Welcome to Battery City, where the disease is the cure!

In My Chemical Romance’s critically acclaimed album Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, the Killjoys fought against the tyrannical megacorporation Better Living Industries. It cost them their lives, save for one—the mysterious Girl. Today, the followers of the original Killjoys languish in the desert while BLI systematically strips citizens of their individuality. As the fight for freedom fades, it’s left to the Girl to take up the mantle and bring down the fearsome BLI or else join the mindless ranks of Bat City!

“The original idea for the comic informed the record,” said Gerard Way. “The record helped refine the idea, and then Becky had done a drawing of the Girl for the single ‘The Only Hope for Me Is You’ and I saw it and thought, this is the comic. It’s basically the last video, it’s the last part of the Killjoys story, while at the same time being totally its own thing.”

“I think we have created a broad range of characters here,” said cowriter Shaun Simon. “A lonely teenage girl hiding from her past in the desert. A couple of android call girls wanting nothing more than to be together. An aging assassin with a secret that could destroy his life . . . Even though these characters are living in a bizarre sci-fi world, their struggles are the same we face in our own.”

“The world of the Killjoys is full of visual opposites—from sprawling deserts to urban junkyards—and a cast of characters to match,” said artist Becky Cloonan. “It’s been a challenge to encompass all of this in my art, but woven into the world building is a human spark that lights this story on fire and gives me so much to draw from.”

As announced at New York Comic Con, an early look into this world will be published as part of Free Comic Book Day 2013, with the first issue hitting stands the following month on June 6!

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Check out a full schedule of all the artists who will be on hand.

In a nearly lightless unisex bathroom in the Body English club at Las Vegas' Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Gerard Way, "My Chemical Romance" vocalist, creator of the Dark Horse Comics-published science fiction/superhero series "The Umbrella Academy" and MorrisonCon special guest, unpacked a shaving kit and stated what he loved most about the convention was the chance to have in-depth conversations with fans.

"I never get to do that. Usually, they truck everybody through," Way said, calling the convention an "amazing" change of pace. The comics creator/musician, who spoke on panels earlier that day with Morrison and fellow musicians Jimmy Urine and DJ Akira The Don, had really thrown himself into the convention spirit, extending his afternoon signing session from one to four hours and stretching his busy schedule to the limit in order to talk with fans.

Now on his way to a video filming, Way invited me to join him as he got ready. Minutes later, we stood in front of the bathroom mirror, chatting about Way's musical accompaniment to Morrison's 45-minute spoken word performance on Friday night as the rock star lathered up.

"I can't remember when the thing came about, but it was like, 'They're going to do a convention about Grant.' I was like, 'Whoa! That's really awesome,' because I can't remember the last convention they did based off an individual and their way of thinking," Way said.

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Flavor Of The Bleak: A brief Q&A with My Chemical Romance’s Frank Iero

Frank Iero is a huge fan of film director Tim Burton, so you can only imagine how ridiculously stoked the My Chemical Romance guitarist was when he was asked to contribute to the soundtrack-companion album for the remake of Burton’s first film, Frankenweenie. Iero’s track, “This Song Is A Curse,” feels like a collision of film composer maestro Danny Elfman’s aesthetics with Suicidal Tendencies’ bona fide punk classic “Institutionalized.” In June, Iero corralled MCR auxiliary players Jarrod Alexander (drums) and James Dewees (keyboards), producer/engineer Doug McKean and MCR guitarist Ray Toro (as co-producer) to record the song which appears on the iTunes edition of Frankenweenie Unleashed! (Music Inspired By The Motion Picture).

Jason Pettigrew caught up with Iero to discuss the roots of the project, the pursuit of new avenues and the dish on the new MCR album.  (Spoiler alert: Iero knows how it will turn out as much as you know exactly what’s going to happen to you on, say, October 17. Is that arbitrary enough for you?)

How did you get involved with the soundtrack?
Hmmm… I guess I kinda muscled my way into it. [Laughs.] Disney does these "inspired by" soundtracks and they originally approached My Chem to contribute. They were having a screening over at [their studios] and they said, “If you’re interested in doing something, come out and see the movie and see if you’re inspired to write a song.” Lauren [Valencia, MCR manager] knew I was a big fan of Burton’s, so she asked me if I wanted to go. I said, "I don’t know about the soundtrack thing, but I definitely want to see the movie." [Laughs.] When I finally saw it, I loved it: I thought it was his best in years. I think it might rival The Nightmare Before Christmas, which is one of my favorites. So I saw it, loved it, but didn’t really think about the soundtrack.

I didn’t think about the soundtrack until... maybe the next day or the day after? I was feeding the girls breakfast one morning and sometimes you make up songs to get your kids to eat. So I was humming a melody, and I thought, "Hmm, that’s kinda cool," and I started to think about the movie I’d just seen. Later, I approached [MCR], told them I went to see this thing and that I wrote this song if they want to do it. They were like, “Well, we’ll see. We’re doing the record now," and it kinda went to the back burner. I didn’t approach it again for a few months until the deadline was coming up. I approached the guys again and they said we didn’t have the time to do it. And I was like "Do you mind if I do?" I approached [the soundtrack producers] and asked if I could do the track. They got back to me over the weekend and the following week, I went into the studio and knocked it out.

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