Everybody knows that writer/author James O’Barr wrote his goth-punk masterpiece The Crow after seeing his girlfriend brutally murdered at the hands of a street gang. Right? Wrong. That’s one of the misperceptions addressed by O’Barr in the introduction to Gallery Books’ new The Crow Special Edition.
According to O’Barr, it was a tragic accident that inspired him to create his doomed anti-hero. A teenage O’Barr had let his car insurance lapse. Afraid to drive – he writes that the “cops knew [my] car on sight” – he called his girlfriend for a ride. She was struck and killed by a a drunk driver on the way to her car. O’Barr blamed himself for her death for years and began The Crow as a means of exorcising his anger and grief.
Published in the early eighties, O’Barr’s story of a man who returns from the dead to avenge his own murder and that of his fiance spoke to disaffected youth, outsiders and comic fans alike. Many people who didn’t normally read comic books made an exception for The Crow, and over time this small press title became a genuine cultural phenomenon. It spawned sequels, novels, a television series and several movies, the first of which, 1994’s The Crow, became linked with tragedy after star Brandon Lee died during production. In just a few years, The Crow had entered the mainstream. Its hero, Eric Draven became a Halloween costume standard alongside classics like Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster.
The series’ runaway success paved the way for later indie comic creators like Steve Niles, author of 30 Days of Night, who said, “Without The Crow, I’m convinced that independent comics would be a barren wasteland.”
The Crow Special Edition features several scenes cut from the original book, including a new closing segment and new scene, plus other lost sequences restored using O’Barr’s original techniques. If you were a fan of The Crow many years ago, or only recently came to this cult classic via the movies, this edition offers a great opportunity to experience its dark magic for yourself.
