Young Animal//GateCrashers Unearthed

Hi, this is Dan McMahon. I’ve been putting this whole Young Animal//GateCrashers project together for awhile. Up first, throughout the project I will be making donations to different organizations in honor of the project. To start things off, we have donated $100 to TGI Justice. TGI Justice Project is a group of transgender, gender variant and intersex people–inside and outside of prisons, jails and detention centers–creating a united family in the struggle for survival and freedom. If you are able, please donate as well!

I do regret to inform you but I have to bow out of the project. Things have come up and I’m just too busy with work and life. I’m so sorry that I have to exit the project but I found someone to run the show. Actually, he found me. A strange letter arrived under my front door one evening which is odd because I live in an apartment building. What was weirder is that there was some dirt smudges on it. Like real big ones as if this letter was dug up. ANYONE. I’m sorry. Turning it over to your new host to a world of comics for dangerous humans… 

Deep in the darkest corners of the Pine Barrens of New Jersey lies a graveyard. It’s not a normal Graveyard (As if any Graveyard is normal) but this one is a little bit different, weirder, stranger…

Now, you see reader, this is an IP graveyard. A graveyard for Young Animal , an imprint from Detective Comics Comics. A line that was the home of a group of titles that were unlike anyone else’s on the shelves at that time. These colorful pages were filled to the rafters with weirdos, freaks, and characters struggling with their identities.

You, too, may be thinking that you’ve felt like those words apply to you. Honestly if you’re here, you’re most likely one of us. A dangerous human looking for a place where they can feel like they belong. That is what DC and Gerard Way’s Young Animal was. A place for those who maybe didn’t feel like the every fully fit in anywhere else. But here, among these books, they found their place.

You crashed through the gates of this place, this graveyard for dangerous comics. Comics that have the strength to make you question some things, to identify with the misfits, and maybe even the power to be yourself. That is powerful, that is a weapon. See these comics were MEANT to find you. I was meant to find you. 

Who am I?

Good question, answer is a bit muddy. I’ve gone by a lot of different names. Names have power though so instead I’ll give you this, a nickname.

A cruel name I’ve been labeled with because of my profession, no, my life’s mission. They call me the Grave Robber. They call me that because they don’t understand but you will.

I believe you’ll understand.

What I do is open graves. I dig off all that dirt that pins down the lids that hold these wayward souls that just wanna stretch their legs. You see, ideas can’t die. There is a grave here for each of the books that once lived under this imprint. You’ve got your Doom Patrol, that’s a mass grave because that bad boy held in so many misfits. There is also that plot over there, sloshes a bit because it leaks milk… you’ll learn about the Milk War soon enough. We got them all but…

I did dig a hole for Green Lantern but it seems as if she breached the source wall into continuity. Lucky duck but we can still celebrate her too! 

Before I let you go to roam around this Graveyard slash Playground, I want to talk to you about death. I know, a nice bright and cheery subject to get this whole thing kicked off in style.

Death and Comics, heck if we want to get all pretentious about it, DEATH AND ART. These things shake hands and kiss on the lips constantly. They both always exist. They influence one another, change one another, and challenge each other. But the thing is, nothing REALLY dies in all of this. Superman died, it was on the news. Everyone saw it. But he got better. The thing about these things is that comics touch people. The ideas and themes imprint onto their hearts and minds.

When you take an idea from comics and art, that stays with you. It can mold your personality or inform you of something you weren’t aware of before. It’s a window into a world so unlike your own. Those feelings stay with you forever. They become apart of you and in turn apart of your art. So on and so fourth. The act of creation in any form is like an elaborate Rube Golberg machine that you will never see the end of. One thing leads to another, another creation, another person inspired… so on and so on and so on.

That’s what this project is. A collection of art, writing, and all sorts of things in between that were inspired by the series that now are unearthed all around us in this graveyard. Over the next few weeks…months…years… we will be posting beautiful things created by those dangerous people. So hey, lay down and mark a grave. The party has JUST begun and I don’t want you leaving me too quickly.

XOXO

The Grave Robber