Comic Title: Animal Man TPB
Publisher: DC
Cover Date: 1991
On Sale Date: July 23, 1991 Shipping Date July 23, 1991
Source: Previews, #29

Direct Market Date July 25, 1991
Source: Comic Shop News, #204, #209, #210

Cover Price: $19.95
Page Count: 240
Editor: Michael Charles Hill

See Also: The Guide to Graphic Novels and Collected Editions

Title: "The Coyote Gospel"
Pages: 24

Feature(s):
Animal Man (Post-Crisis)

Writer: Grant Morrison
Penciller: Chas Truog
Inker: Doug Hazlewood
Letterer: John Costanza
Colorist: Tatjana Wood

Reprinted From:
Animal Man #5 (1988)

Feature Character(s)

• Animal Man (last appearance in Animal Man #4; next appearance in Animal Man #6)

Supporting Character(s)

• Cliff Baker (last appearance in Animal Man #4; next appearance in Animal Man #7)
• Ellen Baker (last appearance in Animal Man #4; next appearance in Animal Man #8)

Villain(s)

• A truck driver (no further appearances)

Other Character(s)

• Crafty (a coyote; dies in this story; no further appearances)
• Carrie (a hitchhiker; dies in this story; no further appearances)
• Crafty's creator (no further appearances)

Synopsis:
A truck driver picks up a hitchhiker in the desert who is heading for Los Angeles. On the road, the truck strikes a coyote and drives away. The coyote survives and regenerates its damaged body.

A year later, the truck driver returns to the desert to hunt the coyote. During that year, his friend was run over by a truck, he lost his job, and his mother died of cancer. However, when the hitchhiker was killed, the driver blamed the coyote whom he sees as a devil.

He finds and shoots the coyote who falls off a cliff and is crushed by a boulder. However, the coyote survives it all including a dynamite blast which also injured the driver.

Animal Man is flying overhead and lands to investigate. The coyote hands him a scroll. The scroll explains that the coyote came from a cartoon universe where violence prevailed. He petitioned the god of that universe for peace. The coyote was sent to the real world to suffer in exchange for peace in his world. However, the writing on the scroll is unreadable by Animal Man.

The driver recovers from his injury and fires on the coyote with a silver bullet. The coyote finally dies in the crossroads with Animal Man looking on in confusion.