You Look Like Death: Tales From the Umbrella Academy

What do you do when you’ve got a hit Netflix series based on a creator-owned comic, but the creators are too busy to deliver more (than one) new volume of the series?  Get some talented people to publish spin-off “Tales of” that series, that’s what!  That’s how we got “You Look Like Death,” which gives us the story of what Klaus, a.k.a. Seance of the Umbrella Academy, got up to after he was kicked out of the mansion years ago.  After bumming around town and robbing a well-heeled drug dealer, he figures that the best place for someone with his appetites, inclinations, and abilities is the City of Lights — Hollywood!  It’s where he can channel the spirits of long-dead stars to impress partygoers, and help out a scheming, faded starlet who has a stocked liquor cabinet and all the drugs our protagonist could want.  Except that the only thing Klaus wants at the moment is to figure out why he wound up in an old, art-deco restaurant with a writer after his last overdose.  It’s something he should figure out quick since he’s got a monkey vampire, looking to expand his empire and collect on a debt, after him.

I.N.J. Culbard provides the art for this series and it’s effortlessly stylish.  He doesn’t have the same loveable eccentricity of regular artist Gabriel Ba, but it’s impressive to see how he makes such a surreal world come together on the page.  Culbard’s Hollywood is one that recalls the 70’s with its faded sense of old-school glamour, but filled with young-up-and-comers looking to make their mark.  As well as a vampire amusement park that plays a significant role in the main story.  Culbard also makes the demons, gods, and hangers-on all look like they belong together which is no small feat in this oddball story.

Said oddball story comes to us courtesy of Shaun Simon, with creator Gerard Way providing the story.  While I had previously regarded Simon as the guy who sucked all the fun out of “The True Adventures of the Fabulous Killjoys,” he actually acquits himself better here.  There’s an endearing low-key quirkiness to the story as everyone takes the weirdness of the setting in stride, and things get plenty weird.  Klaus also makes a surprisingly engaging protagonist for someone who initially comes off as a self-absorbed drug addict.  He may still be those things by the end of the story, but it’s actually fun to see him start to care about others while delivering sarcastic put-downs to those who deserve it.  It’s things like that which make “You Look Like Death” good fun even if it’s not quite on the same level of the main series.  Still, if subsequent spin-offs maintain the level of quality seen here, then maybe the wait for vol. 4 won’t seem as interminable.