The Crow

I’m sure you’ve heard of the five stages of grief before: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and transformation into a jacked, gothic vigilante prowling the city streets to get bloody revenge. This graphic novel is primarily concerned with the fifth stage.

CW: Sexual Assault, Drugs, Needles, Self Harm, Blood, Animal Harm (Horse tangled in barbed wire)

I want to start by saying I read the interview where O'Barr discusses who he started writing The Crow as a way to focus all his negative feelings after his girlfriend was killed by a drunk driver and that he acknowledges that it only made him feel worse. That's an awful thing to experience my heart goes out to him. We all process grief in different ways.

I haven't seen the movie in ages but I remember it being cringe (complimentary), but this is something else.

This might just be the most embarrassing thing I've ever read, but it's so unbelievably bad (with nice black & white art) I enjoyed it for a bit, but it's just so one note and show more monotonous in its hardcore edgelordiness.

Imagine Frank Miller, The Joker (Leto & Phoenix), The Chosen (Smosh), and the poet laureate of incels made like the most 'real, brutal, edgy, clever' thing ever. 'But you probably wouldn't get it.'

This is the apotheosis of fridging. The only significant woman in the entire comic is nothing more than a plot device. A perfect Madonna to be destroyed by brutal men and then horrifying violence done in her name, without any question of if she would want it.

I truly am sorry for O'Barr's loss and I appreciate that lots of people love this comic, but I just found it incredibly pretentious and shallow, while masquerading as incredibly deep. I can absolutely enjoy some mindless violence, wild refernces, and poetry, but this was obnoxious nails on a chalkboard for me and I hate it.

If this comic means a lot to you or you just love it, I love that for you. This is not something I'm interested in fighting about. show less

I really hated this comic. I know it's considered a classic, so I kept reading, waiting for it to get better.

Nope. Just more high school art and "I'm 13 and this is deep." dialogues. It's the first time I've really understood the adage "Show, don't tell." The monologues that were supposed to be heartbreaking were just whiny and boring. It was an exercise in teenage angst and violent surges of testosterone.

No, I don't care that some guy's wife died and he wrote it to get through his grief. I'm not his psychologist and my grief is is expressed in a vastly different way than his, obviously. I don't think I could spend more than two minutes with the 'heroes' in this comic before looking desperately for an exit.

I read most of the show more collections before I stopped. I glanced through the rest to see if there was something I was missing because ... Movie ... Everyone seems to love this ... WTF. show less

Since watching the 1994 film adaptation nearly 10 years ago, I’ve been in love with Eric Draven and his vengeance quest. The Crow has been my favorite graphic novel, since pretty much ever. It’s so dark and gritty, but also heart wrenching and beautiful at the same time. James O'Barr has such a unique art style compared to other comics at the time. It switches from hard, heavy lines in the present time, to light beautiful sketches when remembering the past.

This graphic novel really makes me feel throughout the whole book. There isn’t a second where I’m not either angry, or sad, or swooning over O'Barr’s art (and poetic writing style, for that matter). I feel so much for Shelly and Eric that it hurts. I root for Eric the whole show more time, and sometimes, even feel for the bad guys.

I will say, this may not be for everyone. There are things, darker things, in this gn that aren’t in the movie. There are drugs and violence, obviously, but there’s a lot of self harm, and more-than-just-references to rape. So, I’ve warned you. I will harbor no fault.

I will recommend this to anyone who’ll listen. I believe it’s a deeply important moment in standalone comic history. Go read it. show less

In his introduction, John Bergin writes, “One day you are going to lose everything you have. Nothing will prepare you for that day. Not faith… not religion… nothing. When someone you love dies, you will know emptiness… You will know what it is to be completely and utterly alone. You will never forget and never forgive….So, if anything, at least take this lesson from The Crow: think about what you have to lose.” The narrative served as J. O’Barr’s way to deal with his grief following a loss and he fills his story with images and poetry of pain and grieving. The Crow not only wants revenge on those who caused him pain in life, but on a world that would allow such pain to exist. O’Barr’s use of high-contrast black and show more white creates a certain film noir feel, much like Raymond Chandler’s work (itself referenced in Robyn Hitchcock’s “Raymond Chandler Evening,” which O’Barr quotes), helps to portray this bleak world where life is disposable. O’Barr portrays the Crow and other characters with overly large eyes, the better to make them more expressive, and the Crow himself appears androgynous in many scenes, unlike other male superheroes, so that what matters most about him is his pain rather than his manliness. His violent response is not an extension of masculinity, but, to paraphrase Thomas Szasz’s quote about insanity, the only sane reaction to a violent world. Finally, like Eastman and Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, O’Barr’s The Crow depicts violence and bodies in motion in a manner that would later pervade the comics of the 1990s, but that features a certain amount of restraint in the 1980s. Later artists like Rob Liefeld would exaggerate this style to the point of absurdity, but these early independent artists exercised a comparative level of restraint, using the art to tell the story rather than writing the story to showcase the art. show less

VIDEO VERSION:

The Crow by James O'Barr

The Crow by James O'Barr is a stark black-and-white graphic novel you can't talk about without mentioning the author's motives behind writing it. Although the story may be fictional, the soul of the book is painfully real and any proper discussion of the novel has to marry the reality with the fantasy.

