Brian K. Vaughan

Alright, so we're going to start with arguably the best writer in comics, master of the last page reveal: Brian K. Vaughan. 

Vaughan as he appeared in his creator-owned series Ex Machina,

His first work was in Tales of the Age of Apocalypse #2, and went on to bounce around on most of
Marvel's highest profile characters, including being one of the big name writers who was unable to get Ultimate X-Men to work (such as Mark Millar [we'll get to him] and Robert Kirkman). His biggest Marvel work was creating the Runaways (now filming for Hulu), wherein the children of a group of super-villains known as The Pride rebel against their parents' evil plot, banding together and... running away. He wrote 24 issues of the title before hand-picking Joss Whedon to write the following arc. He had also written a seminal arc for DC/Vertigo's Swamp Thing.

From there he launched several creator-owned books at DC's Vertigo imprint (home of Hellblazer (John Constantine's title), Neil Gaimain's Sandman, and Garth Ennis' Preacher) beginning with the first item on your Pull List, Y: The Last Man, which tells the story of Yorick Brown - an amateur escape artist and quite literally the last male on Earth after the apparent simultaneous death of every male mammal save his helper monkey Ampersand.

Drawn mostly by Pia Guerra, it ran for 60 amazing issues (10 trade paperbacks) and pretty much cemented Vaughan's reputation as one of the industry's premier writers. Y: The Last Man won the 2008 Eisner Award (comics' Oscar equivalent) for Best Continuing Series. A movie version had been stuck in development hell for years (at one point Shia LaBeouf was attached to star), though currently the rights were reverted to Vaughan and Guerra and a television series is in active development at FX with former Supergirl (the comic, not TV series or 80's movie) writer Michael Green (also co-writer on Logan, Alien: Covenant, and Blade Runner 2049) as showrunner.

Young Yorick with his sister Hero.

Yorick's primary motivation is to reconnect with his girlfriend Beth, who had gone on missionary work in Australia prior to the male population's elimination. Yorick's mother serves on the U.S. Congress and dispatches Agent 355 to retrieve her son and rendezvous with Dr. Allison Mann, a geneticist and cloning expert. Yorick convinces them to help him in his quest to find his fiance, as well as protect him.

Dr. Mann and Agent 355

His next creator owned series was published under the WildStorm imprint at DC and is the second series on your Pull List: Ex Machina.

Mitchell Hundred was briefly a superhero known as The Great Machine. Then 9/11 happened, after which Hundred was elected Mayor of New York due to his successful attempt to stop United Airlines Flight 175 from crashing into the South Tower.

This is where Vaughan earned the reputation of his last page reveals.

Drawn by Tony Harris, the series would win the 2005 Eisner Award for Best New Series and has, since 2005, been in various stages of development in Hollywood. It ran for 50 issues (10 trades).

Vaughan also published the graphic novel Pride of Baghdad, illustrated by Niko Henrichon in 2006, a fictionalized account of the true story of four lions that had escaped the Baghdad Zoo after an American bombing. A very moving story, as each one of the four lions offers a differing viewpoint on what the Iraqi War meant (yes, the lions talk).

And then the industry lost (pun!) Vaughan for a time, much to our chagrin, as Vaughan served as a staff writer and producer on the third, fourth, and fifth seasons of ABC's Lost. Vaughan had been trying to crossover for some time and, as the show was still in it's peak, everyone believed his comic days were over. Spielberg tapped him to adapt Under the Dome for Showtime, and he served as showrunner for the first season.

But he couldn't stay away, as in 2012 he along with artist Fiona Staples launched what I consider to be the best comic book ever created: Saga.

By 2008 Kirkman had been made a partner at Image (the only such person who was not one of the original seven - Todd "Spider-Man" McFarlane, Jim "X-Men" Lee, Whilce "Uncanny X-Men" Portacio, Marc "Wolverine" Silvestri, Erik "Amazing Spider-Man" Larsen, Jim "Guardians of the Galaxy" Valentino, and Rob "X-Force" Liefeld, eight if you include X-Men scribe Chris Claremont who was not made a partner).

Soon after his partnership Kirkman released what became known as his "Manifesto", urging creators to self-publish at Image where they would receive a larger profit (read: all of it) by creating their own works instead of working under the corporate structures at Marvel and DC.

The Manifesto

See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFWn54RbDa0
Kirkman and Marvel's Brian Michael Bendis debate at the '08 Baltimore ComiCon. 

Saga was one of the first new wave of Big Name Marvel Creators to self-publish at Image. I'm not going to say anything about it other than these images and that I buy this series for my mother and Cory every Christmas.

A second Image series, Paper Girls, featuring art by Cliff Chiang appeared in 2015. I first was aware of Chiang with DC's New 52 reboot of Wonder Woman (2011).

Power, beauty, and grace.

I instantly fell in love with his art and was ecstatic over his pairing with Vaughan. Chiang is one of my five favorite artists working today. Saga's Fiona Staples is another.

My single favorite Chiang image: Punk Rock DC (L to R: Zatanna, Batgirl, Wonder Woman, and Black Canary)

Oh, yeah. And these too.

I can't even begin to describe Paper Girls other than it revolves around a group of female newspaper deliverers in the '80s. And then science fiction happens.

Recap - Zeus Highly Suggests
- Y: The Last Man (60 issues)
- Ex Machina (50 issues)
- Saga (ongoing)

Honorable Mentions
-Paper Girls (ongoing)
-Pride of Baghdad

And just a last thought, we had talked about how expensive comic book collecting/reading is. I would suggest checking the local library. I was astounded by the selection a rinky-dink library like Cedar Falls had; it was current, it was expertly curated, and it was extensive. You live in Dallas. I can only imagine what you would have to work with. And then, should any of these fire the impulse to own, dig in.