I first stumbled accross the Umbrella Academy, when i was looking at what won the Eisner awards (The Oscars for comics) a few years ago. It won best limited series, after a brief look at the art I decided to take a risk on it. It was only when I was reading the introduction to the graphic novel that I realised that the writer was a star in his own right, and not some lowly comic scribe, scraping to make a living!

Gerard Way is the writer, and also the lead singer of My Chemical Romance. The introduction was written by the Editor, who outlines how difficult it was to contact Gerard, and other problems with having to deal with a rock star who has to meet a monthly deadline!

The book itself travels fairly well travelled ground of a group of messed up super heroes, not disimilar to doom patrol but has a lot of humor to it. It is carried in large part by the art, of Gabriel Ba who has a similar style to Tim Sale, but that’s never a bad thing in my book. Its well worth checking out, if you can get over your prejudice against the writer, which I must admit that I had myself. No way I would have bought a book written by a dodgy rock band!