Umbrella Academy Series 2

Dark Horse's team returns for 'Dallas'

By Mary Borsellino
October 13, 2008

Taking home the Eisner award for Best Limited Series would be an honor for any six-issue storyline in a comic, but for The Umbrella Academy's 'Apocalypse Suite' it's an especially glittering triumph — not only was 'Apocalypse Suite' The Umbrella Academy's very first series, but the creative team also scored Eisners in the categories of Best Cover Artist (James Jean) and Best Coloring (Dave Stewart). In his acceptance speech for the Best Limited Series award, writer Gerard Way thanked each of the other creators involved in the comic, Gerard's brother — Mikey Way, soon to be the writer of his own comic — and Gerard's wife, punk musician and visual artist Lindsey Ballato.

"Me and my kid brother used to grow up — we used to grow up? Everybody used to grow up!" Gerard said upon accepting the Eisner. "We had comics, and that's the only thing we had to escape the kind of place we lived in. And it made us lift up our heads, make up our own stories. And we got older and we did the same thing and played music — but we always missed comics."

Rather than letting such industry recognition cap off The Umbrella Academy's first year, the book returns for its second series, 'Dallas', beginning in November. Last time around, much of the early buzz around The Umbrella Academy centered on Gerard's other life as the singer of My Chemical Romance. Now that the book has proven capable of existing — and thriving — in its own right, it's easier to see the ways in which Gerard's writing works in conjunction with artist Gabriel Ba's visuals (for series 2, Gabriel takes over cover duty from James Jean, in addition to the book's interiors) and editor Scott Allie's maestro conducting of the whole production.

Dark Horse Presents (DHP), a MySpace showcase of online comics — and winner of the Best Online Comic Eisner for Joss Whedon and Fábio Moon's 'Sugar Shock' — recently included 'Anywhere But Here', a story centered around two Umbrella Academy students and their ill-fated punk band. Punk and comics have a long history together. Does The Umbrella Academy team have any thoughts about why two art forms people might not think to immediately associate with one another have had such strong cross-pollination?

"I think comics are filled with radical ideas, especially those of the old 60s Marvel ones, that Sid Vicious was a fan of," answers Gerard. "They are also a form of escapism, and for people drawn to punk rock, escapism sometimes is key. Mikey and myself, as well as my whole band, come from the kind of backgrounds and the type of towns where you always want to escape. I think Series 2 is definitely more "punk" than Series 1, and it all started with the DHP story ... that kind of set the tone for the vibe of the series."

'Anywhere But Here' includes a character forced to make a choice between remaining a superhero, working to save the world, or remaining in a band with a beloved sibling. Many My Chemical Romance fans see that band as having had a life-saving effect on them — as witnessed by the recent protest gathering of teens in response to allegations by Britain's Daily Mail that the band promoted a pessimistic worldview. Mikey is My Chemical Romance's bassist. Armed with these two pieces of knowledge, the tragedy of 'Anywhere But Here' becomes doubly poignant, requiring the Kraken to choose between two things, which for Gerard were one in the same.

Gerard's dedication in the trade paperback of 'The Apocalypse Suite' was to his wife, "for being my umbrella." Like Gerard's band mates, Lindsey has been seen on multiple occasions sporting The Umbrella Academy t-shirts and has appeared onstage in her role as bassist for the band Mindless Self Indulgence with an umbrella drawn in black marker on her arm. A graduate of Brooklyn's Pratt Institute, examples of her artwork can be found in several currently traveling exhibitions and in the Revolution Unseen art book, which also features Gerard's work.

Gerard has stated in other interviews that Lindsey gave him a fresh perspective on what he could do with the character Seance. Has being married to an artist changed his creative process much?

"It's changed it in very numerous and positive ways, but I think that has more to do with the fact that I am married to the most perfect match I could have ever met," answers Gerard. "I create more now, I'm inspired constantly by my wife. I write more songs, start more comics, just create more in general."

