Bob Schaefer of Dragon's Lair Comics & Fantasy in San Antonio, Texas saw Steve Bennett’s recent column (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Everything Comes Back") and wanted to make a correction about Gerard Way’s first published comic:

I was reading Steve Bennett's column and wanted to make a little correction.  He wrote, "It came as a nice surprise to find screenwriter Malcolm Wong hadn’t taken offense at my snotty “screenwriter comic dabblers” comment from a previous column (see “Screenwriter Malcolm Wong on ‘Dog Eaters’”), and it gives me a chance to address another comment from it that I had made about neophyte comic writers who learn how to write comics on the job (i.e. by writing comics).  When I wrote that, I had completely forgotten about Gerard Way; in his first attempt at writing comics he created The Umbrella Academy (a strong contender for my favorite comic of the year--so far anyway)."

Actually, Gerard Way's first comic was a book called On Raven's Wings published in the mid-90s by Hart Fisher's Boneyard Press.  Way (then credited as "Garry") was about fifteen years old at the time.  There’s a story about it on the Rolling Stone Website.

Other than that I agree with the points he made about comics made from obscure properties and what effect (if any) a celebrity's name on a comic has on sales.

Oh, and I hope he enjoyed Mamma Mia!

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