REVIEW: BLOODBORNE: A Song of Crows #9 - The PLAGUE DOCTOR is IN!

So a mark for a good comic, IMHO, is that you can drop in at anytime,even if you are not following the run. If there is enough ”˜there“ there, in the writing, art, and context clues, you can get right in and believe in the stakes and significance of what you see. The classicÂ “one-shots“ of the past had that effect. Even if you are be a follower of a particular comic series, you might pick up a well-crafted ”˜one-shot“ and get hooked right there, ready to join into the larger ongoing story arc. For me this issue of Bloodborne succeed in doing just that. It“s tone – formed by the synergy of art and poetry – created a world that drew me in, and kept me there – even though I was not following this series beforehand. Moreover, this was a lyrical rather than an action-based story, and so the writing had to be elevated to a higher level to keep a reader in the ”˜headspace“ of a single character for 20+ pages ”¦ and that is exactly what it did. It was literally a work of poetry and art as one. The creative team of Ales Kot, Piotr Kowalski and Brad Simpson made the plague “sing”“ and that is a very artful trick to undertake.

First let“s consider the art. The images are richly portrayed, gory and nightmarish. There are numerous corpses, turned over by shovels, and there are intestines flayed out in ritual sacrifice, both human and animal. There is blood and nightmare imagery in great abundance. Our protagonists is veiled in a ”˜plague doctor“ mask with a long ”˜toucan-esque“ snout through most of the story. And aside the nightmarish confrontation with a past fear or present water-based haunting, there is almost no action or confrontation. The piece is literally a reverie. That is also why it is great. The text is spare and rhythmic, using silence and syllables to create a mood of dread and anticipation, and the artist is left to fill in every silence and description with panel after panel that matches, contrasts, or mirrors the rhythm of the text, often providing key visual information that the protagonist ”˜knows“ but does not speak aloud. In every way the art is part of the conversation and takes up the visual poetry in counterpoint to the textual reverie. We are told that this story is a ”˜Song of Crows”“ and the text is powerfully lyrical in its structure. A lesser artist could not have formed lush an elopement duet to the single voice of the script. In this book both artist and author are on equal footing and the synergy is magic!

The idea of allowing the entire text being a ”˜reverie“ ”” the internal thoughts of a single character ”” is a bold one for a comic book story. If it falls flat, there is not enough interest for the reader and the visual medium of sequential art is wasted, where a soliloquy or spoken poem would have been just as effective. But, the script of a comic is more that the words spoken. It is all of the visual material descriptions given for each panels over many pages, and one presumes that the script for this issue was extremely well crafted given how the number and size of the panels amplifies and gives space for the poetry. This is not a trick that can be pulled off indefinitely issue after issue, there needs to be more characters and fights and betrayals in any comic action series, but for a singe lyrical issue ”” this is a beautiful choice to risk and in this case it really pays off.

In some ways this book WAS that ”˜one-shot“ where you can be pulled in to a larger story, and that is just the effect it had on me. And it evoked one of my favorite ”˜one-shots“ of all time – “Wounded Wolf”“ by Chris Claremont and Barry Windsor-Smith in X-Men 205. (Two panels compared below):

Snow, Grisly Gore, and Inner Torment? Echoes of a ”˜Wounded Wolf“ in Bloodborne #9

The snowy lonely and gory atmosphere was similar to X-Men 205 and the affective pull to the reader to get drawn in and discover the world that haunts the hero was palpable as well. This is a high compliment from me, and the creative team of Bloodborne: Song of Crows deserves it. Great work creating atmosphere and intimacy in a grotesque and macabre storyline!

Gory and amazing art & poetic text with rotting corpses aplenty! A lyrical dark piece for macabre and historical horror fans. Review 5/5!

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(W) Ales Kot (A) Piotr Kowalski (CA) Jeff Stokely