Y the Last Man movie!

Well it's finally happened, one of my all time favorite alternative comics is coming to the big screen, Y the Last Man. I tried looking it up here, cause I was pretty sure I'd talked about this comic before on the blog, but apparently not... either that or my searching skillz are really weak. Regardless, I'll do a quick recap for those of you just joining us.

Y the Last Man, follows Yorick a twentysomething somewhat direction less guy, who works an illusionist and escape artist. He has a girlfriend named Beth and a pet monkey named Ampersand. Basically he's just a regular guy, ok other than being an escape artist and having a monkey ;) What I mean is that he's regular in that he has problems like the rest of us, he's grappling with being an adult, having a relationship, and all the other regular stuff that affects everyone. One thing everyone who reads this book comes away with is the sense of realism Even in incredible, situations the context both literal and emotional is conveyed extremely realistically.

So anyway, as you might imagine, Yorick is horrified to wake up one day to find disease sweeping the world killing every single male on earth. Maybe even more horrifying though is that for some reason while everyone, I mean EVERYone and EVERYthing on Earth with a Y chromosome is dying all around them, for some reason Yorick and his monkey still survive.

Sooner than you'd think Yorick finds that he is in fact the last man on earth. Society has truly collapsed, and the story really kicks off with Yorick deciding to pick his way through the ashes of this new world and travel around the globe to Australia and try to find his missing girlfriend. Meanwhile, the remnants of a shattered government are trying their damnedest to keep Yorick alive, and desperately find a cure to the plague that destroyed half the population. But there are people after Yorick too, lots of people who want to see him dead, or in the hands of profiteers and foreigners. That is the story of Y the Last Man.

Yorick's story is a really engaging adventure, and the comic, while very adult is totally accessible. When friends of mine who don't read comics express even a slight interest in checking out something comic booky that isn't superheroes in spandex, and is written for an adult audience. The first two books I invariably give them are Y the Last Man and Fables. Well, we're still waiting on an announcement of a Fables movie, but we've finally got some news on Y.

Disturbia director DJ Caruso has signed on to helm the Carl Ellsworth written script. This of course has lead everyone to the rather obvious speculation that rising star Shia LaBeouf will be cast as Yorick, although I suspect it might be a bit early to call that one. That said, I really do like LaBeouf, and think he would make a fantastic Yorick. Who knows, maybe they'll announce something at Comic Con this weekend. For now though I'm happy to hear that this movie is going forward. While in a way I always thought that Y the Last Man might make for a better tv series, preferably on a channel like Showtime, than a movie, with the improbability of a show like Preacher already coming to the small screen I don't think I should be asking for too much. We are being blessed with a deluge of great material in development lately, at least as long as you know where to look. I'm very optimistic that this will work out beautifully. This is a great story and I'm really just excited to be able to share this excellent news.

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