The Crow - James O'Barr - 1981

In the deluge of the late 1980s independent comic boom, James O’Barr’s Crow rose to the top of the tide. With its often brutal, unabashed angst and deeply emotional introspection, it captured the imagination of a generation of comic readers and presaged the mainstream emergence of many of the "Goth" and "Emo" motifs in the 1990s and beyond.

Like many independent creators, O’Barr worked over an extended period of time on his brainchild before it ever saw the light of day in print. Though the very first published segment of the Crow was not released until 1989 in Caliber Presents #1, O’Barr began working on the story at the start of the decade. This page featuring a large image of the protagonist Eric accompanied by a hand lettered title header is one of the very earliest pieces that O’Barr produced. According to James O'Barr, “This was one of the very first Crow drawings from 1981 and was intended for an ad piece but never used.”

This is a significant and impressive example of O’Barr’s work on the character with a huge portrait of Eric likely out sizing any of the images that saw print. Additionally, the sub-text of “Ephemeral Terror / A Love Story” perfectly captures the tone of the tale which constantly walks a precarious path between crushing horror and tenderness. This piece has an image area of approximately 13.75" x 21.5".

The Crow is simply my fav comic book story ever !!! ;) What's yours ?