The first five albums cover the story of two androids named Coheed and Cambria and their son Claudio's journey to bring forth the end of the worlds. The Afterman is a story on it's own but in the same universe hundreds of years before C&C about the guy Sirius Amory who discovered how the galaxy they live in works. This as close as to 'Plain and Simple' as I can describe it.
Thank you! That helps. I didn’t realize The Afterman is a separate story. It’s odd - although I totally fit the profile of your average graphic novel enthusiast (i.e. sci-fi fan, ex-math-major and all-around geek), I’m not big into comics or gaming or that sort of thing. I do, however, like progressive rock music (if that’s what you call it), and wonder why Coheed & Cambria’s CDs are classified as punk when I import them into iTunes. To me, punk will always be bands like the Sex Pistols (who I’m old enough to remember), so I have a hard time thinking of C&C in that way.