In 2021, Rock musician and comic creator Mikey Way released his second studio album with his band Electric Century. The self-titled record is also receiving a graphic novel adaptation published by Z2 Comics. Electric Century follows a washed-up, former child star named Johnny who has to overcome his battles with addiction to rescue himself and his girlfriend from a psychedelically nightmarish vision of 1980's Atlantic City. Way is joined on the graphic novel by lifelong friend and collaborator Shaun Simon and artist Toby Cypress.
In an exclusive interview with CBR at New York Comic-Con 2021, Way and Simon revealed the origins of the graphic novel adaptation and their partnership with Z2 Comics. The pair praised Cypress' artwork on the project and explained how the comic book perfectly complements 2021's Electric Century album. Also included with this interview is a preview of Electric Century, with artwork by Cypress and lettering by Justin Birch.
When you were preparing the Electric Century album, did you always have it in your back pocket that you wanted to adapt it into a graphic novel?
Mikey Way: I didn't actually!
We started writing songs for the second Electric Century album right around the time we were working on the first. There are one or two songs that became something else off this album. We had a couple of songs and I can't recall if they made it on the album. We were writing for our second album record and sometime within the process, Z2 approached me because I've been friends with Josh Bernstein for a bit and he works at Z2. He sent me some of the stuff they were working on. I thought it was really cool and he thought we'd be a perfect fit and we had a call. I was blown away by what they had to say because it was very scary and ambitious and I thought it would work well because, with Electric Century, I wasn't planning on touring for it. I just had a kid and I really wanted to focus on that and didn't want to tour on the album. I thought this was a fun way to give this a creative, new life.
You and Shaun have been friends for a long time. What was your creative shorthand like working on this?
Shaun Simon: We've been friends for so long it's like working with one of your best friends. We're just hanging out, running ideas by each other. I say something and Mikey takes it and elevates it and it goes back-and-forth until we have this story. It's really one of the best collaborations whenever I work with Mikey or Gerard [Way] because we're friends at heart. We come together because we love doing this and love each other and it's just a good time.
Way: When My Chemical Romance first started, we were in a van and me and Shaun would sit together on the backseat bench, and Gerard would sit by us. We would make each other laugh telling stupid stories, talking about comics, and sometimes just talking gibberish. It really got us through because some of that early touring experience is treacherous. When you're a band trying to slug it out, it's not easy. You've got to keep each other sane and one of the things we did to stay sane was to tell each other stories.
In terms of elevation, how is it working with artist Toby Cypress and seeing that those beautiful pages come in?
Way: They sent me his art and I knew that this was the guy.
Simon: Toby is someone I always wanted to work with and when Mikey was talking to the guys at Z2 and asked me if we wanted to do another book together, Josh at Z2 sent us a list of artists. Toby's name was on there and I told Mikey we needed to find this dude because he is the guy for this book. He came on and just blew us away. He's so kinetic and full of energy in his coloring. Just his style alone, there's no one like that right now. He takes the script that we wrote and elevates that to a whole new level too.
This book follows its protagonist Johnny on this psychedelic magical mystery tour. What does Johnny personify in regards to the music and lyrics in the story?
Way: If it's a theme park ride, he's taking the reader on a journey. It's good to cheer for an underdog and he's definitely an underdog. He had it all and lost it all, themes that a lot of people can relate to. To me, he's relatable on some levels -- he's a child star and that's not very relatable.
Simon: Yeah, but there's the idea of redemption and his journey from going to being a total narcissist to realizing that maybe not everything is about him. That's a journey that he takes and that's also a journey that you go on listening to that record, with the underdog coming up, whether you're beating addiction or overcoming narcissism. Whatever kind of issue, there is a redemption quality to that. I think that's what you find in the book, maybe not necessarily following the record lyric-to-lyric, but I think the overall themes in it tell that story.
Now that both the album and graphic novel are done, how do you see them complementing each other, and how does the graphic novel articulate some of the themes in a way the music may not have been able to get across?
Way: It's completely ambitious what Z2 does. In essence, you're making a soundtrack for your story. People probably think about it but we actually went and did it. I think people like to listen to music while they read comic books and I feel like this scratches both itches, it's something to listen to while you're reading this particular comic. In this case, it works as a soundtrack and it's something to listen to while you're reading the story. I always used to when I was reading comics, listening to Iron Maiden, and I hope people do with this too.
Written by Mikey Way and Shaun Simon and illustrated by Toby Cypress, Electric Century goes on sale November 2021 from Z2 Comics and is available to preorder now.