A fantastic addendum to Chabons's phenomenal The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. This small book takes the tales of The Escapist and views them as if he were a genuine part of North American comic-book history. There are multiple comic stories updated from the "lost archives" of Empire Comics and "never-before-seen" strips, all printed as if The Escapist wasn't a character Chabon created for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, but if he were part of a well-studied, factual lore. It's great to read these historical accounts of how the character evolved, the hardships, the "camp" era, the forgotten days and the long-awaited rejuvenation. It's a must-read for people who fell in love with Kavalier & Clay, but I daresay you should avoid it if you didn't read the novel, the magic just won't be there for you.

Michael Chabon has written some really cool stuff. He has also written stuff I couldn’t finish.

He’s definitely a comic book guy. The back of this comic is a parody of the types of advertisements that were in the older comics (which I never bothered to read back in the day but which fascinate me now!). It’s actually outright hilarious! Well, this is certainly a good start!

The first story is an origin story. A rather old-fashioned one where a person is freed from bondage by a mysterious person and given a golden key. They will therefore use its mystic powers to free all others who are in chains.

I gotta be honest, this ‘fake history’ of here’s how the comic book faired in the real world, except the comic book never existed and these inkers and writers never existed either is always a tiresome trope. And believe it or not it’s come up before and is always slog reading. Cause who cares. It doesn’t say anything about your story or tell anything about the characters that so-and-so did such-and-such on a comic that never existed.

Are you now or have you ever been…
Ugh! We finally got past that pointless blathering about the comic’s creators and financial histories (which I’m fascinated by when it’s a true story) and actually got back to comics! Better yet comics drawn by Howard Chakin!

LOL! And it’s not a Chakin comic if it doesn’t include BDSM!

Sequestered is almost a ‘MAD Magazine’ parody of the Escapist being called to Jury duty. A fun little bon mot.

So, some more tales follow. They are in their own way ‘parodies’ of other tales.

Sigh. I’m not really understanding what I’m supposed to get out of these various tales of the ‘Escapist’. If they were ‘real’ then they’d be historically interesting. But since they are not real, they are just imitations of mundane and boring stories that might have been told in past comics.
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”Father? Won’t you =cough= tell me a bedtime story?”
Some fairy tale with magic and the like? Certainly not!

Reckonings was an interesting almost wordless story. About who and why I have no idea, but I still thought it was kinda cool.

All of the guest artists have produced great work for this book but Gene Colon has done some amazing work and his work is generally always amazing!

Well I really didn’t get this book. I assume it was probably related to the book “Kavalier and Clay” which I have not read. Maybe it was pure joy to those who have

But since I hadn’t, it was a weird, parody of old timey comics.

I can’t say it was badly done, but since I picked it up more or less at random it didn’t really resonate with me.

I’ll give it 3 stars as it was really good art. But I don’t have any interest in learning anything more about the Escapist.

Based on Chabon's Pulitzer Winner this "graphic novel" euphemism "comic book" to someone like me that is not well-versed. The artwork was fascinating to me but the story lines were weak and jumpy. At now I know what Chabon had in mind as the output of his Kavalier & Clay team. Worthwhile if you have read the novel.

A nice graphic novel/ comic book compliment to The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. A little distracting in seeing so many manifestations of The Escapist, but great story telling and a way to add the visuals needed to understand the comic book wars.

“The Escapist- dazzling Master of Elusion, foe of tyranny, and champion of liberation! Operating from a secret headquarters under the boards of the Empire Theater, the Escapist and his crack team of associates roam the globe performing amazing feats of magic and coming to the aid of all those who languish in the chains of oppression.”

Having just finished the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2001) novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay written by Michael Chabon, I was intrigued enough by the fictional comic book hero to find this metafiction graphic novel about The Escapist. To continue the charade that Kavalier and Clay were real men this parody recreates the supposed decades-long publishing history of the character, starting in the Golden Age of Comics. This companion book is a homage to the comics of past eras and showcases The Escapist (plus Luna Moth) in many different styles and moves forward chronologically to how comics are typically drawn today. The collection included a manga-type story, a simply drawn gag-style strip that would appeal to children, watercolors for Luna, plus all the Golden, Silver, Bronze and modern-era types of illustrations and storytelling.

Some of my favorites:

The Passing of the Key– origin story as found in the novel. Written by Michael Chabon and illustrated by Eric Wright in a perfect Golden Era vibe.

300 Fathoms Down– an elderly Escapist still has it and shows amazing abilities to withstand water pressure. Written by Mike Baron and drawn by Val Mayerik, a favored artist of mine, who illustrated Of Dust & Blood and The Legion of Monsters.

Old Flame– Luna Moth has a battle of the wits with the Devil himself. Written by Kevin McCarthy with a lovely painterly approach by Dan Brereton.

