You Can't Escape the Escapists
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on March 6, 2007 Sign up now!
by Chris Arrant, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 3/6/2007
In his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon told the story of two early-20th-century comic creators who go from obscurity to celebrity with the creation of the comic book character the Escapist. In some ways mirroring the struggles of the creators of Superman, the creators find that success isn't so easy to keep once you have it. The novel reached out further than to just comic fans, reaching the top of the New York Times bestseller list and a host of awards for the author. Now, the comic medium Chabon sent up in his novel answers back with its own story.
Published by Dark Horse Comics, The Escapists follows in the footsteps of the world Chabon created, bringing in Eisner Award-winning writer Brian K. Vaughn and a host of artists to tell a new story of comic creators and their creation in a modern-day setting. Serialized in 2006 with a collected edition scheduled for this year, The Escapists provides both a modern companion piece to the original novel and a stand-alone tale as well.
This comic story tells of Maxwell Roth, a comic creator today who stumbles upon the pulp comic adventures of the Escapist, which had lain dormant in recent years. Max picks up the mantle that creators Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay left behind, writing his own Escapist stories in an effort to bring the character back into the spotlight and fuel his own fan obsessions. This story follows Max's attempts at getting the comic published and also what happens when the owners of the Escapist character take notice of his unauthorized works.
"I think it's important to note that we haven't really adapted Michael's novel," said Diana Schutz, editor at Dark Horse. "Our license, strictly, was to publish new stories featuring the fictional costumed hero from the novel, the Escapist," she said. "That said, I think Brian's Escapists series came closest to an adaptation, in the sense that Brian took what is at the core of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay—namely, the 'real-world' story of the two titular comics creators—and moved it out of the Golden Age of comics and into a contemporary setting. That way, he was able to pen his own personal love story to this medium as it currently exists, much in the same way Michael Chabon penned his love story to the medium as it was in the 1940s."
"What Brian did with The Escapists is a kind of vest-pocket masterpiece," said Michael Chabon, who called Vaughan "one of the most gifted comic writers of his generation."
Although the lure of writing new adventures in the legacy of the Escapist was tempting for Vaughan when he was first asked, initially he said no. Already working with an overly full plate with three monthly series, and as a staff writer for the television show Lost, he didn't see a way he could fit it in. But he couldn't escape that easy.
"Michael Chabon left me a cryptic phone message telling 'of urgent business on behalf of the League of the Golden Key,'" said Vaughan, referring to the titular character's secret benefactor. "How can you say no to a phone call like that?"
While Vaughn stresses that Roth and his supporting cast aren't autobiographical, he has some identification with them. "I could definitely relate to the satisfaction of creating something you believe in, and the further satisfaction of it being well-received," said Eisner award-winning artist Steve Rolston. "There's also a lot of truth to the theme that most of us who create comics have to take at least one leap of faith during the journey. But it can totally be worth it in the end."
