James O’Barr
Writer and artist James O’Barr conceptualized The Crow in the early 1980s as a response to a personal tragedy. A self-taught artist, James has been inspired by such diverse sources as the works of French poets George Bataille and Antonin Artaud, the music of punk artists Ian Curtis and Iggy Pop, and the stories of Lewis Carroll and Edgar Allen Poe. James conceived the character of The Crow as a supernatural force driven by equal parts of love and revenge to avenge the violence that claimed his life and love. Visually, James’ unique and explicit black and white vision of an inner city battle between the forces of good and evil draws from classical Renaissance sculpture and 1940s crime films.
"After someone very close to me was killed by a drunk driver, I joined the Marines. I just wanted to stop thinking and have some structure in my life. But I was still filled with such rage and frustration that I had to get it out before it destroyed me. One day I just began drawing The Crow; it came pouring out. My character Eric is able to return from the grave because some things just cannot be forgiven; and I believe that there could be a love so strong that it could transcend death, that it could refuse death, and this soul would not rest until it set things right.
“Writing The Crow didn’t help at all,” James adds. “I thought it would be cathartic, but as I drew each page, it made me more self-destructive, if anything. There is pure anger on each page, little murders. I was more messed up by the time I was done with the book. There was a rumor going around when there was a delay between the third and fourth issue that I had committed suicide. I was annoyed by that, because God’s had his elbow on my neck for this long, I feel I can stick it out. I’m not ready to put a period on that sentence yet.”
No stranger to life’s down side, James was raised in institutional and foster care in Detroit. After serving several years in the Marines, he returned to Detroit where he took a series of odd jobs while trying to sell his book. Finding all doors closed to him, he shelved his work for seven years. Finally, Caliber Press, a small independent publisher, released the first issue in 1989 and three more
installments followed before the series was ended due to financial problems. During that time, James also painted covers for other Caliber titles, including the popular Deadworld.
James finished his urban allegory when Kevin Eastman’s Tundra Publishing released the series as a trilogy in 1992, with the first two issues reprinting the material published at Caliber and the third
volume being all new material that completed the story. O’Barr finished telling the story of The Crow when the third chapter, entitled “Death,” appeared in May of that year.
James’ dark, disturbing portrait of inner city life attracted the attention of producer Jeff Most when writer John Shirley first showed him The Crow in 1989. Jeff soon teamed with veteran producer Edward R. Pressman to turn The Crow into a major motion picture. The Crow features the extraordinary final performance of the late Brandon Lee. Brandon’s haunting work, which he called the most challenging of his career, is the centerpiece of this visually stunning film, which became a #1 box-office hit in its first week of release.
“I always saw The Crow as a fixed story, never a continuing character like in the superhero books. With every one of the people Eric kills who perpetrated the crime against him and his fiancee, he is erasing his reason for being.” O’Barr credits his distinctive visual style to his study of classical Renaissance sculpture, ‘40s noir crime films, as well as two years of medical school.
