Brian K. Vaughan (; born July 17, 1976) is an American writer and producer. He is best known for the comic book series Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, Runaways, Pride of Baghdad, Saga, and Paper Girls.
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 Writers Guild of America Awards 2008 for his work on the fourth season. The writing staff was nominated for the award again at the Writers Guild of America Awards 2009 ceremony for their work on the fifth season. He was formerly the showrunner and executive producer of the television series Under the Dome (2013–
15) and co-wrote the screenplay of the film Dune: Part Three (2026).
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." 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.
For his writing, Vaughan has won 14 Eisner Awards, 15 Harvey Awards, and two Hugo Awards.
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Early life
Brian K. Vaughan was born July 17, 1976 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Geoffrey and Catherine Vaughan. He grew up in Rocky River and Westlake. Before beginning his career in comics, Vaughan worked as an auxiliary police officer, a live-in dog butler, and a psychiatric ward employee.
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. Vaughan also cites Joss Whedon as the reason he wanted to become a writer, a decision he made while attending St. Ignatius High School, from which he graduated in 1994.
Vaughan attended the New York University Tisch School of the Arts to study film. While a student there, Vaughan took part in Marvel Comics's Stan-hattan Project, a class for fledgling comic book writers.
Career
Vaughan's first credit was for Marvel Comics' Tales from the Age of Apocalypse #2 (December 1996). He would eventually write for some of the highest-profile characters at Marvel, including the X-Men, Spider-Man, and Captain America. He would also write Batman and Green Lantern for DC Comics, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight for Dark Horse Comics.
From 2002 to 2008, Vaughan, who came to prefer writing his own characters, 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. The film rights to the series were acquired by New Line Cinema. Vaughan wrote his own screenplay for the project, though it was reported in March 2012 that Matthew Federman and Stephen Scaia were in final negotiations to write their own version.
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. The book was praised by IGN, 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.
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. 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, which he was reported to be working on in 2007. 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."
Personal life
Vaughan and his wife, a native of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and playwright, live in Los Angeles. They have two children and a pet Dachshund named Hamburger that has been repeatedly referenced as Vaughan's aide in selecting letters for the Saga letter column. Hamburger has also appeared in an illustration of Vaughan and Fiona Staples that was included in a 2013 Time magazine story on Saga.