Can't escape the Escapist!

Okay, cats and kittens. The next object of my literary fascination shall be Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and its peripheral material. Here's why:

Since the 1930s, one comic book hero has thrilled kids and adults the world over with tales of his exploits, adventures and misadventures. The brainchild of two creatively-frustrated Jewish editorial cartoonists from New York, this hero expresses their dreams of greatness as well as ultimately helping them achieve them. He is not a bird, he is not a plane, and the two guys aren't Siegel and Shuster. This hero is Tom Mayflower... The Escapist!

The Escapist, as drawn by Mike Mignola

In 2004, all-star teams of comic artists and writers came together to honour this character and his legacy, producing (eventually) eight extra-fat-sized comics for Dark Horse, under the banner of The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist. Why was its release so undersung? Why have people not heard of the Escapist in the same breath as Superman and The Spirit? Because neither the character nor his creators ever existed! This was the first time the Escapist was ever featured in a comic book.

His first appearance was as a comic-within-the-novel in Michael Chabon's aforementioned The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (about the creators, Joe Cavalier and Sam Clay, rather than the character himself), and the comic was merely a tie-in. The best part is that the Dark Horse comics stick steadfastly to the conceit that the character's long, fabricated career actually happened. From the introduction to the first issue, by Chabon himself:

"I still remember the first Escapist comic
I ever came across. It appears to have been one
of the later Fab Comics issues, from 1968, though
I did not discover it until four or five years later,
at the bottom of a box of old comics passed along
to me by my cousin Arthur when he went off to
college. It contained a story in which the Escapist
fell prey to a villain named the Junkman, who
employed an "atom spike" to administer a dose
of "superjunk" that first plunged the Escapist
into a deep coma, and then subjected him to an
endless string of unbearable nightmares. All I
can really remember about the story - but I
have never forgotten it - is a single, stunning
panel (possibly drawn by Neal Adams). It
depicted the Escapist, in his simple blue costume,
in the disturbing, inspiring and surrealistic act
of escaping from his own head."

Sounds pretty convincing, right? The kind of introductions you get in collections of classic material or modern reinventions, blah blah had all the original issues, blah blah mum threw them away. But it's all made up! The panel, the comics line, Neal Adams' involvement! All lies! Here, Michael Chabon has invoked a name from the era, as well as using a highly plausible plotline for a comic of the time. The description of the psychedelic dreamscape invokes images of Steve Ditko or Jack Kirby's more abstract superheroic adventure stories. The whole work is the most utterly fantastic pretense, so much so that despite knowing the central conceit behind the Escapist, I was fooled just by the introduction's absolute self-assurance.

Neal Adams, who never ever drew the Escapist!

Anyway, I'm rambling. Shortly after these eight issues, full of dyed-in-the-wool Escapist stories (while, of course, defining what that meant at the same time), comics wunderkind Brian K Vaughan launched a brand new comic named The Escapists. The plotline? Three young comic professionals (writer, artist and letterer), all die-hard Escapist fans, resurrect the character for a new series. As expectation for the comics begins to mount, a mysterious figure is seen in full Escapist regalia, stopping a crime in progress. This results in intrigue upon intrigue for the three young artists and yet a third dimension of reality for the already-complex mythos of the character.

That's right. A comic about a comic resurrecting a legendary comics figure, in a world based on a novel, whose comics you can purchase in our very own reality. Now that is a properly-established fiction. What's more, a film adaptation of Kavalier and Clay has been in pre-production hell since 2001, which, if the project ever comes to fruition, should lend an extra dimension of mind-mangling to the casual observer. Oustanding.

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'Beat' Nick likes to blog about things before fully experiencing them, to maintain a sense of innocent awe. And because he's flighty.