Gerard Way has shared what’s described as “a character study he did for a comic that may come to life one day” on the site for an online coloring book he started with Sara Taylor of the musical duo Youth Code.
The Quarantine Coloring Book was started by Way and Taylor last month to offer free downloadable coloring pages for people to enjoy during the pandemic. They’re also raising money for the First Responders Children’s Foundation. The art for the project has come from comic artists like Becky Cloonan, Mike Allred and Gabriel Ba; musicians like Frank Iero and Jordan Buckley; and many others.
Way’s contribution, titled “Pink Station Zero,” popped up on Friday. The description reads:
So here we are. The last page for Volume I. Gerard Way. There simply aren’t words. Gerard has advocated on behalf of art, in every form, every day for as long as we can recall. He is an incredible father & husband. He is everything one would ever ask for in a friend. He is unforgiving, in the best way, in his pursuit of creating. He is one of the best storytellers we will ever have the pleasure of knowing.
This piece, “Pink Station Zero”, is a character study he did for a comic that may come to life one day. It is an idea that he loves and that is very dear to him. This makes it even more special for him to share it with #tqcb first. Enjoy!!
Way would later share more about the project on Instagram:
I wanted to wait until people got to spend a few days coloring my @thequarantinecoloringbook contribution before revealing two colored versions of it. The first was done by the amazing @fatheadwilson, who colors a bunch of great comics. I had reached out to him and asked him to color the piece, called Pink Station Zero, and gave him a quick flat colored version I did as a guide to look at, which is the second image in the post.
I won’t reveal the title of the comic, but it is something I worked on day and night for a few months back some years ago. I was very much ready to go with the comic, which is a somewhat ongoing limited series, released about 6 issues at a time, over the course of some years. This image was an exploration of some of the characters from the comic, and I had a lot of fun coming up with 9 very different looking characters, all strong personalities. One of these agents went rogue, and one of them got killed, leaving room for the Earth person in the center to take their place. So I worked on this idea and wrote some script pages, super inspired. But when I reached out to the artist I had wanted to draw the book, they were booked up for a long time, and wouldn’t be able to draw it for years, so the idea went on the shelf. When I’m coming up with comics, sometimes I already envision who I want to draw it, based on the energy I think the story needs, and if that artist can’t do it, I tend to just shelve the idea until they are able to do it, or if I find another artist that grabs me, which I eventually did, but now it’s a matter of when I can write this, as I am in the middle of scripting the long awaited Volume 4 of the Umbrella Academy, which is my main focus and I’m very excited about that. But for now, enjoy these characters, and maybe you’ll see them in the future. I very much enjoyed seeing your colored versions of the piece, your interpretations, as I always enjoy seeing for the coloring book project. Take care and stay safe.
The characters look pretty fun, especially in this version colored by Matt Wilson:
…so hopefully one day we’ll get to see it. But hey, good news about the next Umbrella Academy, right?