Have there been other times when he's hit roadblocks about how any of his characters could be used?

"I think being the person that created the characters can present unexpected roadblocks because you are so close to them, know so much about them. Sometimes, someone that has a more limited knowledge of them, going on instinct, will have a fresh perspective on a character. I'm really happy with Seance now, and a lot of that has to do with Lindsey. He is particularly awesome in Series 2."

The record put out by the band in 'Anywhere But Here' is entitled 'I don't want to kill the President', a declaration with obvious ties to the promotional images for 'Dallas', which evoke the JFK assassination.

"It's definitely a foreshadowing of what's coming in Series 2, and definitely related to the theme of the series," Gerard agrees. "Scott and I had discussed putting 'Anywhere But Here' before the first issue of the Series 2 collection when it finally comes out; you will see why hopefully at the end of the series."

"Gerard has an amazing knack for titles," Scott says of 'Dallas'. "From the band's name, to the band's records, the individual issues of Series 1. I love his titles. They're lyrical in that their sound is as important as their meaning, and their meaning is widely open to interpretation. When he told me he wanted to call Series 2 'Dallas,' at first I missed the rhythms of his other titles, but then I realized that always having to have an intricate title would be just another rut that we weren't gonna let this book fall into."

Of all the dangers the book might fall prone to, a rut seems one of the farthest possibilities — the energy present in the storytelling gives recent comics readers a sense of what it must have been like when Neil Gaiman's Sandman hit its stride, or when Grant Morrison began The Invisibles. This second comparison is both apt and, at the same time, not entirely right — on one hand, Grant and Gerard are friends, and ran a panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2008 together. Grant provides the foreword to the trade paperback of 'The Apocalypse Suite'.

On the other hand, Grant wrote The Invisibles whilst taking, in his own words, "a lot of psychedelic drugs". Though drug use — and abuse — appears in The Umbrella Academy, Gerard conquered his own battles with addiction some years ago, remarking during the panel with Grant that "I discovered I was way crazier sober than I ever was on drugs."

In fact, there's enough crazy present in 'The Apocalypse Suite' that starting with 'Dallas' might present new readers with no small amount of confusion.

"They might have a little trouble at first," Scott agrees. "We should include something in the inside cover to catch people up ... So much insane stuff happened in Series 1, it'd be hard for people to leap into issue #1 and not be a little lost."

The shorter The Umbrella Academy comics which have appeared outside of the arc of 'The Apocalypse Suite', in 2007's Free Comic Book Day offering from Dark Horse Comics and in online postings, have been set in different times throughout the team's history, but 'Dallas' is set not long after 'The Apocalypse Suite'. Will that pattern continue, with the main storylines following one another in chronological progression, or is it just chance that the first two long-form stories told fit together like that?

"I think I had originally intended to jump around a lot more than I am, time-wise," Gerard offers. "I envisioned doing a whole series or two of them as children, some set during their early 20s, but I feel like it's better to get those scenes and stories in little bursts, having a lot to do with what's going on in present day. I feel in a lot of ways that's one of the things that made the first series so special, especially the scenes with Vanya. For someone that complained a lot about continuity in comics, I sure find myself creating some, and I find it very useful. If people care about the characters, they are going to want to see what progressively happens to them, the trick is not bogging down the reader with years of needless information, and I'm going to have to be careful of that as I write the series."

"There's so much change and trauma coming for these kids that moving forward for the main stories is the best way to go, the most compelling," adds Scott. "You'll keep seeing flashbacks in the individual issues, and you'll see the little bits of the past in short stories. There are a couple longer flashback stories we've talked about doing as miniseries or one shots, but it's the ongoing story of them, after Hargreeves's death, that's the most interesting."

Some members of the team have (or had) abilities that seem to have a potentially world-changing scope. Is it difficult to tell stories about characters that powerful without throwing everything off-balance?

