Welcome to Island, Mr. Vaughn

Tonight, Lost welcomes a new addition to its writing staff, Brian K. Vaughn, who co-wrote "Catch-22." Vaughn, who previously served as "executive story editor" on a number of episodes this season, is best known for his work in another medium - comic books.

The creator of some of the most memorable titles in modern comics, including "Y - The Last Man," Vaughn has more recently created and written one of the more inventive new titles I've read in years, Marvel Comics' "Runaways." The themes and concepts explored in Runaways make clear how perfect Vaughn is to join the Lost writing crew.

Runaways is about a group of Los Angeles-area adolescents who ban together when they learn that their parents are secretly a six-couple cabal of super-villains spanning every comic book cliche imaginable: underworld kingpins, aliens, sorcerors, mad scientists, time travelling thieves and mutants (all of which seem to offer at least a partial theory on what on earth is going on in Lost). In Volume 1 of the title (available at Amazon.com; click the title of this post for an order screen), the Runaways come together, learn the truth about their parents (and themselves), and struggle to bring their parents to justice. Volume 2, which has surpassed the first volume in length, deals mostly with the group's struggles to find their own identities and not have the sins of the fathers (and mothers) visited upon them. Given the eclectic nature of the group and its ensemble cast, and the fixation with parent issues, Runaways is an excellent springboard into Lost for Mr. Vaughn.

(Incidentally, Vaughn finally ceded the writing duties on Runaways this month to an even more established kingpin of pop culture, Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly, and the writer on Marvel's latest mutant title, Astonishing X-Men).

This marks a welcome new trend, as comic writers and tv writers start to bleed across genres. In addition to Vaughn and Whedon, comics uber-scribe Geoff Loeb is one of the head writers on NBC's Heroes. Legendary comic writer and artist Frank Miller has had several of his books adapted into movies (most recently 300). And it seems every other blockbuster released by the studios began on newsprint in the 60s-80s (Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Batman, Superman, Men in Black, etc.)

Fanboys, unite! The imagination that has inhabited the world of comics for years has finally begun to reach a broader audience, as new effects technology and an emphasis on serialized episodic drama (perfected in comics) has made these creative minds hot commodities.