Entering Comic Book World of Cleveland Native Brian K. Vaughan

Every art form seems to have its equivalent to the Oscars.  In the comic book world it's the Eisner Award. Cleveland native and St. Ignatius grad, Brian K. Vaughan, recently took home the Eisner for "Best Writer" and "Best Continuing Series" for his popular, graphic novel,  Saga, which is for mature audiences.

Saga could be described as an outer-space Romeo and Juliet, if the star-crossed lovers survived and had a child.  However while Vaughan admits paying homage to the Bard, he found greater inspiration in the tragedies and comedies of Star Wars.

"I'd be lying if I said that Shakespeare was more important than someone like George Lucas on the inspiration of this story," Vaughan said. 

Despite being set on distant planets, the story of Saga is about a family: star-crossed lovers Alana and Marko and their daughter Hazel.  Saga first appeared in comic book stores in 2012, not long after the birth of Vaughan's first child.  Becoming a father inspired him to mine the mundane dilemmas faced by a young family but set the story in the context of an outerspace epic.

"There's simply nothing more boring than having to listen to a new parent talk about their child.  So I thought if I could Trojan Horse those feelings inside of an epic, space opera it might be slightly more tolerable to people," Vaughan said.

Meanwhile, along with winning "Best Continuing Series" for Saga (with artist Fiona Staples), Vaughan took home the "Best Writer" award for Saga and Paper Girls, his comic book that debuted in 2015 and set in Cleveland (illustrated by Cliff Chiang). Vaughn now lives in Los Angeles. 

Paper Girls is a time-traveling adventure starring four, 12-year-old girls who deliver "The Cleveland Preserver" newspaper in the wee hours of November 1, 1988.  Setting the story (at least initially) in the 1980's was intentional. 

"I'm nostalgic for bits of the 80's, but there's also a lot of darkness from that time," Vaughan said. "[Like] that at four o'clock in the morning we would send out 11 and 12-year-old boys and girls to deliver news of all the horrors going on in the world is somewhat unthinkable," Vaughan said.

Having now won his 14th Eisner, Vaughan has developed enough of a loyal following that he shares a pay-what-you-can-online comic website, Panel Syndicate, with artist and creative partner Marcos Martin. 

"I thought it would be a disaster.  When Marcos came up with the idea he mentioned that it was something [the musical group] Radiohead did once a long time ago.  I countered with, 'they really haven't done it since so maybe it tanked!" Vaughan said.

However, because they avoid printing and shipping fees, the online comic has made a profit.

"Maybe we can use the internet, not to change the way we make comics, but by using digital as a form of distrubution lets us just put up comics online and reach a global audience the day that it comes out," Vaughan said.

Not only was the first 'Panel Syndicate' online comic The Private Eye a commercial success, it was critically-acclaimed also, winning the Eisner for best digital comic in 2015.

Vaughan is proud to continue the tradition of Clevelanders, like Superman creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Harvey Pekar of American Splendor, and  Marvel Comics' Brian Michael Bendis, who found success in the fantastic world of comic books.