Mauled To Death is a strangely hilarious taxonomy of the fan culture around Darth Maul

‘Despite what it may provisionally look like, the book you are holding is categorically not a book about Star Wars,’ writes J.A. Bæblade on the first page of Mauled To Death, his extremely odd photo-zine which collects cultural ephemera of Darth Maul, the iconic villain from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. What began as a weirdo project in the throes of lockdown, when J.A. had decided to peel off every piece of Maul-related media on the internet, accidentally turned into a sprawling and stylish zine that comments on the power and proliferation of fandom culture.

Knock-off merchandise, brand crossovers, cosplayers, fan art depictions, Darth Maul tattoos and face paint – it’s all in here. It speaks to the popularity of Star Wars, the (the ‘bloated Disney-owned franchise’ as J.A describes in the zine), that just one character could amass such an avalanche of cultural cache, in all of their low-res JPEGs, plush dolls and flowery pieces of fan art (some of which where he appears uncharacteristically in love with other iconic characters).

“As a mid thirties millennial, Darth Maul is an icon from a nostalgic period in my life,” shares J.A. “Prior to the film’s release, his face was completely inescapable due to the gargantuan marketing campaign where they teased his face on every possible surface imaginable for what felt like years before the movie came out, but the title character had two speaking lines and just over 6 minutes of screentime before being sliced in half.” For J.A., the popularity of Darth Maul speaks to the turn of the millennium’s rampant consumer culture, part of which has been frozen in amber by this ambitious zine, which is surely the most unique coffee table book you could possibly own.

As a taxonomy of Y2K aesthetics, J.A.’s presentation is clean and simple with brief cultural essays by Josh Baines and Kyle Turner inserted in between, offering education on the augmentation of consumer products. But the images themselves are uncomplicated, exhibited only with their inherent absurdity for the viewer. “I was kinda overwhelmed by the amount of Maul content there was out there – a Darth Maul George Bush, a crude drawing of the Darth Maul Shrek...But it was when I started reading through the hundreds of fan fiction short stories – often of a pornographic nature – that blew my mind,” says J.A.

A turning point in the entire process was when J.A. came across an essay on Medium by the aforementioned New York-based writer Kyle Turner titled Darth Maul, Queer Icon: On Seeing Your Honest True Self in a Sith Lord which “perfectly details Turner’s own experience of attaining an understanding of his own sexuality through the cool, merciless enigma”. Fandom has always existed, but due to the internet, fan attitudes have become granular and sifted through every crack of culture – it’s a bizarre (but sometimes wonderful) experience finding a fanfiction between Harry Styles and Barack Obama, believe it or not – because it speaks to the imaginative cross pollination of media and the personal attachments we create with it.

Pop culture is a strange creature, but through this zine, the viewer gets up close to seeing just how odd and varied one single movement within it all can be. “Mauled to Death is more about the phenomena of fandom (collecting plastic toys or drawing, writing, cosplay), as it is about Darth Maul,” says J.A. “I used Darth Maul as my springboard into this area, which is quite foreign to me to be honest, but I have a lot of admiration for the folk artists making and sharing this work.”