Neil Sabatino and Shaun Simon, founding members of Pencey Prep, share a creative history rooted in the New Jersey music scene. That same scene is closely linked to the early My Chemical Romance era, including Frank Iero’s time in Pencey Prep and later Simon's comic book collaborations involving Gerard Way and Mikey Way. Their shared lineage now continues with the release of the graphic novel Open Caskets.

Long before Open Caskets became a graphic novel collaboration, its creators were already part of the same tightly woven New Jersey creative ecosystem that helped shape an entire generation of music and storytelling. The upcoming book, created by Neil Sabatino and acclaimed comic writer Shaun Simon, brings together two longtime collaborators whose shared history traces back to the early-2000s underground scene that surrounded the rise of what would become the My Chemical Romance era of alternative culture.

Sabatino and Simon were both founding members of Pencey Prep, the influential New Jersey emo punk band fronted by Frank Iero before he went on to join My Chemical Romance. Pencey Prep existed at a pivotal moment in the New Jersey DIY circuit—playing basements, VFW halls, and small venues that functioned as the connective tissue for a scene that would soon explode into broader cultural awareness. While the band’s lifespan was short, its place in that timeline has only become more significant in hindsight, as many of its members went on to shape projects that defined the era.

That same creative network would later extend into comics, where Shaun Simon became a key collaborator with Gerard Way. Together, they co-created the Eisner Award-Nominee The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, a project that expanded the narrative world first introduced alongside My Chemical Romance’s Danger Days era. Simon’s work with Way helped establish a new kind of crossover between music and comics—where storytelling didn’t just inspire songs, but continued across mediums in fully realized graphic narratives.

Simon also collaborated with Mikey Way on comic projects that further reinforced this overlap between alternative music culture and the comics world, strengthening the creative bridge that had been forming since the early 2000s New Jersey scene.

Now, Open Caskets reunites Simon with Sabatino, bringing the story full circle. Both artists have spent years developing separate paths—Simon in acclaimed comics work, Sabatino in independent music, publishing, and artist development through Mint 400 Records and DIY comic illustration—but their shared origin point gives the project a deeper context than a typical collaboration.

Rather than a nostalgia piece, Open Caskets feels like a continuation of a creative thread that began in the same rehearsal rooms and small venues that once incubated a generation of influential artists. It reflects a scene where boundaries between music, storytelling, and visual art were already blurred long before the wider world caught on.

For readers familiar with the interconnected New Jersey scene that surrounded the My Chemical Romance era, Open Caskets arrives as another chapter in a much longer story—one still being written across mediums, decades, and creative reinventions.

The book is a mix of Charles Addams type humor, horror plus surreal absurd themes and centers around a bunch of misfits in a support group sharing their stories. Simon and Sabatino release the book on June 30th, right on the heals of the June 26th Pencey Prep “Heartbreak In Stereo” (25th Anniversary Edition). Their book will be available at Amazon for Kindle, as a hardcover and softcover book and also absolutely free on the GlobalComix App.