Brian K. Vaughan said:
Brian K. Vaughan
Site Admin
Joined: 25 Sep 2004
Posts: 2986
Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 12:24 am Post subject: Thoughts on Whedon & Ryan taking over RUNAWAYS
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Whenever I get to hang out with Joss (he says casually), I always end up awkwardly rambling about how I feel like I'm living one of the delusional fantasies of Rupert Pupkin from King of Comedy, and that I actually have the real Joss tied up in my hotel room. Then Joss laughs nervously, and tells me that I've been using my chopsticks backwards all night.
It's horrible.
But to say that the dude was a massive influence on my life wouldn't even begin to cover it. Buffy, Angel and especially Firefly all made me want to be a better writer and a better human being. Joss's shows taught an entire generation of young typists that genre isn't something to be transcended, but to be embraced, that it's more important for dialogue to be true than "realistic," and that it's always better to tell a story that a few of us will cherish than one that everyone will kinda like.
Three or four San Diego cons ago, I sheepishly floated a copy of the first Y: The Last Man collection to Joss with a note telling him how much I dug his work, and he was unbelievably cool enough to write back and say that he was already aware of my stuff from Runaways, which he was compelled to pick up because of Jo Chen's amazing first cover (nice one, Jo!).
At a time when I was pretty sure NO ONE was reading Runaways, Joss would always dash off insanely nice emails to tell me how much he liked a stupid line of Chase's dialogue or whatever. Those little messages were enough to keep my furnaces pumping (eww), and Joss' support behind the scenes doubtlessly played a big part in Marvel's decision to keep the book alive.
From day one, he's been the Runaways' shadowy benefactor, keeping the kids safe from all the evil adults who wanted them dead.
Depressingly, now that he's taking over, I find out that Joss's ideas for the book are all infinitely better than mine. Seriously, he wrote this one sentence in his overview that was so good, I had to wake my wife and tell her that I was going to kill myself. And when I told Ruth the idea, she AGREED THAT I SHOULD.
As for how long Joss is going to stay, I told him the Sacred Order of Runaways Writers has only one rule, that an author is not allowed to leave until he or she has found a bigger, better replacement. So until JK Rowling starts returning his calls, I think we'll be able to get a few issues out of the old boy. (And yes, the book will still be monthly, whiners! Numfar is a demon of speed.)
Oh, and lest we forget Mr. Ryan. Michael and I actually worked together a few years ago on the "Tinker, Tailor, Mutant, Spy" arc of my run on Mystique. The second I saw how sweet his first page looked, I knew that Marvel would take him away from me and only let him work on huge assignments. Sure enough, that's exactly what they did. And now, after Michael's skills have only improved, Marvel finally puts him on one of my books... right after I leave.
No one will ever be able to duplicate what Adrian Alphona accomplished with Runaways, and wisely, Michael doesn't try. He's really making these characters his own, while staying absolutely true to the kids that Adrian gave birth to. Michael sent over one Nico sketch that almost made me cry. Seriously, I can't wait for Bendis to steal him from Joss.
And though Joe Q. was gracious enough to credit me with brokering this deal, most of the credit belongs to editors Mike Marts and Nick Lowe, who were the guys crazy enough to approach Joss with this (I told them they were probably wasting their time even asking him, which is Reason #8756 why I would not make a very good editor).
So yeah, it's not too shabby having the guy I admire so much that I wrote him into an old issue of Runaways as a stupid pop-culture reference... actually WRITING that book. It also makes me think that I'm a lunatic, and that this is all happening in my mind.
Still, Joss is gonna have to gnaw through a lot of rope before he escapes this hotel room.
Flattered and confused,
BKV
