Vaughan was a writer, story editor and producer of the television series Lost during seasons three through five. He was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for his work on the fourth season.[1] The writing staff was nominated for the award again at the February 2010 ceremony for their work on the fifth season.[2] He was formerly the showrunner and executive producer of the TV series Under the Dome.[3]
Wired describes Vaughan's comics work as "quirky, acclaimed stories that don't pander and still pound pulses". His creator-owned comics work is also characterized by "finite, meticulous, years-long story arcs", on which Vaughan comments, "That's storytelling, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Something like Spider-Man, a book that never has a third act, that seems crazy."[4] In 2007, Erik Malinowski, also of Wired, called Vaughan "the greatest comic book visionary of the last five years", comparing him to Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Paul Pope, and Steve Niles, and praised his addition to the TV series Lost as redeeming that series' third season.[5]
Brian K. Vaughan was born July 17, 1976[6][7] in Cleveland, Ohio, to Geoffrey and Catherine Vaughan. He grew up in Rocky River and Westlake.[8] Vaughan and his older brother are both fans of writer Peter David, and according to Vaughan, their adolescent comics reading was largely defined by a shared love of David's 12-year run on The Incredible Hulk.[9] Vaughan also cites Joss Whedon as the reason he wanted to become a writer,[10] a decision he made while attending St. Ignatius High School, from which he graduated in 1994.[8]
From 2002 to 2008, Vaughan, who came to prefer writing his own characters,[12] wrote the creator-owned monthly series Y: The Last Man, a post-apocalyptic science fiction series about the only man to survive the apparent simultaneous death of every male mammal on Earth. The series was published in sixty issues by Vertigo and collected in a series of ten paperback volumes (and later a series of five hardcover "Deluxe" volumes). The series received Eisner Awards in 2005 and 2008, and numerous other nominations.[13][14] The film rights to the series were acquired by New Line Cinema.[15] Vaughan wrote his own screenplay for the project,[4] though it was reported in March 2012 that Matthew Federman and Stephen Scaia were in final negotiations to write their own version.[16]
In 2006, Vaughan published the graphic novel Pride of Baghdad, which centers on a group of lions who escape from an Iraqi zoo after the start of the Iraq War.[4] The book was praised by IGN,[17] who named it the Best Original Graphic Novel of 2006, calling it a "modern classic", lauding it for combining a tale of survival and family with a powerful analogy of war, and praising Vaughan for representing various viewpoints through the different lion characters.[18]
From 2004 to 2010 Vaughan wrote another creator-owned series, Ex Machina, a political thriller that depicts the life of Mitchell Hundred, a former superhero known as the Great Machine who, in the wake of his heroism during the September 11, 2001 attacks, is elected Mayor of New York City.[19] The story is set during Hundred's term in office, and interwoven with flashbacks to his past as the Great Machine. Through this, the series explores both the political situations Hundred finds himself in, and the mysteries surrounding his superpowers. New Line Cinema purchased the film rights to the series in July 2005, and commissioned Vaughan to write one of the two commissioned scripts,[20] which he was reported to be working on in 2007.[4] Following the conclusion of Ex Machina in 2010, Vaughan reiterated his previous statement that he would concentrate on creator-owned work, saying, "I realized when I turned in this final Ex Machina script that it would be the first time I wasn't under some kind of deadline at Marvel or DC since 1996. That's a huge chunk of my life to spend with those characters. I love them, and I still read Marvel and DC's superhero books. I just think I'm better when I'm working on my own creations. When there are so many talented creators out there who are better at that stuff than me, I should leave those characters to them. I should do what I'm fortunate enough to be in the position to do, which is to create more new stuff."[21]
Vaughan was a writer, executive story editor and producer for seasons 3 to 5 on the ABC TV series Lost, a job he earned on the basis of his work on Y: The Last Man,[4] of which Lost co-creator and executive producer Damon Lindelof was an ardent fan. Lindelof showed that book to series showrunner and executive producer Carlton Cuse. Lindelof relates, "And I told him, 'We need a guy like this on the show, but I don't think he'd ever do it. I don't think he even works in L.A.' And the next thing we knew, he was on the show." He began his stint on the series as executive story editor with the episode "The Man from Tallahassee", which premiered in March 2007. Vaughan continued as story editor on several episodes until he began writing episodes, beginning with the episode "Catch-22", which Vaughan co-wrote with Jeff Pinkner, and premiered in April that year.[8] That episode was praised by Wired writer Erik Malinowski, who stated that the themes that Vaughan carried over to Lost from his comics work, including intricately crafted storylines typified by pathos and hope, as well as pop culture references, redeemed that series' third season.[5]
Vaughan would write a total of 7 episodes, the last of which was the April 2009 episode "Dead Is Dead". He was first credited as a producer with the fourth-season premiere "The Beginning of the End", eventually acting as producer on a total of 29 episodes. He was also a co-producer on Lost: Missing Pieces, a spinoff Internet short film series produced during the hiatus between the show's third and fourth seasons.
