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Underground > Comic Books >

Umbrella Academy

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02:31 / 06.01.08

Way's about 30, Granny. Time for him to put down those vanilla slices get a real job.

He does look a little weathered in some of the photos, it's true.

But who could begrudge him another album/world tour (in which he really indulges himself, no messing about with all that 'emo' nonsense this time) before he settles down to the life of an artiste who is unconcerned by the tawdry shackles of commerce. He could have pints of locally-sourced brown ale with Alan Moore; they could have a salon. The pair of them might be like old school gods, dressed in leather, silver and purple, observing with amused disinterest the likes of Peter Milligan, Warren Ellis and George, indeed, sailing on by at, say, the San Fran Comicon

'Dude, that must be, like, negative. Having to try and explain away all this crap about Batman's ass ...'

'They are unenlightened souls, my friend, feasting on the rotten corpse of the industry.'

'I guess they are. Thank god ...'

'Can I stop you there, Gerard?'

'Sorry?'

'When you talk about 'God', Gerard, shouldn't you be using the plural of the noun?'

'I ...'

'THERE ARE MANY GODS!'

'Yeah. I'm not sure if I believe in anything personally, but ...'

'THERE ARE MANY GODS!'

'All right ... Christ, man ...'

'Ah yes, Christ, the son of man; are you familiar with the Gnostic gospels?'

'Yeah. Shall I ... sorry, shall I get that guy in a Star Trek t-shirt to get another round in?'

'Why not? I may even (laughs heartily) tell you about my novel!'

'Cool ... But Alan, the crowd used to seem more handsome when I was a singer, you know?'

'Welcome, Gerard, to the life of the mind.'

Our Lady Has Left the Building

08:01 / 06.01.08

This is really not working for me as a monthly, I'll stick with it for the rest of this series but I think with any future stories I'll wait for the trades.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

22:49 / 24.01.08

Fifth issue -- featuring Number Five on the cover, of course -- came out at some point, but I've just noticed and picked it up today (after having a rather lovely back-scrub morning spa treatment), and quite enjoyed it in spite of its flaws. I really can't imagine that this story is going to conclude in any really satisfactory way with next issue.

More to come when I'm home from work and have time to pore over the text, darlings.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

02:18 / 22.02.08

The final issue of Series One -- "Finale, or Brothers and Sisters, I am an Atomic Bomb" -- is out this week, and so this first season or whatever is over, done, finished. How do we all feel, sitting in the wreckage with debris settling just so in our hair?

And, seriously, are all the subtitles better than the titles when it comes right down to it? Finale just lacks something, even with the musical reference.

The pseudo-incestual thing is still something that could have been played with more, because it felt a bit weak as it stood. And almost embarassingly paired off, actually.

I miss Pogo. I was really unsure of him at first, but he rose up to be the Father Figure that Hargeeves never was, yeah?

Both female characters are incapacitated despite how cool both of them are or could be -- will they be around in the next series? Or we have to make due with the Umbrella Academy as a boys' school? At least neither were taken off the board in (a) a necessarily permanent fashion or (b) in any kind of a sexual fashion.

What's Number Five's deal? I mean, he's supposed to just be a time-traveller, right? How exactly does he manage to punch through people's heads like a wee li'l Jack Hawksmoor?

The temporal police angle hasn't been cleared up, so that damn well better be the thing for the second series.

The deus ex machina eleventh hour rescue thing gets a pass purely for being so bug-eyed WHATTAFUCK, even if I'm a little peeved that refers back to an utterly dull text page addition from the first issue.

The White Violin and her musicians are great villains -- as said above, shit, I hope she's around for Series 2 in some capacity.

Seance is probably my favourite, purely because he's having fun -- even in the shitty bits, even when Number Five's all crazy-like and people are dying. It just clicked now, the writing on his hands and the emblem -- he's a ouji board. Cute.

Sonics moving through space? Hah?

Ironic closure. Meh, but a nice final page.

I expect Series 2 to have some strong storytelling, but on the whole I enjoyed the Apocalypse Suite -- in spite of itself, in some places.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

05:20 / 14.11.08

For those of you playing along at home, the next Way/Bá collaboration, Umbrella Academy: Dallas starts up on November 26th. What can I say? I'm stoked, what with hopefully hilarious pseudo-political intrigues and weird people who've been screwed up by the Hargreeves School of Childhood Development.

