PW Comics Week: You’ve talked about how Y is the story of the last boy becoming the last man. What do you know now that you wish you’d known six years ago, when you started writing it?

Brian K. Vaughan: I like to think I've grown a lot as a writer and as a human being, but... have you ever read “Twilight,” that Alan Moore proposal that he wrote for DC? There’s a very clever bit in there about young John Constantine [the magician from the Hellblazer series] battling with old John Constantine, and young Constantine is taunting his future self. That’s kind of what this series has been like—the ending is largely what I came up with when I was a dopey kid who first pitched the idea to Vertigo. I’ve always wondered: “Shouldn’t I come up with a better ending? Why do I have such allegiance to this younger kid?” But he was the one who was smart enough to get this story off the ground.

This auspicious graphic novel debut by cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki tells the story of "Skim," aka Kimberly Keiko Cameron, a goth girl in an all-girls school in Toronto, circa the early '90s. Skim is an articulate, angsty teenager, the classic outsider yearning for some form of acceptance. She begins a fanciful romance with her English teacher, Ms. Archer, while nursing her best friend through a period of mourning. The particulars of the story may not be its strong suit, though. It's Jillian's artwork that sets it apart from the coming-of-age pack. Jillian has a swooping, gorgeous pen line—expressive, vibrant and precise all at once. Her renderings of Skim and her friends, Skim alone or just the teenage environment in which the story is steeped are evocative and wondrous. Like Craig Thompson's Blankets, the inky art lifts the story into a more poetic, elegiac realm. It complements Mariko's fine ear for dialogue and the incidentals and events of adolescent life. Skim is an unusually strong graphic novel—rich in visuals and observations, and rewarding of repeated readings. (Feb.)

"You do a book for Tokyopop and you get complaints that it's not manga enough," says artist Amy Reeder Hadley. "You do a book for Vertigo and, oh, it's too manga. So you get to the point where you think, 'That must mean I'm just right.' Hadley's versatility may draw some online criticism, but it's a small price to pay. A self-taught artist, she has completed two volumes of the global manga Fool's Gold, and is now taking a break to collaborate with writer Matt Wagner on a new Madame Xanadu series for Vertigo.

• Amulet Vol. 1: Stonekeeper (Graphix)
• Blood Plus Vol. 1 (Dark Horse)
• Batman: False Faces (DC)
• Scalped Vol. 2: Casino Boogie (DC/ Vertigo)
• One Small Voice (IDW Publishing)
• Gunsmith Cats Burst Vol. 3 (Dark Horse)
• Black God Vol. 2 (Yen Press)
• Contraband (Amaze Ink/ Slave Labor Graphics)
• Second Wave Vol. 1 (BOOM! Entertainment)
• Hotwire Comics Vol. 2 (Fantagraphics)
• Jumper: Jumpscars (Oni Press)
• 85 (Simon & Schuster)
• Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic)
• Aqua Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
• Zombie Loan Vol. 2 (Yen Press)
• I Wish Vol. 1 (Tokyopop)

• IGN.com Theater at NYCC
• Exhibit on Race in Comics
• Kennedy Center Spotlights Japan
• PW The Beat: Self Publishing, Lit Crit
• Essex County Wins Alex Award
• Stumptown Comics Festival
• Pulitzer Winners in MAD
• Cartoonists on NPR
• Iron Man Super Bowl Spot
• Brian Wood at Rocketship