Brian K. Vaughan

I remember when I was a kid and I would go to the comic-book store, I would have no idea what was going on in that month's issues. Sometimes I wouldn't even know what comics were coming out until I walked into the store.

I've always seen 'Y' as an unconventional romance between a boy and his protector. It was always about the last boy on Earth becoming the last man on Earth, and the women who made that possible.

After 9/11, I knew I wanted to write about power and identity and the way Americans on all sides of the political spectrum often mythologize our leaders, which are themes that the superhero genre has always handled really well.

As much as I'm enjoying stuff out here in Hollywood, I will always think of myself as a comic-book writer who does film and television, not a film and TV writer who occasionally does comics.

It's interesting - I think superheroes get much more unfair derision. There are so many good superhero books being done. Science fiction is almost more reputable, I guess, at least a step up from poor superheroes.

I'm totally open to it being a movie or a television series or whatever, but truthfully, if no one wants to do it right, I'm also happy for 'Ex Machina' to only ever exist as a comic book.

I am a big theater fan. It's mostly just being pretentious, I think, and trying to look smart.

I guess my journey with comics began with stuff like Spider-Man and Batman. I started off with mainstream superhero stuff, which I've never abandoned.

I love other movies that have been made since, but I think more than any comic book movie, 'Superman' just totally seemed to capture superheroes in ways that others have not.

I love doing research. I'm a film-school geek.

I don't think anything connects with an audience as deeply as a long-form serialized drama, and much as I love television, I've always found a good ongoing comics series to be much more immersive.

Fantasy/science-fiction stories have been around almost as long as each genre, but every hybrid now lives in the shadow of 'Star Wars.'