The New York Times

  • FANS tend to be in obsessive awe of Brian K. Vaughan, the 31-year-old co-producer of the ABC show “Lost” and the writer of the popular comic book “Y: The Last Man,” created with the artist Pia Guerra.

    So what happened the other night when around 100 collaborators, friends and comic junkies came to Meltdown Comics, a shop on West Sunset Boulevard, to toast the recently published 60th and final issue of “Y”? A lot of hero-worship for a reluctant hero.

    “It’s Brian’s night, and I’m geeking out,” said Joss Whedon, 43, the creator of the television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

    Even though the comic-book series is over, “I’ll still be stalking Brian,” said Nick Igoe, 23, a fan who had traveled from Minneapolis and wore a “Y” sweatshirt embroidered by his grandmother.

    Also on hand was Jeff Garlin, 45, the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star, looking relatively trim in a sweatshirt and jeans, and holding a bagful of just-purchased comics. “I have a mad crush on ‘Y: The Last Man,’ ” he said.

    Baby-faced, bald and clad in a black suit, a black shirt, black dress shoes and red socks, Mr. Vaughan was cowed by the attention. “I’m totally mortified,” he said. “ ‘Y’ is just the product of five years alone in a room.”

    “Y: The Last Man” is the saga of Yorick Brown, a commitment-phobic escape artist who is the lone survivor of a plague that wipes out the male population of Earth; he and a Capuchin monkey named Ampersand travel a world inhabited entirely by women.

    A stand-in for Ampersand, named Zuni, was posing for photographs beside a beverage cooler in the shape of R2-D2.

    “I jokingly told the store I would do this event if they had a live monkey,” said Mr. Vaughan, who slipped Zuni’s trainer a $5 tip.

    Ms. Guerra, 36, was particularly enchanted by the animal. “I’ve never seen a live monkey before,” she said. “I cheated and based Ampersand on my cat.”

    Damon Lindelof, 34, a creator and the executive producer of “Lost,” explained why he offered Mr. Vaughan a job on “Lost.”

    “Brian spends at least 93 percent of his life apologizing,” Mr. Lindelof said. “He has an idea brain. And he hates himself like we do.”

    During a question-and-answer session, Mr. Vaughan apologized to the crowd for making everybody come out on a Friday night. He explained that the writers’ strike had put the movie adaptation of “Y” in “sort of a Han Solo cryogenic freeze.”

    When Mr. Whedon told the audience that he had wiped away tears as he read the last issue of “Y,” Mr. Vaughan’s face turned the color of his socks. “He’s the whole reason I became a writer,” Mr. Vaughan said later.

    After the Meltdown party, Mr. Vaughan and company headed to Ye Coach and Horses, a nearby British-theme bar. Mr. Vaughan said the end of the series was finally hitting him.

    “It’s been like the five stages of dealing with death,” he said. “Tonight was really the acceptance, and I’m at peace with that. It’s actually a nice feeling. And now, I need a drink.”