In November 2011 Steven Spielberg selected Vaughan to adapt the Stephen King novel Under the Dome into a television series for Showtime, which is Vaughan's first television work since Lost.[22] Vaughan was the showrunner and executive producer of the series.[3] He exited the show before the second season premiered in 2014.[23]
On March 14, 2012, Image Comics published the first issue of Vaughan and Fiona Staples' epic space opera/fantasy series, Saga, which he conceived to be a concept strictly relegated to comics, and not adapted to other media. Although Vaughan was a child[24][25] when he first conceived of the ideas for the book – which owes its inspiration to Star Wars – it was not until his wife became pregnant with his second child that he began to write the series, which harbors parenthood as an underlying theme. The series depicts two aliens from warring races trying to survive with their newborn daughter.[25] The book is Vaughan's first publication for Image Comics,[26] and represents the first time he has employed first-person narration in his comics writing.[24] The first issue sold out of its first printing ahead of its March 14 release date, with a second printing ordered for April 11, the same release date for issue #2.[27] The series has received positive reviews[28] from MTV,[29]Ain't it Cool News,[30]Comic Book Resources,[31] IGN,[32]Publishers Weekly[33] and Time magazine.[3] It has also appeared on the New York Times Graphic Books Best Seller List,[34] won three 2013 Eisner Awards,[35] won a Hugo Award[36] and was nominated for seven Harvey Awards.[37]
In March 2013, Vaughan published the first issue of The Private Eye with artist Marcos Martín on Panel Syndicate, a pay-what-you-want host for their creative efforts.[38] Panel Syndicate offers DRM-free comics available for purchase/download for whatever price readers wish to pay. Through Panel Syndicate, Vaughan and Martin published 10 issues of The Private Eye and released the first issue of Barrier in late 2015.[39]
At the Image Expo in January 2015, it was announced that Vaughan would release two new books through Image Comics in 2015: Paper Girls with Cliff Chiang and Matthew Wilson, and We Stand On Guard with Steve Skroce.[40]
Personal life
Vaughan and his wife, a native of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada[41] and playwright, live in Los Angeles.[12] They have two children[25] and a pet Dachshund named Hamburger that has been repeatedly referenced as Vaughan's aide in selecting letters for the Saga letter column.[42] Hamburger has also appeared in an illustration of Vaughan and Fiona Staples that was included in a 2013 Time magazine story on Saga.[3]
Collected in X-Men: The Complete Age of Apocalypse Volume 1 (tpb, 376 pages, 2006, ISBN 0-7851-1714-8)
Collected in X-Men: The Age of Apocalypse Omnibus Companion (hc, 992 pages, 2014, ISBN 0-7851-8514-3)
Cable #43: "Broken Soldiers" (co-written by Vaughan and Todd Dezago, art by Randy Green and Chap Yaep, 1997)
Wolverine vol. 2 #131 (co-written by Vaughan and Todd Dezago, art by Cary Nord, 1998) collected in Wolverine: Blood Wedding (tpb, 320 pages, 2013, ISBN 0-7851-8524-0)
Runaways: The Complete Collection Volume 3 (includes vol. 2 #19–24, tpb, 528 pages, 2015, ISBN 0-7851-8917-3)
Runaways by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona Omnibus (collects vol. 1 #1–18, vol. 2 #1–24 and the X-Men/Runaways special, hc, 1,072 pages, 2018, ISBN 1-3029-1218-6)
Superman/Batman #26 (with Tim Sale, two-page sequence among other writers and artists, 2006) collected in Superman/Batman Volume 2 (tpb, 336 pages, 2014, ISBN 1-4012-5079-3)
