The Crow -Special Edition

The Crow (Special Edition)

James O’Barr
Titan Books
Paperback: 272pp
Dimensions: 258 x 170mm
Publication date: 5 August 2011
ISBN: 9780857687951
RRP £16.99 Buy now


After the murder of his fiancee by a vicious street gang, a man rises from the grave to wreak bloody vengeance upon those who wronged him. Fully remastered and revised by artist James O’Barr himself, the timeless story of The Crow (also made into the cult movie starring Brandon Lee) returns in a new author’s edition with over sixty pages of previously unseen material, including new story pages and deleted scenes from the original book!


I will admit here that I’ve only ever seen a couple of The Crow comics and never picked them up to read.  I did see the moview which was a little fun in places but bloody depressing -but no one promised there’d be Munchkins running around and singing in it so I got what I expected.


The back cover blurb reads:”When James O’Barr poured the pain and anguish of a personal tragedy into the drawings that comprise The Crow, his intensely cathartic story of Eris –who returns from the dead to avenge his and his fiancee’s murder at the hands of a street gang -resonated with readers around the world…”
You can see why.  The art is, in places, a bit “crude” but it does not detract from the storytelling. There are violent scenes.  Bitter sweet scenes.  Scenes that make you wince. Rather sweet scenes and some of the dialogue is rather unique given the context of the scenes it is spoken in.


There is nothing here that dates the book.  There are new story pages -pages deleted from the original series and more -over sixty pages of new art.


A fantastic cover and a fantastic story. When you think that there is probably a new generation out there that has never read the series you want to shout “READ THIS!!”


Superbly packaged and if you know any Goths or Emos this will do them for their birthdays or Christmas.