James O'Barr grew up like many of us. He was an awkward outcast. Solitary. A loner. Isolated.

When he was in high school, a miracle happened. He met a girl. Not just any girl, but a beautiful, amazing girl who fell in love with him. Beverly Ann.

Beverly was his angel. A radiant princess who was out of his league. The kind of girl he wouldn't expect to notice he was alive and she picked him. She fell in show more love with him. At last, the universe had given him hope. Light. At last, the darkness was dispelled.

But of course, as those who are born into shadow know only too well, the universe can be cruel. Brutal. Merciless. Sometimes the light is only made brighter so the shadows can become darker. We are merely the fool jesters of a mad god king.

In 1978, James O'Barr's fiancée was murdered by a drunk driver.

Those of you who have never experienced the pain of such a loss can't imagine the silence of hate. Losing the only thing that matters to you doesn't fill you with sadness. It fills you with a fury no word has been invented to describe. An anger that can extinguish the sun.

The Crow was James O'Barr's catharsis. This book was his way of surviving and coping with a hurt that no one could ever hope to cope with. He has said himself, in many interviews, that creating the comic was no help. In fact, drawing each page seemed to be dragging him deeper into the darkness he was trying to escape.

He has encapsulated rage and sorrow and gingerly inserted them into the pages like a timebomb. There they sit. Entombed in coffin quiet. Awaiting you to ignite the charge.

The Crow tells the story of Eric Draven and his fiancée Shelly Webster. Both of them are senselessly murdered in a horrible act of random violence. For those of you who saw the 1994 movie with Brandon Lee in the eponymous role, that was an important plot point which was needlessly altered. In the movie, the couple is killed for defying eviction orders masterminded by a gang leader. Although the motive was not justified, there was a motive. In the book, there's no motive at all. Fate. Destiny. The wrong place at the wrong time. Such a key point makes the book that much more tragic.

The beauty of the Crow is that it applies to the lives of everyone. One day, one horrible, unforgettable day, we all experience the anguish of those we love being stolen from us.

The way we lose them doesn't matter. Illness. Accidents. Murders. Suicides. In the end, the only thing that matters is the fact that they are gone. That your life turns empty for the loss. That a light was extinguished too soon.

When you live that moment yourself, when that terrible day arrives, a book like The Crow will become the requiem of all the heartache you can't put into words.

Every line. Every image. The abyss in every drop of ink will become your voice when you no longer have the strength to speak.

There are books in this world that are not about plots or stories. Instead, they stand as testaments and masterpieces to articulate feelings you can't possibly express. The Crow is a master work of raw and unrefined emotion, giving a tangible form to the unmitigated rage of mourning.

My own life has a lot of strange connections to the Crow. In 1993, I was a stand-in for Jeff Imada on the film Double Dragon. Jeff had been the stunt coordinator of The Crow motion picture starring Brandon Lee as Eric Draven. Marc Dacascos, also a cast member of Double Dragon, went on to play Eric Draven in The Crow television series.

While writing my first novel, Michelle, the first girl to ever claim she loved me, committed suicide. Less than a year later, I discovered The Crow. Shelly. Michelle. Eric Draven and Eric Muss-Barnes. We were not so different from each other. Sometimes, on bad days, it could be difficult to remember which one of us was real and which one of us was fiction. Which one of us didn't exist? Exist is a nebulous term, is it not?

20 years later and sometimes it's still hard to tell.

This isn't a book review like you were expecting but The Crow isn't merely a book. The Crow is quite literally the personification of bereavement. Lamentation given a tangible form.

The Crow will be a story you can relate to like no other. Someday. If you haven't lived through the torture of losing someone you love, it will happen. Next year. Next decade. Twenty years from now. But sooner or later, that day shall arrive for you, as it arrives for all of us.

On that day, Eric Draven will become your dark angel too. Your pain will be the razors he carves into his skin. Your heartbreak will reflect back into your eyes through the black wings of The Crow.

On that fateful, fateful day...

The Crow won't be a book.

The Crow won't be a story.

The Crow will be your salvation.

And sometimes, just sometimes, The Crow can bring your soul back, to put the wrong things right. show less

The artwork of this series is beautiful, but I'm not quite sure what to make of the storyline. The major themes revolve around senseless violence and justified vengeance, but more than anything this book is an example of everything that is wrong with humanity. Depravity has become the norm so much so that the only real answer seems to be revenge and justice carried out on an individual level (which I have a hard time thinking is right). Then again, when I think more on the topic of our current justice and punishment system I am struck by the fact that it clearly isn't doing much to help the situation. Many escape the system entirely, and those who are imprisoned are surround by other with similar negaive tendencies therefore feeding show more into a cyclical system of criminal networking and tacit encouragement of those who are negative. show less