We recently had a chance to speak with Umbrella Academy interior artist Gabriel Bá, who told us what he enjoyed most about working on this critically acclaimed series! Read on and enjoy!

Dark Horse: I read on your website that you are proud of The Umbrella Academy. What is it about this comic that excites you the most?

Gabriel Bá: I think it's the characters. If you don't care for the characters, you don't really dig the story so much--doesn't matter how good it might be. I think one of the best accomplishments of this series is creating characters that people identify with right away in the first issue, so they really care what happens to them over the story. And one way Gerard managed to do this on the series was with the dialogue. He knows these characters very much and every new dialogue has a lot under the first layer. "There's just nothing special about you." How can you not feel sorry for Vanya when stone-heart Hargreeves says something like this?

DH: How is the drawing and storytelling in a superhero comic like The Umbrella Academy different than doing something like De:Tales?

GB: The biggest difference is the amount of characters and how the narrative jumps from one to the other. Most of the stories I did on De:Tales with Fábio were short, focused on a single character, following just this character around. On Umbrella, we have flashbacks, we jump from a very contemplative scene to an action, fast-pacing fight as every little piece of the puzzle gets in its place. It's not an easy task to juggle all these plates in the air at the same time, but I was always happy with the scripts when they came to me.



DH: Which character in Umbrella Academy is most fun to draw?

GB: Spaceboy. He's the one I put in more of me, changing him quite a bit from the original designs Gerard handed me. I can exaggerate in every direction with him, really push my style to its limit.

DH: Which do you identify with the most?

GB: I like some characters for their unique qualities, for they are such strong representations of these archetypes. So whenever one of these characters was on the scene, it was so much more fulfilling to work on it. That happened a lot with Spaceboy, The Kraken--but especially with Vanya. It shows in the art how much I enjoyed her scenes on each book.

DH: What was your favorite scene to draw?

GB: The scenes I liked the most when reading each script were the ones I got most eager to draw every time. The best ones--I can point out page sixteen of the first issue, "20 years later. The Moon." That's just a great ellipse, skipping basically all the unnecessary team history that any other comic book would take one or two issues to cover. Another great scene was when Rumor used her power on Spaceboy. I'm a sucker for romance, so it took me several sketches to get the power of that kiss scene right.

DH: How is your work on Umbrella Academy different than anything you have done before?

GB: There are two very distinct elements in this series that differ from anything I've done before. The first thing is really working with an editor (and his lovely assistant) on my back during the production of a monthly comic, pressuring for deadlines and deliveries, checking on me all the time to see if I was on track, getting the script in my hands in time. I've never done stuff that I had to approve with the writer and editor before. Diana (Schutz) did a tremendous job on helping us put together our stories on De:Tales and telling us what worked and what did not, but working on a monthly series is a whole new ballgame for me.

The second thing that stands this project out from all my past work is the mainstream aspect of it, with this HUGE following of readers it had all through its run. It was very new to me being read by fifty thousand people every month. And it's not like drawing Batman. It's something we're starting from scratch and there are a lot of people watching. The pressure to make the best work possible has never been so high . . . but I found this intensity very good for my work.

DH: Can we expect more Umbrella Academy from you and Gerard Way in the future?

GB: Most definitely. A lot of it.