Although the series doesn't hit comic stores until September, the singer has begun talking about the comic, which made its real debut as part of May's "Free Comic Book Day" package with a preview issue.
As many fans know, Gerard went to the School of Visual Arts in NYC -- nonetheless, he's not drawing the book; it's just one of his concepts. Gabriel Ba is taking over the pen and ink duties on the book, which will be released by Dark Horse Comics.
Gerard spoke to EW about the comic's beginnings:
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.
He went on to say that he loves drawing things, and then leaving his drawings otherwise open to someone else's interpretation. Gerard said, "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." He spoke of the evolution of Spaceboy, and how he and Gabriel had to come to a compromise on the character's look.
Noting some of the struggles the comic industry has, Gerard spoke on choosing Dark Horse comics to release his book:
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.
EW also had some exclusive preview pages, which I linked to for your convenience:
