This week I am going to talk about a graphic novel series: Y: The last Man.
Published by VERTIGO (subsidary of DC) and Written by Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra, the main artist. Y tells the story of Yorick Brown, the last man on earth and his capuchin monkey Ampersand the last male mammal, after a plague wipes the earth of all male life. Its less of a plague and more of a "Every male falls down and dies at once" event. From there Yorick decides he has to find his girlfriend (almost fiancee) Beth.
Anything that has a post-apocalyptic, post-epidemic premise, almost always appeals to me. I like the idea that we as humanity may be posed with a situation that doesn't fit into the constraints of Technology, or society as we know it. It is really only in situations like this that the strength of our humanity will be proven (or most likely disproved).
That being said, the story in Y starts out strong, with a fair amount of struggle, and moral decisions for Yorick (which he usually makes, IMHO, the wrong choice.). Quickly add in two female (obviously) companions, Extreme Feminist groups, and hot girl on girl action (a joke, small one) and the story takes off with a boom.
However, the story progresses over 10 books, and about 3 years and begins to lose focus as well as adding unneeded complexity to the story. I mean, don't get me wrong, complexity is great when you do it well, but Y continues to add complexity just for the sake of complexity.
Still, Y is a worthwhile read. I don't know that I would recommend buying it, but the art is good, the story decent. So, if you have a friend with a copy, grab it, otherwise, check your library.
~K
No comments:
Post a Comment