My Mom Thinks I'm Cool

15:35 / 02.12.08

thought the first issue of Dallas was super. looks like it will fill in some of the unknown details about #5, though it also looks like 5 is totally batshit so whatever explanation we get might be unintelligible.

doesn't look to me like any dangling plot threads are going to go without attention. fight scene was murky but good. pacing felt much more even and flowy, I thought.

loving it.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

21:25 / 02.12.08

Dallas has a much more satisfying first issue than The Apocalypse Suite had. It's still basically set-up, but it felt more active and I liked the parallel (dear god, was all the kids did fighting monuments?) between them.

I feel a little like Way doesn't know what to do with certain characters (like the Seance), but he's started to really build up the world (like the Tempus Agents) around the Academy nicely.

15:00 / 20.04.09

Is anyone else still reading this? Judging by the letters page, it doesn't seem to have the most sophisticated audience, but the last few issues have been excellent. Pretty much all the problems in the first arc (the at times uncomfortably overt 'Doom Patrol' influence, the slighly off pacing, the vague difficulty with caring very much - all fair enough from a first-time writer, and I did enjoy it) look to have been resolved, and the art's still great.

My Mom Thinks I'm Cool

15:50 / 20.04.09

despite doing little to advance the plot, the Vietnam issue was great.

I'm a little worried that this story arc is going to have a rushed ending. they've got a lot of ground left to cover.

02:19 / 21.04.09

I recently did a bunch of Umbrella Academy drawings over on my blog.

10:06 / 21.04.09

That's really good stuff, Cameroon Stewpot.

Very Neil Gaiman-ish vibe from your go at The Seance. I wonder, actually, if he gets his sartorial choices from Guy Man at first then, as of Dallas, it's more of a shout-out to Morricone's I, Spyder.

00:08 / 22.04.09

That's a fair-ish point about the plot, Mom, but 'Dallas' has come on leaps and bounds in terms of characterisation, the latest ish being a case in point. In their own strange fashion, they're all quite sympathetic now, which I dare say means this arc's denouement will pack more of a punch than the last one's did.

My Mom Thinks I'm Cool

12:01 / 22.04.09

agreed.

14:33 / 22.04.09

Like Casanova, this is another comic which I find it difficult to get my teeth into. What I've read (the first 3 or 4 issues) seemed to lack anything approaching genuine drama, and it all felt kinda arbitrary - an exercise in throwing random stuff against the wall to see what sticks. The art helped bind things a bit, lent it some poetry, but that's the best I can say about it.

Now, again like with Casanova, I *want* to like this comic, but does anyone else see where I'm coming from?

My Mom Thinks I'm Cool

16:12 / 22.04.09

it did appear a bit blah at first - monkeys and robots and aliens, people yelling at each other, not sure why I care.

but the first story arc comes around into something pretty cool, and this second set is starting to fill in gaps in the first - which makes the grab bag of gimmicks in the first start to seem less arbitrary.

as Alex G says, the characters are less shouty and more developy, and you're starting to get more of a feel for why they were shouty.

I keep forgetting to go look for some kind of TPB for Casanova.

18:52 / 22.04.09

Glad you felt similarly. I think I'll wait for the current arc to complete itself before giving it another go.

The idea that monkeys, aliens, robots, plus superheroes in combination is necessarily cool kinda gets my back up. Smacks of Chris Sim's worst excesses. Wanting Umbrella Academy to be a little bit better than that.

My Mom Thinks I'm Cool

19:26 / 22.04.09

does Kraken actually have a superpower? he just seems to be a Batman kind of guy, but it's fairly clear from their origin story that all those kids were supposed to be superhuman.

considering all the grief the White Violin got for not being obviously super, it seems the Kraken must be able to do something. but he occasionally ends up with broken ribs and things just from fighting normal humans, so he doesn't even seem extra tough in a Midnighter kind of way.

22:00 / 22.04.09

I'm a bit ashamed that I know this, but (the?) Kraken can ... breathe underwater. This was dismissed by The Monocle, his adoptive Dad, as a 'useless power', hence, perhaps, we're invited to understand, the issues with the knives.

As with a lot of what's good these days, it's probably best to read it in trades, but I feel as if somebody has to trudge off to the shop on at least a fortnightly basis.

That aside, I'd be shocked and disappointed, Mr B, if you didn't like 'Dallas' when it's collected. It's a major improvement on what, in the first place, wasn't a bad template, honest.

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