Swamp Thing by Brian K. Vaughan Volume 2 (collects #10–20 and profile pages from the Secret Files & Origins one-shot, tpb, 264 pages, 2014, ISBN 1-4012-4598-6)
Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist (anthology):
"To Reign in Hell" (with Roger Petersen, in #3, 2004) collected in The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist Volume 2 (tpb, 160 pages, 2004, ISBN 1-59307-172-8)
The Private Eye #1–10 (with Marcos Martín, 2013–2015) collected in print as The Private Eye (hc, 300 pages, Image, 2015, ISBN 1-6321-5572-9)
Barrier #1–5 (with Marcos Martín, 2015–2017) published in print as a 5-issue limited series (Image, May 2018; slipcased edition in March 2019, ISBN 1-5343-1300-1)
The Walking Dead: The Alien (with Marcos Martín, one-shot, 2016) published in print as The Walking Dead: The Alien (hc, 72 pages, Image, 2020, ISBN 1-5343-1659-0)
Spectators (with Niko Henrichon, webcomic published via Substack, 2022–ongoing)
^"2009 Writers Guild Awards Television, Radio, News, Promotional Writing, and Graphic Animation Nominees Announced". Writers Guild of America, West. 2008. Archived from the original on December 12, 2008. Retrieved December 12, 2008.
^"2010 Writers Guild Awards Television, Radio, News, Promotional Writing, and Graphic Animation Nominees Announced". Writers Guild of America, West. 2009. Archived from the original on January 29, 2010. Retrieved April 15, 2010.
^ a b c dWolk, Douglas (August 5, 2013). "Masters of the Universe. The space story Saga is the comic world's big hit". Time. p. 54.
^ a b c d eRogers, Adam (April 24, 2007). "The 2007 Rave Awards: Print: The Storyteller". Wired
^ a bMalinowski, Erik (April 19, 2007). "10 Reasons Why Brian K. Vaughan’s 'Lost' Was the Best Ever". Wired.
^"Brian K. Vaughan." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2013. Biography In Context. Web. August 11, 2013.
^"Brian K. Vaughan." The Writers Directory. Detroit: St. James Press, 2013. Biography In Context. Web. August 11, 2013.
^ a b c d eDawidziak, Mark (January 19, 2009). "'Lost' writer Brian K. Vaughan is a Cleveland native". Cleveland.com.
^Vaughan, Brian K. (w), Staples, Fiona (a). "Chapter Ten" Saga, no. 10, p. 23 (February 2013). Image Comics.
^Heyman, Marshall (February 17, 2008). "The Last Man Exits". The New York Times.
^Reid, Calvin (July 1, 2008). "Brian K. Vaughan In A New York State of Mind". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved July 28, 2017.
^ a bBendis, Brian Michael (July 25, 2006). "BRIAN BENDIS PRESENTS...Marvel scribe Brian Bendis interviews creators in and around the comics industry." Wizard World.
^"2005 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards". Hahn Library Comic Book Awards Almanac. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
^"Eisner Awards Celebrate the 'Magic of Comics'" Archived August 24, 2008, at the Wayback Machine. San Diego Comic-Con. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
^McNary, Dave (July 23, 2007). "Caruso, Ellsworth take on 'Man'; Bender, Spink, Novick, Goyer to produce". Variety. Retrieved July 24, 2007.
^Kit, Borys (March 14, 2012). "New Line Sets Writers for Y: The Last Man". The Hollywood Reporter.
^"Best of 2006: Best Original Graphic Novel". IGN. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
^F., Elisabeth (September 28, 2009). "Brian K. Vaughan Shares His Thoughts on the End of Ex Machina". Things from Another World. Archived from the original on October 3, 2009.
^"New Line Adapting Ex Machina". IGN. July 14, 2005
^Schedeen, Jesse (August 12, 2010). "What's Next for Brian K. Vaughan?". IGN.
^O'Neal, Sean (November 8, 2011). "Brian K. Vaughan to adapt Stephen King's Under The Dome for Showtime ". The A.V. Club.