"I haven't found it a problem yet," says Gerard. "Simply because these are more complex characters than standard super heroes — not tooting my horn or saying they are any better, but they just act differently. There are some situations where the characters would rather not use their powers or act more impulsively. They also don't exactly like having these powers all of the time, don't like the attention it brings them ... sometimes the powers aren't even useful against what they are facing, like each other."

"We were a little worried that Vanya would end the world at the end of Series 1," Scott admits. "Or, at least, that she'd kill off more of the team than we wanted her to, because of how much more powerful she'd become."

On the subject of power, it's hard to ignore the fact that 'Dallas' is being released just as the future of the American presidency is on a lot of people's minds. Should art and entertainment be free of politics, or is it the duty of artists and entertainers to use their work as a platform for their stance? Is the answer somewhere in the middle of these extremes, or somewhere else entirely?

"I think the only duty of the artist is to say the things that he feels like saying in a compelling and artful way," Scott replies. "If you're drawn to saying something that can be taken as political, you do, and if you don't have that stuff in your head, you talk about other things. The second series is gonna say something in a somewhat more political way than the first one did, but what's said will not be didactic, will definitely be up for interpretation."

The Umbrella Academy as a series feels infused with a cynical worldview that comes from idealists growing beyond their optimism, but still believing in something like goodness — obviously, this is largely due to the position the members of the team are in as adults, but does it echo feelings within the creative team as well?

"It definitely echoes my feelings," agrees Gerard. "Especially the part about idealists growing beyond optimism. I don't want to speak for the rest of the team but I am pretty sure we are on the same page with most of the sentiments in the comic. Take Bob Dylan for example, who is Scott's favorite musician; he has definitely expressed feelings of this nature through his work. Scott turned me onto Dylan in a big way, and it shows in Series 2, which deals even more with disillusionment."

There's a timeless quality to the aesthetic of The Umbrella Academy, one reminiscent of the work David Lynch does with the fashions and architecture of his movies; all eras are somehow present at once, and none overwhelms the others. Gerard's public appearances connected to the comic — in-store signings and convention appearances, for example — have seen him dress in this same kind of style.

"I started dressing that way without even realizing it at first, then it became a way for me to associate myself mentally with what I was doing, dressing to be a part of that world. I think that's important — to become your art in a way," explains Gerard. "When I'm at home I dress as casually as possible due to the amount of work I do, but writing The Umbrella Academy has definitely affected my wardrobe. As far as the book, or any book I will end up doing, I always want there to be some sort of timeless quality to the way the characters are dressed. I even prefer artists that have a similar timeless quality. It's one of the main reasons I was drawn to Gabriel."

The mood of The Umbrella Academy's artwork encompasses a range of feelings, from nostalgia to superhero action to creepy gloom to comedy to family drama, moving seamlessly between each mood without losing a sense of the world.

"I'd say it's a matter of have been brought up reading comics," Gabriel suggests as an answer to how he changes the tone so elegantly. "I used to read all sorts of comics, from super-heroes to European to erotic to MAD to Brazilian alternative underground creators doing humor and political satires. Whenever I have to do an action scene, I go in my mind to the 80s, to Frank Miller's Daredevil to the X-Men to the Dark Knight. Deeper conversations and when we show what's behind those characters, I think of The Watchmen, Moonshadow, Will Eisner and Laerte (great Brazilian creator). Crazy stuff and elaborate buildings and gadgets send me to Akira and Moebius. It's like I've been learning and studying all my life, preparing myself to do anything, but I only realize that when the time comes to really do it. And that time has come."

The covers for Dallas that have been released so far are eye-catching artworks that would be striking even if they weren't connected to a comic. Do the covers for require a different approach to the interiors for Gabriel? Does he prefer one of the two elements to the other?

"I don't really like doing covers because it's just an illustration," answers Gabriel. "I find it much harder than drawing a comic page, because you have to balance the composition and style all in one image. This is the main reason why I try to use a different artistic approach on the covers, more expressive, more graphic and less "comics like". I don't want the covers to look like a big pinup or a splash page that could have been inside the comic. I want them to stand out and it's a place where I can experiment more and try new things. I had almost no limits on the Casanova covers I did and that was both good and bad. This time, I'm given ideas from Gerard and Scott and they also have to approve it afterwards and I find this cooperative process very good for the final work."

