Gerard Way was born April 9, 1977 in Summit, New Jersey to Donald and Donna Lee Way. He was raised in Belleville, New Jersey and first began singing publicly in the fourth grade, when he played the role of Peter Pan in a school musical production. His maternal grandmother, Elena Lee Rush, was a great creative influence who taught him to sing, paint, and perform from a young age; he has said that "she has taught me everything I know".

At the age of 15, Gerard was held at gunpoint, as he said in an April 2008 Rolling Stone interview: "I got held up with a .357 Magnum, had a gun pointed to my head and put on the floor, execution-style." He went on to say that "no matter how ugly the world gets or how stupid it shows me it is, I always have faith."

Gerard Way attended Belleville High School until he graduated in 1995. Deciding to pursue a career in the comic-book industry, he attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1999.

Music

Way was working as a comic book store clerk in New York City during the September 11, 2001 attacks. Seeing the effects of the attacks first-hand prompted Way to change his views on life in the following weeks. He told Spin magazine, "I literally said to myself, 'Fuck art. I’ve gotta get out of the basement. I’ve gotta see the world. I’ve gotta make a difference.'" To help deal with the emotional effects the attacks had on him, Way wrote the lyrics to the song "Skylines and Turnstiles", which has since been identified as the first song by My Chemical Romance. Soon after, My Chemical Romance began to assemble as a band.

In many interviews Way has stated that music turned out to be an effective outlet to deal with his longtime battles against depression, alcoholism and prescription drug use. The use of music as a way to resolve personal battles has caused Way to create deeply personal songs such as "Helena," which was written in memory of his late grandmother.

In early 2009, Way and Japanese rock singer Kyosuke Himuro co-produced the new theme song for Advent Children Complete, the Blu-Ray director's cut of the movie sequel to the popular video game franchise, Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. He is also credited with writing the lyrics, and singing alongside Himuro. The song is entitled "Safe and Sound," and according to Himuro's website, will be available on iTunes on April 29, 2009., "Safe and Sound" is only heard on the Japanese release of the film; the English release uses Himuro's "Calling" (the original ending theme for Advent Children) in place of it.

Writing

Gerard Way's first attempt at writing a comic was at the age of 16, writing a short-lived comic series called 'On Raven's Wings', which was cancelled after Issue 2 due to losing the art team; he was credited as Garry Way.

In 2007, Way began writing the comic-book miniseries The Umbrella Academy. Way wrote the story and illustrated the original version, but cartoonist Gabriel Ba recreated all of Way's original drawings in the final version. A few of Way's first drawings of the characters can be seen in the last few pages of the first book in the series, "The Apocalypse Suite".

The Apocalypse Suite was first released by Dark Horse Comics in their Free Comic Book Day issue on May 5, 2007. Since then, an eight-page story has been published on MySpace, entitled "Safe & Sound". The first official issue was released on September 19, 2007. The first issue to sell out and consequently there was a second printing released on October 17, 2007. The next installment was released on November 26, 2008.

He and fellow artists Shaun Simon and Becky Cloonan are currently in the process of developing and creating a new comic-book series titled "The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys", which Way announced at Comic Con 2009.

Cartoons

In 2001 Way co-created a cartoon with Joe Boyle called The Breakfast Monkey. They pitched it to Cartoon Network, but the network declined to pick up the concept on the grounds that it was too similar to the existing property Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Way has struggled with alcoholism and prescription drug addiction for many years and has now been sober since August 2004.

On September 3, 2007 after a concert in Colorado, Way got married to LynZ of Mindless Self Indulgence backstage on the final date of Linkin Park's Projekt Revolution tour. A member of Live Nation's touring staff that was also an ordained minister performed the low-key ceremony. He currently lives with his wife in Los Angeles, California. Their daughter, Bandit Lee Way, was born in California on May 27, 2009.