^Goldberg, Lesley (June 10, 2014). "Under the Dome EP Brian K. Vaughan Exits". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved September 23, 2014.
^ a bUzumeri, David (March 14, 2012). "'Saga': Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples Bring a Stellar Sci-Fi Comic Into the World" Archived March 17, 2012, at the Wayback Machine. ComicsAlliance.
^ a b cKit, Borys (March 14, 2012). "'Lost' Writer Brian K. Vaughan Debuts New Comic With Damon Lindelof and Friends". The Hollywood Reporter.
^"CCI EXCLUSIVE: BKV Builds 'Saga' at Image". Comic Book Resources. July 23, 2011.
^"THE START OF AN EPIC SAGA SELLS OUT: SAGA #1 gets a second printing" Archived March 22, 2012, at the Wayback Machine. Comics Bulletin. March 13, 2012.
^Zalben, Alex (March 5, 2012). "The 'Saga' Of Brian K. Vaughan: How He Went From Runaway Kids To Epic Fantasy" Archived September 16, 2015, at the Wayback Machine. MTV Geek.
^"AICN COMICS REVIEWS: Brian K. Vaughan’s SAGA! FAIREST! UNCANNY X-MEN! AKA! & MORE!!!". Ain't it Cool News. March 14, 2012.
^Kepler, Adam W. (October 26, 2012). "Graphic Books Best Sellers: Fiona Staples Talks About 'Saga'". The New York Times.
^Hennon, Blake (July 20, 2013). "Comic-Con: 'Building Stories,' 'Saga' top Eisners (winners list)". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
^ a b"2013 Hugo Awards". The Hugo Awards. December 22, 2012. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^Melrose, Kevin (July 15, 2013). "'Hawkeye' and 'Saga' lead Harvey Award nominations". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on January 9, 2016. Retrieved July 16, 2013.
^Vaughan, Brian K. "Threepenny Beavers". We Stand on Guard (July 2015), Image Comics. p. 33
^Vaughan, Brian K. (w), Staples, Fiona (a). "Chapter Twenty-Six" Saga, no. 26 (March 2015). Image Comics.
^"2005 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards". www.hahnlibrary.net. Retrieved February 18, 2018.
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^"The 2006 Eisner Awards: 2006 Master Nominations List". San Diego Comic-Con. June 14, 2006. Archived from the original on June 14, 2006. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^"The Harvey Awards". The Harvey Awards. November 5, 2006. Archived from the original on November 5, 2006. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^"2006 Nominees and Winners". THE JOE SHUSTER AWARDS. December 30, 2008. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^"2007 Harvey Award Nominees and Winners". www.hahnlibrary.net. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^"2007 Nominees and Winners". THE JOE SHUSTER AWARDS. December 30, 2008. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^"The 2007 Rave Awards". Wired. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^"The 2008 Eisner Awards: 2008 Eisner Award Winners". San Diego Comic-Con. August 24, 2008. Archived from the original on August 24, 2008. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^"2008 Harvey Award Winners". Comic Book Resources. September 28, 2008. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^"2009 Hugo Award Nominations". The Hugo Awards. March 20, 2009. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^"Winners of the 2009 Harvey Awards". Comic Book Resources. October 11, 2009. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^"Comic-Con: 'Building Stories,' 'Saga' top Eisners (winners list)". Hero Complex - movies, comics, pop culture - Los Angeles Times. July 20, 2013. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^"Saga Wins Big At 2013 Harvey Awards, Plus Complete List Of Winners - Bleeding Cool News And Rumors". Bleeding Cool News And Rumors. September 7, 2013. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^"Winners of the British Fantasy Awards 2013". The British Fantasy Society. November 3, 2013. Archived from the original on February 17, 2022. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^"2014 Hugo Awards". The Hugo Awards. April 18, 2014. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^"2014 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award Winners!". San Diego Comic-Con. July 26, 2014. Archived from the original on February 17, 2022. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^"Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples' 'Saga' leads Harvey Awards". Comic Book Resources. September 7, 2014. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
^"2015 Hugo Awards". The Hugo Awards. March 31, 2015. Retrieved February 19, 2018.