Brian K. Vaughan is the writer and co-creator of the graphic novels Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, Runaways, Pride of Baghdad, The Hood, The Escapists and The Private Eye (a digital comic with artist Marcos Martin at PanelSyndicate.com). His work has been recognized at the Hugo, Eisner, Harvey, Shuster, Eagle and British Fantasy Awards. Saga: Book One (Image Comics, November 25, 2014) is a deluxe hardcover edition of his SF/fantasy series with artist Fiona Staples. Taking a break from his screenwriting career in Hollywood, where he has worked for shows like Lost and Stephen King's Under the Dome, Vaughan is now exploring the world with his family.
On your nightstand now:
Truth Is Fragmentary by Gabrielle Bell, 10:04 by Ben Lerner and Perfidia by James Ellroy.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card taught me so much about questioning authority. It also made me more tolerant of those I'd sometimes been taught to fear and hate through my religious education, which makes Card's disappointing homophobic views all the more baffling to me. Still, I think that the author is the parent and the work is the child--an autonomous creation that often evolves far beyond its creator's original intent--so no book should be punished for "sins of the father."
Your top five authors:
An impossible question, but for today, I'll answer with Joseph Heller, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, Richard Price and Nicholson Baker.
Book you've faked reading:
Working at Baskin-Robbins as a teenager one summer, I spent every break trying to read Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in a misguided attempt to impress a coworker, but mostly, I just wanted to be escaping into a juicy Michael Crichton novel.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Recently, I've been telling everyone to read the exceptional Redeployment by Phil Klay, which contains one of my all-time favorite short stories [and won the National Book Award in fiction last week].
Book you've bought for the cover:
Mall by Eric Bogosian. Great title, and I loved the audacious image of the handgun aimed directly at the reader. I'm glad I picked it up, because it's an outstanding novel, as are Bogosian's Wasted Beauty and especially Perforated Heart.
Book that changed your life:
Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. I read it in one sitting when I was 12 and immediately realized how I wanted to spend the rest of my life.
Favorite line from a book:
I could pick just about any line from Stephen King's novella The Body; I'll go with: "But it was the first time I had ever really used the place I knew and the things I felt in a piece of fiction, and there was a kind of dreadful exhilaration in seeing things that had troubled me for years come out in a new form, a form over which I had imposed control."
Which character you most relate to:
Scout from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Definitely The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon.