Well If You Wanted Honesty, That's All You Had To Say

By Ron Brownlow
STAFF REPORTER
Thursday, Jan 31, 2008, Page 14

PHOTO: AP

Neither critical success nor the adoration of thousands of teenage girls has gone to the head of My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way, or so it seemed when he entered the Far Eastern Hotel's Platinum Suite without personal assistants on Saturday evening, preceded by only his younger brother and the band's bass player, Mikey. My Chemical Romance - which played in front of 3,500 mostly college-age fans at National Taiwan University Athletic Stadium on Sunday - is nearing the end of a year-long tour to support The Black Parade, the platinum-selling, unabashedly over-the-top concept album about a dying cancer patient obsessed with redemption and revenge.

Sitting with his legs crossed, wearing dark Ray Bans that obscure his eyes, Way starts the interview by measuring the success of that album, which has been compared with Pink Floyd's epic The Wall. "To us Black Parade was the best record of that year," 2006. "That's how we felt about it when we were making it; we still feel that way about it. But something like The Wall is hugely ambitious. I don't know what it takes to make a record like that. I think you gotta take a sledgehammer to your life in a lot of ways and I don't think anyone in this band is prepared to do that."

Ron Brownlow: On this tour until really recently you would come out and say you were the Black Parade, at least for the first hour. And then you stopped last month.

Gerard Way: We were filming a show in Mexico, and maybe 10 minutes before we went on we just decided that it was going to be the last one. We felt like we'd done all we could as the Black Parade and we really wanted to go back to simply being My Chemical Romance. And that's just really being a great rock band.

RB: So part of it was you were on the road for so long you were just sick of doing it?

GW: Actually a small part of it was that. It caged us. But a bigger part was, I think, everything attached with being the Black Parade was something we wanted to kind of move on from.

(Way identified so much with the character in the album, known only as the Patient, that until recently he assumed the persona on stage. He cropped his black hair short and dyed it silvery blond to, he says, "appear white and deathlike." Members of My Chemical Romance wore matching black uniforms, and the band played part of each concert under the pseudonym The Black Parade.)

RB: So can we still talk about the Patient?

GW: Yeah! Of course.

RB: How is the Patient right now?

GW: (Laughing.) I always like to feel that that particular character was created so everyone could identify with the character. Most likely everyone is eventually going to become a patient, and that's going to be the last time you are a patient. You kind of lose your sense of identity; and if you don't have any family around you, you even have less of an identity. But I like to think that, at the end of that record, the character gets a second chance, which you rarely get, you know? I'd like to think whether or not the character dies, he does in fact choose to live.

RB: I was reading a New York Times story that said the Patient is the American Everyman recast as a sick, violence-scarred wreck.

GW: I'd say that's pretty close. It's definitely an Everyman. I don't think largely American, though. We had sought out to make a universal record, and just the fact that we're here today proves that we did. It's interesting. We don't really think of ourselves as a New Jersey band. And we also don't think of ourselves as an American band in a lot of ways. We felt more a band of the world or somewhere like the UK. We felt more like a British rock band than anything.

(Born on April 9, 1977, Gerard Way grew up in blue-collar Belleville, New Jersey, roughly 15km from Manhattan. When he was a teenager, he was held up at gunpoint. According to an article in Rolling Stone magazine, Way said a .357 Magnum was pointed to his head, and he was "put on the floor, execution-style." He graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and was working in the comic book industry there when, on Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center. Twice when we're talking about Sept. 11, his voice tails off.)

RB: Did you see the planes crash into the World Trade Center?

GW: I was taking the commuter train in. I didn't see any of the planes hit. I did see the buildings go down, from I'd say fairly close. It was like being in a science fiction film or some kind of disaster film - it was exactly that kind of feeling. You didn't believe it. You felt like you were in Independence Day. It made no sense. Your brain couldn't process it. And for me it was a little different. I'm very empathetic and I'm kind of a conduit emotionally, so I pick up a lot of stuff in that way. There was about three- or four-hundred people around me - and I was right at the edge. All these people behind me, they all had friends and family in those buildings. I didn't. So when that first building went, it was like an A-bomb went off. It was like just this emotion and it made you nauseous. One of the first thoughts that went through my head when they went down was, "What does this mean?"

RB: How did that lead to the creation of the band?

GW: One of the other things I thought about when the first building went down was, "Everything's kind of pointless that you're doing right now." I was involved in commercial art in New York, trying to pitch a show to the Cartoon Network that was extremely frustrating because I was dealing with a company that had optioned the cartoon show that didn't quite get it. I think they were more interested in turning it into toys and pillowcases and shit like that, and it was really disheartening. That was my first ever taste of creating something and seeing it take off a little bit - and it didn't feel good. At that moment I was like, "This doesn't mean anything. This is all garbage. This is all bullshit. I need to do something that actually means something, or my life's gonna mean nothing. Just like this cartoon means nothing."

RB: Do you think you've found meaning through this?

GW: I think we created something special together. I think it means something. It meant something when it started, it said what it kind of had to say, and so that's an interesting position to be in because I don't necessarily think that the next album we make, I don't necessarily think that it needs to mean something. I think we're kind of finished in that regard. So it's gonna be interesting to see what we do next because, quote unquote "the mission" or "the goal," I feel very complete about that.

(Way and My Chemical Romance are polarizing figures. In a Kerrang! magazine poll, the band was voted both best and worst band of 2006. Appearing with the band at that year's Reading Festival in England, Way, known for his onstage histrionics, was pelted with a bottle of urine and other objects thrown from the audience. That same year, Welcome to the Black Parade reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, as it did in the US. The album has gone platinum in both countries.)

RB: Getting bottled. What did that feel like?

GW: It was exhilarating and extremely challenging. There's nothing like that to humble you more and let you know that there's still something to fight for.

RB: You felt exhilarated?

GW: Yeah! I think when all is said and done people will look at that very specific show and say that was the most important show of this band's career, because they got up there facing a tremendous amount of opposition and won an entire crowd over and did it with the camera on them and everybody facing them. I think that's why it's important because it really sums up the band in one 40-minute set. It was not easy. It was a volley at first and then just it stopped and there was cheering and there was excitement and there was positivity. A current through the audience. It's amazing to watch footage BBC captured.

RB: You've said the band started as your therapy, and then it became the band's therapy, and then we became other people's therapy.

GW: It was kind of a therapy for me at first because of 9/11, and then the band because, in some way, we, in our own lives, had been the people that did not fit in or weren't built like other people - just not prone to violence. Not survivors in that regard. Survivors in a different way. And so then when we'd go to these shows we started meeting these kids just like us. And so that was almost like a group therapy session. That was really exciting. We're just all working it out. Since we're very non-violent people in our everyday lives and our fans are very much the same. They're very much like shy, quiet loners. You have to have some place you need to kind of get that out. Our shows were the place to do it. One of the things that's a common misconception about the punk rock scene is that what's cool about it is you could go and fit in because it's punk rock. But in actuality you can't. I don't think enough people say this about it. It was the same as being in high school with jocks. I would go to punk clubs and get shoved by skinheads because I wasn't like them, which was just like getting shoved by jocks wearing a Ramones shirt.

RB: You've talked about failure. You said, "I have failed a great deal in my life with everything I've tried to do. I was a failed artist. I was a failed animator-this-that-and they other thing … I was always very close but I was always not quite there."

GW: Maybe it's not so much failure so much as it is not following through and giving up. I think I was more of a person that gave up, rather than a failure. I didn't have what it took at the time, because I was very prone to get discouraged very quickly and stop doing what I was doing. With this band I was never one to give up.

(Although My Chemical Romance cites as influences everything from Queen, Thursday and Iron Maiden and to Morrissey, Black Flag and the Smashing Pumpkins, it is often referred to as an emo band, a label the band vigorously protests. Originally used as shorthand for the "emotional hardcore" subgenre of punk that originated with Washington, DC, it now refers to a vaguely defined genre of punky, goth-leaning indie-rock whose adolescent followers are stereotypically shy, angst-ridden and prone to depression and self-injury. Way has called emo "a pile of shit," but My Chemical Romance's dramatic style connects with a very teenage intensity of emotion. In interviews, Way and other band members have openly discussed their mental-health issues, and their penchant for tight jeans and eyeliner makes them look very much the part.)

RB: You really hate being called an "emo" band. Why do you despise that term so much?

GW: I don't like any term that to me seems lazy or an easy term for something that's not easy to describe. I also think it's frustrating. We were so the opposite of the emo band that we couldn't get booked playing shows, because there was this budding emo scene, and we literally were touring with Christian-metal bands, or other bands that were very off-kilter as well. We were almost created in opposition to that. We were like the answer to what was happening.

We didn't fit in with this dungareed, moppy-haired, whining-about-girl type of nonsense. I just wish people would realize that what happens with My Chemical Romance is completely exclusive from any other kind of genre of music. What we have is extremely special. And we've worked very hard to get it there. So it's an insulting term in the fact that we're lumped in with bands that didn't create that. They didn't put in the work and they didn't slug it out to create something that was unique for us and our fans. It's just for us and the fans, it's not for anybody else. If the fan base is huge, that's awesome. If it's small, same thing.

The whole phenomena of the band has nothing to do with what people are calling emo. It's not at all like that. It wasn't founded on the same things. The blood that went into it was different. [Emo] didn't have the spit, it doesn't have the grit of it. It's not unique. It's just pop-punk all over again. Now it's pop-punk with eyeliner. All of it's boring and really redundant. That's why it's frustrating, because it was difficult for us starting out because we were nothing like that.

RB: What do you see on the horizon after this tour?

GW: I see our first kind of lengthy break. We're gonna commit to trying to have at least six months off before we even talk about making something else. And then at that point, hopefully, we will have done enough living to make something.

Here is a little Xmas cheer...I thought it was funny when I read it.

WHY I THINK SANTA IS A WOMAN

I think Santa Claus is a woman.......

I hate to be the one to defy sacred myth, but I believe he's a she. Think about it. Christmas is a big, organized, warm, fuzzy, nurturing social deal, and I have a tough time believing a guy could possibly pull it all off!

For starters, the vast majority of men don't even think about selecting gifts until Christmas Eve. Once at the mall, they always seem surprised to find only Ronco products, socket wrench sets, and mood rings left on the shelves. On this count alone, I'm convinced Santa is a woman. Surely, if he were a man, everyone in the universe would wake up Christmas morning to find a rotating musical Chia Pet under the tree, still in the bag.

Another problem for a he-Santa would be getting there. First of all, there would be no reindeer because they would all be dead, gutted and strapped on to the rear bumper of the sleigh amid wide-eyed, desperate claims that buck season had been extended. Blitzen's rack would already be on the way to the taxidermist.

Even if the male Santa DID have reindeer, he'd still have transportation problems because he would inevitably get lost up there in the snow and clouds and then refuse to stop and ask for directions.

Other reasons why Santa can't possibly be a man:
*Men can't pack a bag.
*Men would rather be dead than caught wearing red velvet.
*Men would feel their masculinity is threatened having to be seen with all those elves.
*Men don't answer their mail.
*Men would refuse to allow their physique to be described even in jest as anything remotely resembling a "bowlful of jelly."
*Men aren't interested in stockings unless somebody's wearing them.
*Having to do the Ho Ho Ho thing would seriously inhibit their ability to pick up women.

Finally, being responsible for Christmas would require a commitment. I can buy the fact that other mythical holiday characters are men.......
*Father Time shows up once a year unshaven and looking ominous. Definite guy.
*Cupid flies around carrying weapons.
*Uncle Sam is a politician who likes to point fingers.

Any one of these individuals could pass the testosterone screening test. But not St. Nick. Not a chance.

by NME.

Gerard Way is set to make a special appearance in London.

The singer is to sign copies of his graphic novel 'The Umbrella Academy' on November 14 between 12 and 2pm.

The signing takes place at the Forbidden Planet Megastore in Shaftesbury Avenue, London.

'The Umbrella Academy' was written by Way in collaboration with artist Garbriel Ba and cover artist James Jean.

According to a statement, "'The Umbrella Academy' tells the story of seven individuals who were trained at birth to protect the world.

"When the series starts the superheroes have disbanded and gone their separate ways but, after the death of the man who bought them all together, The Monocle, they have to put the past behind them and join forces again to save the world."

by MTV NEWS

My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way got married over the weekend, his representative confirmed to MTV News on Wednesday (September 5). The Projekt Revolution tour, which featured the band, ended Monday in Englewood, Colorado, and Denver radio station 93.3 FM reports that Way married Mindless Self Indulgence bassist Lyn Z that evening at the venue, the Coors Amphitheatre. MSI were on the Projekt Revolution tour as well and are slated to support MCR on their European tour beginning October 30.

HERE'S PICS OF THE ACTUAL CEREMONY!!!
(Thanks to the Channel 93.3 staffer that got these photos!)



The Happy Couple, the Minister, and a bottle of Non Alcoholic Sparkling Cider (yes that is confirmed).



CONGRATULATIONS TO THE BOTH OF THEM....................

You' ve been tagged now follow these rules:

1. You post your top 10 fantasy guys/girls
2. You tag 10 people.
3. You CANNOT tag someone who has already been tagged.
4. You have to let the people you tagged know that they've been tagged.
5. These are the rules they must be repeated every time.
6. THERE MUST BE PHOTOS! AT ALL TIMES!

Ya Im married but I can always fantizise, so here's some eye candy....

1.Jon Montoya from saliva...I meet him and cant get over it

2.Gerard Way ...Duh no question

3. Frank Iero... The condon thing huked me more..lol

4. James Dean...Sexy legand

5. Tom Cruise ..Before he was crazy

6. Keanu Reeves

7. Orlando Bloom

8.Brad Pit

9.Gerard Butler..Hah another gerard..lol

10. Marilyn Manroe..Godess

 enjoy the pics.

I've tagged ; 929nikkiway929, deadliv3443, 40somethingmcrfan, zanzoun, mychemqueen, amante, justinlanning, gaurdianxangel, corra500, xmcrx06

 :))))   Rach.

This Aug.10, my daughter and I went to our county fair. Other than the boring country concerts there was acualy gonna be a cool rock concert. Papa Roach and Saliva where going to play, I think both bands are cool there songs are ok. But my 13 yr. old daughter on the other hand luvs Papa Roach she was very happy that the band was here. She was hopin to meet Jacoby and the rest of the band,and well her wish came true.

Well we got late to the concert right when Saliva was goin to start, we had to steal some seats thank god it was general admision. We were bumed that we couldn't be in the pit. Saliva came on stage and sang and ROCKED the f**ckin concert. They played "Ladies and Gentelmen", "Always", "Broken Sunday",and other ones I cant remember because I was mesmerized with one of the guitar player, Yes it was Jon Montoya sexy mother f**cker that he is. He just joined the band a year ago takin Chris D' abaldo place. He use to play for Full Devil Jackets, so cool that he joined Saliva.

He isso crazy on stage I just couldn't keep my eyes of him. Well after theyfinished he went along the barricade and signed autograghs. I had to see him up close so we made our way as close as we could. He signed my ticket and took some pictures ,only thing that sucked is that the pictures we took with him didnt come out. Mine didnt and my daughters was so blurry as you can see.

Some of the pictures cam out good like the ones that we took outside by the buses. That's where my daughter wish came true and meet Papa Roach and got her picture with Jacoby. He was so cool he stayed and sighned till everyone was gone.

Of all the pictures these are my favorite because it's Jon, I so wanted hit hat but he saied sorry. I can now say I'm a Jon fan for life.

Well to make a long story short ,we had fun and I'm already trying to see what other Saliva concert I can go to take my retakes with Jon.

P.S If anyone out there has any pictures ,stories,or info about him please share with me, I'll be your friend for life.....LOL.

PREVIEW TO THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY:   SAFE AND SOUND  featuring THE KRAKEN  formerly of THE UMBRELLA  ACADEMY..........

This is sure to be a good comic book great job Gerard and Gabriel..........

bby Jonah Weiland, Executive Producer
Posted: July 24, 2007

FROM COMICBOOKRESOURSES.COM

Gerard Way isn't a man easily put into a category. He's the frontman of the multi-platinum-selling band My Chemical Romance, a group that labels themselves simply as a rock band, but once you listen to their music and talk with their fans, it's clear these aren't your ordinary musicians.

"The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite" #1 on sale September 19

BY EW.COM

For the last five years, Gerard Way has been the frontman of My Chemical Romance, a New Jersey-based rock band that, depending on who you ask, has either blossomed into one of the most talented acts in popular music (highlighted by last year's stunningly operatic concept album, The Black Parade), or been criminally responsible for the slew of heavily eyeliner'ed emo teens running amok in our nation's malls. In an attempt to explore both phenomena, EW joined Gerard and Co. on the road in the U.K. last winter, and somewhere between Liverpool and Glasgow, we couldn't help but notice the tour bus was overflowing with comics, pens, and sketches — evidence of the 30-year-old singer's past life as a struggling artist and animator.

The School of Visual Arts grad may have chucked it all to start My Chem, but now he's finally putting that diploma to use: This September, Dark Horse will release The Umbrella Academy, a six-issue series conceived by Way and drawn by Casanova artist Gabriel Bá. It promises to be something of a big deal, both to Gerard's army of rabid fans and to the struggling comics industry, providing the latter with an influx of new readers and the former with yet another thing to OMG about on MySpace.

But before the madness starts — preorder those copies now, kids! — we grabbed the always-lovely Mr. Way himself on the phone from Europe (where the band is about to join Linkin Park's Projekt Revolution tour) to give us a first look at his first issue, explain the predictably oddball story, and reveal why Hot Topic will most likely not be carrying a line of Way-designed apparel anytime soon

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So we're here looking at pages 11-13 of Umbrella Academy's first issue. Let's start from the beginning: Tell me about the art, and where the idea came from.
GERARD WAY: I had adopted this style that was a little mixture of modern superhero meets Tin-Tin or European comics. I wanted something completely bizarre, that felt like you got the chaos of an early superhero comic, but didn't look like one. So I said, What if Genet directed X-Men? What would it look like? That's really the birthplace. It made finding the artists a really tough process. [Cover artist] ''Firemen,'' and I was like, This is the guy, for sure.

Did you do sketches to give him a sense of what you wanted, or did you just give him the text and structure and let him run?
I actually did a ton of drawings. The comic really started on the Take the Chaos tour, when I finally started to get my footing after being clean and realized I had nine hours of free time a day. I was up when everybody was still passed out, and I was drawing in the catering room. So fast forward to when I'm about to leave New York to do Black Parade: I completely designed every character, plotted it out, and sent it to Scott. And then when Gabriel decided to do the book, it was totally based off the artwork in that proposal, and he managed to create this whole thing.

Explain that relationship. Are you saying, ''Okay, I've already drawn this, now just re-draw it in your style''?
By nature, I'm the kind of person who wants to be surprised, and I love collaboration. Anybody I ask to work on this book with me, I do it with their understanding that I'm gonna draw stuff, but I want you to draw stuff. You don't have to agree with me. I love interpretation. Spaceboy, the main character — he went through a lot of changes. Gabriel completely put this giant gorilla-like body on him. And there was a moment where I was like, ''All right, how about we kind of compromise on this? You can beef him up, and he can walk like an ape sometimes.'' There's back and forth, and I invite it. I'd rather have that. I don't want to just be telling people what to do all the time.

Has my old high school buddy Matt Fraction — who writes Casanova — forgiven you for stealing his artist?
Well, he got Gabriel's brother, so I think he's fine. [Laughs] They're both so amazingly talented. And while their styles are completely different, there's something about them being brothers that carries through. I've never met Matt Fraction. I want to pick up the Casanova trade and read the whole thing, but it's in hardcover, and those are hard to lug around, so I'm waiting for the paperback.

And you're back out lugging stuff on the road again right now. How come every time I talk to you you're in Europe? What's that about?
The band does really well in the U.K., so it seems like we're going to the U.K. every few months. And then every summer there's the festival run. We opened up for Muse at Wembley Stadium yesterday. That was something. I hadn't been that scared since we were a band for three months and opened up for Jimmy Eat World at the Allentown Fairgrounds.

That's a little smaller than Wembley Stadium.
A lot. But to a band that just played a basement? We saw 10,000 people and we were like, Whoa. So last night was terrifying. Oh my God that is a lot of people, and they're all here to see Muse. [Laughs] It was humbling.

