The Escapists

[Eventine]

I read The Escapists by Brian K. Vaughan last night - I really enjoyed this one. Sharing a setting with Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The Escpists tells the story of a young man buying the rights to an out of print comic character (The Escapist, developed by Kavalier and Clay) and trying to write further adventures. Yes, a fictional character writing stories of a fictional super hero developed by fictional characters. Meta-fiction gone mad, but very effective.

There's some brilliant scene featuring the art from the comic the characters are writing (meta-meta-meta fiction?) with dialog overlays from the creators that were real stand outs for me. The humour in the book is also a high light.

I'd definitely recommend it for anyone who enjoyed Kavalier and Clay, but think it probably stands on its own as a separate entity.

Has anyone else read it?
What about the "Michael Chabon presents..." Escapist stories?

[kater]

I read it a while back and quite enjoyed it. I'll confess it's not really my cup of tea but the writing was smart and the links with the previous work made me interested in what came before. Some of the scenes were fun and the costume staging while they were looking to fight crime was a good set-up on how daft spandex superheroes would look in real life.