Y the last man

Where were you when every man in the world died? Well, if you're like me, probably dead. As for you ladies out there, you were left with a world that was missing 40% of it's population, where almost all of the worlds governments have passed on. With roughly three billion dead bodies laying all over the place, children and unborn babies included. That's a hell of a mess to clean up, now's your chance ladies!

Y the last man is the comic book/ graphic novel of a world where this happens, through the eyes of a man, possibly the last man no less. Every guy instantly thinks that would be the ultimate way to pick up girls but it's not that simple. Naturally there are those crazy super feminists who view the world as having been freed from the men's dictatorship, and they don't want him alive, and then there are the masses of women who want to make sexytime with this poor fellow at all costs. It's a rough life.

Written with astounding whit by Brian K Vaughan, this story tackles the world's gender related issues head on and sparingly takes shots at both the folly of man and woman. Let's face it, both sexes have their hangups and this book does a great job of dealing with them. The writing style itself is brilliantly natural and almost feels like you are just watching a great HBO series. It occasionally suffers from being a little overwritten, in the respect of how everyone is always talking about some form of gender related message whenever it shows a flashback to the pre-manpocolypse, but it's not a severe fault.

The art is brilliant and really makes it all flow. It's very real looking and the characters facial expressions really 'act' brilliantly. For me, a good test for art is to have a character say one thing but their face to show that they don't agree with it. It's never overdone and always wonderful.

I've always been a huge fan of those "really likable characters from different lifestyles come together and go on a quest" stories and this sorta fits the bill. This actually is very similar to Stephen King's The Stand for atmosphere, but different enough to make it a must read.

If you ever wanted to try the comic book medium on, try Y the last man. It is captivating from beginning to end and unpredictable in all the right ways. Also, thanks to it's smooth dialogue and compelling subject matter, I would call this the most accessible comic I've read to this day.

(As an afterthought though, I think all ugly women died too... cause I didn't see them anywhere.)