You're in France today?
Yeah, we're in Paris. We just got here. We're in this really weird hotel that looks like it was designed by Stanley Kubrick or something.

I find it interesting that you're in Paris, since the pages they sent me from your comic actually have to do with the Eiffel Tower. What a brilliant segue I've just created for us here! Let's just talk really specifically about what I'm looking at. These are from when the Umbrella Academy are still kids?
What you're seeing here is a snippet from the middle of the issue, which shows our heroes at age 10 on their first mission, and their first mission just happens to be the day the Eiffel Tower went berserk. The title of the issue is actually The Day the Eiffel Tower Went Berserk. Hargreeves is the older guy on that airplane. He's a space alien, but nobody knows he's a space alien. He's an extremely wealthy entrepreneur and inventor. He's good at everything. He's just a weirdo, an eccentric, rich weirdo, that's actually a space alien with an agenda...

[Snort.]
Okay, it's all over the place. [Laughs] Basically, it starts off with a wrestler. And the wrestler, he knocks out this space squid. And when he does that — and it's completely a matter of coincidence — extraordinary children are born, on Earth, instantly. Now, this wealthy entrepreneur guy, he tries to adopt all of them. He only finds seven of them.

How did he know about the wrestler and the space squid?
How he knows how to find these kids is something I won't explain until much, much later.

Sure. Wouldn't want to spoil it.
It's different being cagey about your stories than it is being cagey about a record coming out or something. It's like, No, I actually can't tell you, because that happens in like Series 5. So anyway, what we're looking at here, it's one of these scenarios where stuff has already gone bad. We get a breather on the ship that gives a little bit of character, kind of showing how cold Hargreeves is, and how bad of a father he is. 'Cause he's an alien. He doesn't know how to raise kids. He treats these kids as tools, basically, to save the world. And then you go back to the Tower, where things have gone from bad to worse. Basically the image I had in my head that really spawned this whole scene was a 10-year-old child knocking out the Eiffel Tower. I thought that was something so insane, and so over-the-top that I had to do it in a comic. And then we come to find that, in the control tower, after all these years, there's a zombie robot Gustave Eiffel. Which, I don't know how the French are gonna feel about that. I think Gustave Eiffel is a pretty big national hero.

Okay. Well, that all makes perfect sense. Now: Is it a coincidence that these 10-year-olds appear to share makeup tips with My Chemical Romance?
They actually have masks. I'm a big fan of domino masks, like Zorro, or Robin. You could put a domino mask on anything, and it becomes a superhero. You put a domino mask on a milkman, and he becomes, like, Super Milkman. So they're actually just mild-mannered British schoolchildren with a little of The Prisoner mixed in. I threw domino masks on them, and wiped their identities.

They're just referred to as numbers throughout?
Yeah, also inspired by The Prisoner. I wanted Hargreeves to really alienate these kids. A lot of the focus of the book is connecting with that part of somebody that, when they were a kid, they were forced to do something they didn't want to do. Like if your parents wanted you to play soccer, but you didn't want to. And if you're not really great at it, how bad do you feel about yourself? I was trying to connect on that level. So to further alienate these kids, he wiped their identities. They have no names. They're not allowed to play with other children. They have to wear masks at all times. And they can't even call him ''Dad''.

And then he dies, and they have to come back together.
Yeah. He passes away at the end of this issue. They disbanded a while ago, because of lots of personal problems, and the death of one of the kids. They disbanded when they were in their 20s.

Oh, they're like a boy band!
They are like a boy band. They were literally these kids that were there to save the world — those were the salad days — and then when they get older, they're supposed to be responsible superheroes, but they're not any good at it. They don't know how to interact with each other or anybody else, and they mess up in this thing called the Jennifer Incident. So after that they were like, This is useless, we're wasting our time. And the second issue is called We Only See Each Other at Weddings and Funerals.

I'm quite certain people are now very curious to see how this all plays out. Are you going to have time in your touring schedule to hit ComicCon this year and do some more explaining?
We're trying to work out some flights, but the plan is I'm going to be there on the Saturday, I believe.

