Sounds like a tempest in a teapot really. I really enjoyed The Umbrella Academy and I hope that this hoopla only helps sales and encourages Gerald Way to continue on this path as a writer. Writing is a difficult and often thankless profession at the best of times. This seems to be more about semantics than anything else. Thank you to all of you at Pulp Secret for covering this and posting the pages. Very interesting.

Yeah I dont understand what all the hubbub is about. It sounds like all parties involved need a reality check. The art on that stuff looks awful familiar, I may have it in a box somewhere.

From the way the epitaphs read; it sounds like Fisher was trying to form Gerard into another version of himself. One can only thank God and anyone else involved, for leading him away from this crazy guy.

How is this even a controversy? Gerard never said it was his first.

In the words of my pal psychochip (Tab):
First of all, Boneyard Press is pulp slash comics that most comic shops don't stock. I visit upwards of 5 different comic shops (I'm counting the Coliseum of Comics chain as 1) in the greater Central Florida area (radius of about 150 miles around Orlando) for HI duties, and only one of them carries this stuff, and that's a porn shop that sells comics on the side so that they don't have to call themselves an "adult" store. (I don't go there much) Maybe Acme keeps some of it in the back room with the smut comics, but it's certainly not front of house material. I can see it as something that a young, impressionable Gerard, who was enthralled with horror movies, would see as cool half his lifetime ago. It would be resume fodder for an aspiring writer. Read the Hart guy's musings on his blog. He's like the Howard Stern of comics. He knows he publishes smut and worse, he's proud of it. He throws out a bunch of big name artists and writers like they're best buddies, but you don't see him going after them the way he's going after Gerard. Why? Simple. They don't have as much money or as much clout in music, which makes insanely more than comics (and believe me, comic artists are VERY WELL paid if their contracts are written well).

Secondly, I looked into this "On Raven's Wings" that this guy is claiming is Gerard's first published work. I'm going to assume, due to lack of any credits on the cover, that it's an anthology. Maybe Gerard did a short story that may have been included in it, I don't know. But he didn't get cover credit, so even if it were in a comic shop somewhere, a teenie couldn't spazz out "zomg! Jerald madee diz comxi! I haz to haz it bcuz i lurvez hem and wzomg!" Not to mention, if this guy is that pissed about it, you would think he would take it out of the vault, dust it off, and republish it with "WITH A STORY BY GERARD WAY OF MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE" on it so that the fans would go nuts and buy it. Of course, he'd have to ensure that Gerard got his proper share of royalties, depending on how his contract was written (or if it's even in effect, Gerard being a minor at the time, or if it had a perpetuity clause, which given the work, I highly doubt it) but that's neither here nor there.

Thirdly, Gerard has never claimed TUA as his "first published work." It's been advertised as his first series, which is correct. If this guy can find a piece of advertising that says that, I will take that back, but every advertising piece I've seen touts it as "a new superhero team conceived by" or "a new comic series written by" GERARD WAY OF MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE. (and that pisses me off. Let the work prove itself on its own merit. It can stand on its own without the constant references to a band which has nothing to do with the story.)

It's common knowledge that he interned at DC, and I know people who remember him working there. DC published a short comic that he had drawn (I wish I could remember the name, it escapes me, but it was a western-style comic) as part of another anthology. Throw in The Breakfast Monkey (which I'm sure Cartoon Network has sitting in a vault of rejected ideas somewhere) and that puts three things ahead of Umbrella Academy, and nobody sees DC with their panties all in a bunch (then again, I'm not entirely sure DiDio even gives a shit about it, since Gerard interned under a different editor) nor do you see Cartoon Network climbing through their vault to revive Breakfast Monkey.

We all know that when someone gets famous, dirty little secrets come crawling out of the woodwork, people who used to treat you like shit are all of a sudden your best friend from high school, and nothing in your life is sacred (i.e. Team Let Gerard Shit In Peace). It sounds to me like, here is this guy with a piece of Gerard's very early work, who wants his fifteen minutes of fame. More than likely, he just wants to get his crap publishing house in the news for some free publicity.

And just for shits and giggles: You don't see Kevin Smith going out of his way for this Hart guy either, because now that Kev's working for Marvel, I'm sure that he wants to forget the quick cameo that he gave to this jackass in "Chasing Amy" -- proudly wearing his "Marvel Can Suck My Cock" tee-shirt. Sorry, honey, Marvel can't publish every little piece of trash that crosses their desk. Try to take rejection with a little bit of dignity, or at the very least, with a little bit of maturity.

It's GERARD Way you pieces of shit!!

Gerard is amazing and i luv him, but beacause he made it at such a young age and because he never took any credit in the comic at all, it seems that maybe he wrote something like a story line for it, but maybe didnt write it. or he wanted it to be kept secret. who knows, but he could have just made it and never wanted to see it again too(considering that he was going through some tough times back in high school and early MCR career, ect.)