One of the coolest cult comics of recent years may have hit a brick wall in reaching the big screen.

Y: The Last Man tells the tale of Yorick Brown, a 20-something escape artist who wakes to find he’s the last man on Earth after a disaster wipes out every Y chromosome on the planet. With his pet monkey (the only other male) for company, Yorick embarks on a quest to find his girlfriend, lost in a world of women...

Which sounds like a pitch every Hollywood producer on Earth would be more than a little keen to put on the big screen – “A world full of women, you say? Get Angelina on the phone! And Biel! And Gyllenhaal!” – but, according to its creator, Brian K Vaughn, things aren’t quite so easy...

“It's in development heck. I finished the screenplay a few months ago. Everybody at New Line seemed to like it. For Hollywood, it's either really fast or it's really slow, and it's really slow right now. I've done my job and it's out to directors now and it could be totally out of my control after this,” he said.

We hope it kicks into gear soon - it’s been a while since the last decent indie comic-book flick, and we reckon Y has the potential to follow in the footsteps of a Ghost World or American Splendor with ease.