Lead singer Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance had the typical drug and alcohol problems that go hand-in-hand with the rock and roll lifestyle. Rather than go through the tabloid drama of rehab like so many of his peers, Way went cold turkey by creating a comic book.
“When I stopped [using drugs and alcohol], it takes about eight or nine months to normalize,” he said, “and I found myself on this really long summer tour, and I hadn’t normalized, and I had all this energy, and I really missed art, I missed drawing. So I literally just sat with sketchbooks and I started to dream up these really crazy characters.”
The result is Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite, a new miniseries starting this month from Dark Horse Comics. Illustrated by Gabriel Bá, colored by Dave Stewart and with covers by James Jean, the new series follows the adventures of a group of former child superheroes who reunite as adults after the death of their mentor.
When Way was younger, he initially wanted to make comics—he even interned at DC Comics while attending New York’s School of Visual Arts—but en route music got hold of him and led him to My Chemical Romance. In 2004, the band sold over two million copies of its major label debut album, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, and the band has been touring for the past year in support of its 2006 release, The Black Parade.
“I realized that I have a large audience,” Way said, “and you want to let them know where it comes from. ‘You want to know what my influences are? It’s the medium of comic books.’ ”
The Umbrella Academy series is also the highest profile work to date for noted Brazilian artist Bá, who was looking to make his mark on an original project just like this one. “[Dark Horse editor] Scott Allie came to me with this project, [which] strongly underlined the inner conflicts between the characters, their personalities, their struggles, much more than just another superhero book,” said Bá. “And to be able to help create something from the very beginning was also very appealing. I was not gonna draw yet another story of a worn-out superhero, something anyone else could do and have done for decades.” Most important, Bá explained, “the initial sketches they sent—Gerard had made lots of pictures for his pitch and I got really excited to get my hands on those characters.”
Way is quick to note that the art included with his original pitch highlights the similarities and differences between making music and making comics. Way frequently comes up with designs for his band’s costuming and set design, and he explained that “the same type of drawings I would do for Umbrella Academy and hand off to Gabriel or James and say this character looks like this, or this is the kind of world they inhabit, is exactly the same” as drawings he did for the band. But, he said, “Scripting is a little more clinical. On the musical side, I’m not as clinical, I’m more expressive. Because of me, a song will end up being a couple of minutes longer. I want this really intense kind of thing to happen. With a comic, I can’t be like that. I have to rein it in and be more strategic about what I’m doing.”
Dark Horse issued a Free Comic Book Day preview issue of Umbrella Academy and launched the first issue of the new online Dark Horse Presents on MySpace.com with an Umbrella Academy story. And for comics fans skeptical of a superhero comic written by a rock star, Bá admits, “I was a little skeptical myself at first.”
But Bá explained that once the layers of celebrity and the hype around the series are peeled away, there’s “a solid core, a story where you’re going to immediately relate with the characters. This is not about selling books, making toys or licensing property to Hollywood—it’s about the love of comic books and telling a good story to pass this love to others. It worked with me, and I don’t see why it won’t with everyone else.”