That may be rather nutso for you.
I don't know. The previous year was great, because it was really low-key, it was under the radar, and it was really humbling standing next to Gabriel and James. I've met a lot of people who are interested in the book because Gabriel and James are doing it. That was good for me to see. I feel like I've actually been knocked down a few notches, and I needed that. So I don't know what it'll be like this year. The Free Comic Book Day preview we released got a great response — I think people were so skeptical, but I'm very used to that. It's like a tool in my toolbox now.

There may be skeptics in comic land, but the hordes of fans from your quote-unquote day job might make up for that. There's fervor there for a different reason.
Right. And the idea behind all of this is to get these people into comic stores. Comics are my first love, and I hate seeing an art form that I love suffer. So it's like, Well, I'll do something, it'll bring people into the shops. That's why when I went to Scott, he was like, ''Why'd you pick Dark Horse, why didn't you go to a bigger company?'' And I'm like, Because I want people to read Dark Horse books. Everybody knows who Batman and Spider-Man are, and that's fine. I'd rather go with a mom-and-pop. I'm really proud of the first issue. Free Comic Book Day is nothing compared to the first issue. The first issue is nuts. Every single page is nuts.

This is all very exciting. Do you feel like this is something you've been working toward your whole life and you finally got there, or do you feel more charmed and lucky and blessed with an opportunity?
I never intended to actually get an opportunity to do comics from being in a band. I feel it's just a gift. It's just an opportunity, and I'm very choosy about my opportunities. I'm not an opportunist. Like, I don't have a clothing line.

You really maybe should, Gerard.
[Laughs] Everybody would just look like they were in The Avengers.

Striped fingerless gloves for the world!
Basically, yeah. I won't do that kind of thing, and I'm very careful. Like when someone says, ''Hey, we want you to act in this movie,'' I'll be like... ''No... [laughs], I kinda just like being in a band.'' And that's why we've kept the band so separate from the comic, and I think Scott and Dark Horse have been really good about that. It's not on the cover, it's not on the poster, it's not my comic. It doesn't say, ''Gerard Way's Umbrella Academy.'' That stuff was all very important to me. I want my name right next to Gabriel's. So yeah, I think I'm lucky. I'm blessed. I have an ability to tell stories and I have an opportunity to do that in another way right now. I feel the same way about directing videos, or directing films. I would take those opportunities. Any opportunity where I have to work? It doesn't feel like I'm being an opportunist. If you don't have to work that much — if you design a jacket or something, like I did for Hurley — you do that for charity.

There's gonna be a whole slew of angry jacket designers now.
[Laughs] Yeah.

by GIGWISE.com

My Chemical Romance have hit back at Marilyn Manson, this time calling the shock-rocker “two-faced.”

The emo outfit say that Manson – real name Brian Warner – has always been “pleasant” to their face, but were taken aback by his recent comments in the media.

As previously reported, Manson called MCR a “sad, pitiful and shallow” parody of himself.

After MCR frontman Gerrard Way’s comments, guitarist Frank Iero has now stepped into the fold, saying: "The funny thing is that he seems to have lashed out at us about the make-up. That's weird to me, because I had heard of Alice Cooper before I heard of Marilyn Manson.

“I don't know how he could be mad at us. We never came out and said we were going to call ourselves by a girl's name and then a serial killer's name. I'm really sorry if he feels we ripped him off.

“It would have been nice if he could have said something to our faces but he's been all smiles every time I've seen him. Maybe he's doing it for the press. Some people just like to talk".

by RedPillMusic

After all the hype over his recent engagement announcement, Gerard Way has shared with Kerrang! magazine that his band, My Chemical Romance plan to start working on a new album, the follow-up to The Black Parade. “It feels like it’s about the right time to be making a new record,” says Way. “Maybe that’s because ‘The Black Parade’ was talked about for so long before it was released, but it feels like that album’s been out for a long time now. It’s only been eight months but we’re already on our fourth single and we’ve played a lot of shows. ‘The Black Parade’ was the kind of record that you make but don’t necessarily have a burning desire to perform because its creation was almost the point,” he adds. “It was such an intense experience to make it, that there was almost a feeling of wanting to move on as soon as we released it. It was so artistically ambitious that it made us want to keep on creating.”

As details are released RedPillMusic.com will keep you posted with the latest.