It was cool to read actual Escapist and Luna Moth comics, being a huge fan of Kavalier and Clay . But for me, the comics part of this volume was somewhat underwhelming - art, story, everything, just O.K. The little essays of fake comics history which present this volume as a collection of kind of found Escapist stories doesn't work at all for me. I'm not sure what the point is. It's kind of meta but not in a way that is interesting to me. What would I even classify this as? I have a historical fiction shelf, maybe I should have a fictional history shelf.

Frankly I was disappointed. If all of the comics had been at the level of the first two, I'd have liked this book much more. It's not as if I hated this; I kinda liked it, or I liked parts of it, but on the whole it could have been better. Also, the long histories were not really appreciated. They just made me remember Kavalier and Clay in a worse light. I don't think it's a true light either, because I remember after finishing that book I was all, "I should write to Chabon because I freaking love this book and I want to thank him." Oh well.

To be honest, I read The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist out of a sense of obligation. I read Kavalier and Clay and even though I hated that book, I felt that I needed to give the graphic novel inspired by the story a chance. I didn't mind the parts of K&C that were actually about comics and the Escapist was an interesting idea for a super-hero. This graphic novel is unfortunately not volume one in the Escapist series, this is a faux-non-fiction book about the history of the Escapist and the other characters mentioned in K&C. The entire book pretends that K&C was a legitimate biography of two real life comic book creators and Anapol, Ashkenazy, and Radio Comics were actually real things in our world. That pissed me off a little bit. We get an introduction where Michael Chabon talks about finding his first copy of The Escapist and all of the hard work he put into researching Kavalier's and Clay's lives and the The Escapist's future with other writers. Then we get our first actual comic, The Escapists's origin story. It is fun and the art work is good, but it comes off as indulgent and pretentious. Then, we get the history of The Escapist's creation and development in the world of K&C. After that, it's just random one-shot stories staring different writers and artists versions of The Escapist and Luna Moth. This isn't a graphic novel. It's the equivalent of a "best of" book. Each writer gives The Escapist and Luna Moth a different personality and different motives. This is paired with vastly different art styles, some of which look pretty nice and others are absolutely terrible. I bought this book expecting to read the first chapter in The Escapist story, but instead I got this indulgent, self-righteous meta-book. We get a couple of stories that don't connect in any way or have anything to do with K&C. It's labeled as volume one, giving the indication that this is the start of a series. The only way I see this happening is the way Reader's Digest releases new books in its condensed novels "series." This wasn't about The Escapist, it was about Chabon's ego.

3.5 stars - The Escapist escapes from the pages of Chabon's novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay into a series of fun--but uneven--comic stories. The art is fantastic (especially Chris Ware's front and back cover), even if the stories seem to carry less power than Chabon's original work.

2017 (why this/why now)?: After just finishing Chabon's incredibly fun and thoughtful new novel Moonglow, I was reminded that I dreamily passed these volumes at the bookstores years ago. 2017 is my "clear the decks" year, so I'm clearing this off my mental wish list, while bumping Chabon up several levels on my GoodReads "Most Read Authors" list. Win/win/win...especially when winning involves librarian/superhero Luna Moth.

While I thoroughly enjoyed "The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay" this collection doesn't add much of value to Michael Chabon's novel. Only the final story "the Lady or the Tiger" by Glen David Gold and Gene Colan, replicates the quality or importance of Chabon's original. The Cover design by Chris Ware is great, especially the back where he reproduces the style of an old comic book ad, (which is an inside reference to the fictional publishers of the original Escapist comics). Funny little Easter eggs that riff on Comic Books and their readers. But for $18, a great cover and one great short story are just not worth it.
Check it out from the Library if you LOVED The Escapist- otherwise skip.

It turns out that reading a novel about comic books about the Escapist is much more fun than actually reading comic books about the Escapist.

Not sure if I liked this or not. A collection of comics from over time (or is it just Michael Chabon being a fiction author?) that paint a picture of The Escapist. Some stories were better than others. Overall, it was ok. I have the second volume here, but I'm not sure if I'm going to read it.

After reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay I was wishing to read all of the Escapist Comics, and when I saw there were a few volumes of a graphic novel [of this fictional comic book character] I was very excited. Though these volumes are not just an anthology of the made up comics, but more about the history of the Escapist through the years with different styles etc. It's still good and worth reading, but not quite what I'd hoped for, and almost a little redundant after reading Kavalier and Clay, though it did satisfy some of what I wanted in reading Escapist comics, so it almost gets 4 stars.

I do enjoy a bit of alternate history with actual facts folded into the fiction. This book contains a series of Escapist stories, (and a couple of Luna Moth tales) created by some pretty big names in comics, such as Jim Starlin and Gene Colan, and written in the Golden Age style. It was a mostly enjoyable meander but some of the stories had confusing endings and varied in quality and style. It certainly demonstrated how far story telling has progressed since that early era. I ended up spending an inordinate amount of time on the back cover, which featured "An Empire of Novelty" advertising such items as the midget radio, absentee father, clay lump, bar code and masquerade costumes. Reminiscent of the bizarre ads which appeared in comics when I was a kid.

This book is very cool beecause there are many different versions telling variations of this story. This is a superhero story about a son who inherits the talents of his father. The father is a professional magician who does many extreme stunts and he had passed away. His son took the key to his father's success which is literally a key very ironic I would say. The son now is given the powers of his son with the use of the key. This is no ordinary hero I feel it is a very abstract graphic novel and I think the fact it is very unique is to why people should read i.

Fun book, that gives the history of the fake comic book characters that the characters from  Michael Chabon's book  the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay made up (the Escapist, Luna Moth, etc). It also gives, basically, a history of the comic book and, to illustrate the evolving comic book style, employs multiple talented comic book artist that, I imagine, if you are familiar with comic books are artists of note.

It was OK. The artwork is not bad, but the styles change frequently, which is a little jarring in reading a volume. The origin story of the Escapist is OK. But most of the "adventures" fell a little short of amazing, and I found myself getting bored with the story.