume, and then my second, and then…

The series tells the story of a mysterious plague that selectively kills every male of every species on earth - “gendercide”, except Yorick and his pet monkey. It is an interesting proposition. The intro to book 2 throws out some statistics that may or may not be true, but are interesting to think about:

In the U.S….more than 95% of all commercial pilots, truck drivers, and ship captains died…as did 92% of all violent felons… Worldwide, 85% of all government representatives are now dead…as are 100% of Catholic priests, Muslim imams, and Orthodox Jewish rabbis…51% of the planets agricultural labor force is still alive…

In the parts that I have read so far, Yorick is traveling across the country with a secret governmental agent and a geneticist. The trio are trying to get to Yorick to a west coast lab to figure out why he is still alive. As the last man, Yorick is an object of national security, since the fate of the planet may lie in his hands. Other governments (Israel has the best surviving military) are on his tail. Many women the group encounters would just as soon see Yorick dead for a variety of reasons, so the group chooses to protect his identity (and his sex) as best they can.

The series is flat out amazing, with subtle nuances and questions about what a single sex planet might be like throughout. For example, what about those men in the space station? What’s going to happen to them when they land? Can they even make it to earth with the lion’s share of Mission Control now dead? You’ll have to make it to Volume 3 to see how that one turns out.

I recommend this series if this is your kind of thing. If you’re merely comix curious, you can check out an excerpt of Volume I in PDF format. Unfortunately, it cuts you off just as things get good. If you have no interest in this stuff, I doubt that you’ve made it this far into this post.
I haven’t always been a comix dork. I didn’t really read them growing up. My interest began after reading Maus as an adult. My interest wained until I read Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. That book alone is responsible for jump-starting my renewed interest in the genre. So I thought it was interesting, and another of those spooky coincidences, when I saw that the Kavalier and Clay character “The Escapist” is being revived by Brian K. Vaughn, author of the Y: The Last Man series. Volume 1 of the new “The Escapists” series is in stores now. I’ll be off being a loser if anyone needs me.