Further Explanation

This ties in with my current poll, which you should go vote in.

I knew when I put that poll up on buzznet that I would have to explain myself for not including The Umbrella Academy as one of the choices.

Look, first of all, that would make the poll totally unfair. Because there are enough My Chem fans out there that would vote for the comic book, sheerly because of Gerard (not to say it’s NOT a good series, more on that further down). I didn’t want to post a poll where I knew before hand what the answer would be. It would be pretty much 80% Umbrella Academy and 20% other.

And really? I don’t think an Umbrella Academy movie should be made. Yet.

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE the series. While I can’t say that I would have picked it up had it not been for Gerard’s involvement on the project, I can say I would have put it down if I wasn’t entertained (see also: Jeff Hardy’s band Peroxwhygen. Jeff, you’re pretty and jump off of things, but your music, really, just…WHAT THE FUCK?). But so far I’ve liked pretty much everything…except some of the pacing, but I’m giving it a lot of leeway on that due to the style the story is being told in. It’s like a Tarantino movie in that way for me.

I like Gerard’s wit and his characterizations for the most part. Gabriel Ba’s artwork, while not entirely my cup of tea, works well for me within the context of the story. Over all, I like it.

But really? We’ve seen what, 5 issues (the 6th is out on February 20th), plus a few special shorts here and there. That’s not enough mythology for an entire movie when there are series with a TON of mythos behind them waiting in line for a film. Umbrella Academy hasn’t EARNED a movie yet. It’s working on it, and I think Gerard’s got a lot of interesting places he can take it…but it’s not ready for the big screen. Ask me in a few years and I’ll see if I feel the same way.

Right now, I think a TUA movie would totally just be cashing in on Gerard’s band still being big, not on the strength of the comic. And I don’t like stuff like that, it doesn’t give the material a chance to stand on it’s own. There’s a lot of argument that TUA wouldn’t be selling so well if it weren’t for the MCR fans (though, I’m willing to bet there were also a lot of smug completionist comic fans who picked up issue one just to go “LOL, GUY IN AN EMO BAND’S COMIC SUCKS!” and now have to buy the entire series whether they like it or not…BECAUSE THEY’RE COMPLETIONIST COMIC BOOK FANS 😛 ), and I won’t entirely disagree. The question is, can it still pull people in later on…especially after the band has taken their last bow?

Gerard mentioned in an interview he’s got somewhere around 7 or 8 Umbrella Academy storylines planned. And I look forward to them. In COMIC form.