The Lady or the Tiger– a gritty what-if story about how the Escapist must forgo love to continue fighting crime. Very emo. Written by David Gold and illustrated evocatively by Gene Colan.

Taking on a life of its own, in another book by Chabon, his essay collection Book-Ends, author Brian K Vaughn (famous for Saga) writes a brief story of fictionally meeting an elderly Sam Clay at a comic convention, and how Clay inspired him to become the “comic book genius” he is today. Vaughn takes it further by writing the graphic novel series The Escapists.

But to understand ALL of this, you must first read the original novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay! (I actually liked this anthology better than the novel)

This review can also be found on my blog: https://graphicnovelty2.com/2020/03/2...

The Escapist escapes the pages of Michael Chabon's novel Kavalier & Clay to become the actual comic-strip superhero as described in that book: works fine as a metafictional in-joke, but being too young to be nostalgic about the Golden Age of Comic Books, this elaborate tribute left me feeling rather Meh.

I swear I'm not a Chabon super-fan, but I happened to be passing through the library and these caught my eye while I was in the final stretch of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. This is a fun, definitely hit-or-miss, addition. It captures the kind of crooked path that comis themselves take by virtue of it being unpolished, imbalanced, and hodge-podge. The book's charm rests more on its earnestness than its art or writing.

The Escapist sounded so cool in Kav & Clay. Too bad this kinda sucked. It's certainly clever and well thought out, but would be more interesting if it hard a cohesive storyline.

I think I like the idea of this collection more than the collection itself. It's a clever conceit and some of the stories are fun, but I'm not sure the Escapist stands alone outside of Kavalier and Clay. Props to the various writers and artists here -- I did escape for an hour and enjoyed myself -- but I think this collection has sufficiently mined most of the "escape" twists and puns.

The concept here is interesting: take the characters of The Escapist and Luna Moth from Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and create actual comic book stories featuring them. There are some really great creators here, including Gene Colan, Howard Chaykin, and Kyle Baker. The stories themselves are a mixed bag. They're all at least mildly entertaining. And the art on most of them is great.

If you've read the novel and like the idea of reading actual Escapist and Luna Moth stories, then you'll probably like this. If you haven't read the novel, this might still be a fun collection of oddball stories, but you'd be missing some context.

I read the TBP version of this, and have one complaint about it. It's printed at a much smaller size than a standard comic book, so some of the stories suffer from being printed at that reduced size. If your eyesight is as bad as mine, maybe get the digital version, or look for the original comics.

Esse “As incríveis aventuras do Escapista” é um belo complemento à leitura “As aventuras de Kavalier e Clay”. O Escapista, o personagem de quadrinhos que só existia nas páginas do romance de Chabon, ganha aqui – haja metalinguagem – vida própria, como se fosse um autêntico produto da Era dos Quadrinhos, lá dos anos 1930 e 1940. E mais. Ganha vida ao ter, ainda, uma cronologia fictícia própria, com uma ‘carreira’ que se estendeu pelas décadas seguintes. E alguns artigos sobre a sua história.
Além desses artigos, os quadrinhos são bem interessantes. Alguns são realmente muito boas.
Os meus favoritos: A passagem da chave, escrita pelo próprio Chabon; Os libertadores, com estória e arte de Howard Chaykin (fiquei com vontade de reler American Flagg); Reinar no inferno, de Brian K. Vaughn (o cara não é um superstar dos quadrinhos à toa); A última cortina, escrita por Jason Hall, com arte de Eric Wright, uma provocativa estória sobre eutanásia; e, finalmente, O Escapista e o Spirit, escrita e desenhada pelo próprio Will Eisner, em sua última obra.
Para quem leu e gostou d’O Escapista, essa é uma leitura que vale muito a pena.

Erstaunlich gutes Begleit-Comic zum Buch Die unglaublichen Abenteuer von Kavalier & Clay. Hatte mir erst Mal nur den ersten Band besorgt, um zu schauen, ob das überhaupt was ist.
Ist es. Das Format ist kleiner als man das von aktuellen Comics oder Graphic Novels so kennt. Auch die verschiedenen Zeitalter, die der Charakter über die Jahre in seiner Comic-Welt durchläuft sind sehr vielschichtig. Luna Moth bekommt auch ein-zwei Panels mehr, was ich überraschend fand. Hatte erwartet einen schlichten Sammelband mit männlichen Charaktere zu bekommen. Zwischendurch gibt es immer Informationen zur "ausgewählten" Story.
Ich stecke jetzt nicht so tief in der Comicwelt drinnen, aber soweit ich weiß entstammt hier alles der Fantasie von Michael Chabon und die Kollektion dieser "alten" Comics ist allein sein Kopfkind. Mir gefällt's. Es wäre aber hilfreich, das erwähnte Buch gelesen zu haben.