Anybody who's done anything behind the scenes in the comics sector will almost certainly agree that Dark Horse is synonymous with care and attention to detail, whatever aspect of their work is being discussed, so it's no big shock to discover that the merchandise associated with The Umbrella Academy has been of a high quality. This, coupled with Gerard and Scott's willingness to be involved in The Umbrella Academy to whatever lengths are required of them, has made for a charming array of patches, buttons, an even a licensed umbrella design. Photographs from the San Diego Comic-Con showing figurine prototypes of the characters caused a lot of excited fan discussion.

"A lot of thinking goes into everything down, to the type of font we use in the ads," says Gerard. "The figures took months but luckily we were working with a very good team of artists that were dedicated, as was Gabriel, to making sure they were as accurate as they can possibly be. I can't think of too much in the pipeline now as far as merch, but there is something people will hopefully be getting for free by the time the series is over that again a lot of work will go into."

"Gerard made the T-shirts happen really fast, though," adds Scott. "The ones we were selling in San Diego. Those happened overnight, but all the artwork already existed. Sometimes you have to be able to bash the stuff out, but with the figures and the umbrella, it was pretty painstaking."

The button pack released in conjunction with 'The Apocalypse Suite' contained three familiar designs — The Umbrella Academy, the Rumor, and the Kraken — and one mystery, the Sparrow. Will we find out who or what the Sparrow is in this new series, or is that to come later?

"Yep," Scott answers enigmatically.

Another truth about Dark Horse Comics, in addition to the comprehensive and diligent work ethic displayed by those who work under its banner, is the publisher's comparatively smooth transition into the much-talked-about "new era" of distribution. Another 2008 Eisner winner, The Perry Bible Fellowship, began life as an offbeat but extremely high-regarded webcomic before it was collected in print by Dark Horse.

"We're trying to have a smart attitude to shifts in the industry," says Scott. "Part of that is trusting the people who are most attuned to the shifts. I'm not picking the webcomics we publish, because I'm not much for the web; I'm not the potential reader. So Dave Land, the guy who got Perry for us, he's leading that charge. I had a passion for getting free comics out to people and using the web that way; that's why I was the one working with Myspace to start Myspace DHP, and to bring Sugar Shock to it.

"The big story in comics publishing over the last number of years was manga; we did not come to manga late. We did not come to it cynically, like some others. We didn't say to ourselves, "Oh, this Japanese stuff is selling, let's jam as much of it through the presses as we can as fast as possible, see if we can get fat off it." We'd been publishing manga longer than just about anyone around, and we just kept up with what we were good at, expanded into areas we understood. Shojo was the fad, but we didn't jump on that, because it wasn't who we were. We relied on picking amazing material that we could relate to, and that's worked out for us. With webcomics, we were there as soon as anyone with Megatokyo, and we've grown not by trying to guess what some abstract audience is gonna buy but by following our bliss, as Joe C. would say."

Are The Umbrella Academy comics, as they exist today, close to what Scott imagined when he first read the series pitch sent to him by Gerard?

"They are. They're just a purer, better version of what I imagined," Scott answers. "Definitely better drawn."

Since those beginnings, what's changed in visually depicting the characters?

"It was all a big discovery for me on the first series, as much as it was for the readers," Gabriel says. "I think that now I know how far I can bend the characters, how happy they can be or how sad, how dark I can make them and what's hidden under their masks. Having done the first series puts me in a position where I really know them, their problems and conflicts and I have talked with Gerard a lot about the future stories and that gives me a perspective on all of them. I know what I should focus on each series and where everything will lead these characters to. It's the best way to work."

Anywhere But Here — Umbrella Academy story on Dark Horse Presents