How long can you hide your comic books from your friends?

Not very long apparently, because after reading a Rolling Stone article highlighting fellow New Jersyians, My Chemical Romance's new album, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys my interest has been revamped in the Comic book world. It is ironic how interests come full circle and after a long hiatus from reading anything of this genre, I have been successfully impressed by The Umbrella Academy.  Putting your thumb on exactly what makes a graphic novel successful is difficult.  Encompasing, art, color selection, plot and script is a balancing act that not many have done to any sort of fanfare.  Of course, Watchmen has drawn a great deal of mainstream acclaim due to its pseudo-silver screen success, but the novel had been a long time classic in the world of geekdom.

The Umbrella Academy highlights the crazed antics of 7, virgin born, super powered children who were adpoted by a wealthy entrepreneur and well connected Sir Reginald Hargreeves.   The novel is illustrated and written in Gerard Way's signature psychogothic styling that is riddled with dark comedy and interwoven plot threads.  Gabreil Ba illustrates the musings perfectly in a seamless combination of script writing and artistry.  Ontop of the actual meat of this grahic novel, the extras that come along with it are interesting as well.  Both forewards are well written and paint a nice backdrop to the genesis of the novel. Other extras include some original concept art work along with the short first issue that was given away at free comic day.  The most inspirational part of the whole deal is the fact that Way wrote the script for this novel while on tour promoting The Black Parade, and the fact that hey came up in the right way.  I give him tons of props on the side project skills.  I am used to slaughtering regular books, so reading The Umbrella Academy was a nice change in pace.  A way to slow down and look at the pictures while enjoying some decent script writing. 

Maybe you should still hide this one from your non-comic loving friends, but you can definitely enjoy it from the safety of your room.  Both editions:  The Apocolypse Suite, and Dallas are worth your time and dollars.





I am not sure how I feel just yet about this album, I am not the biggest MCR fan.