One day you are going to lose everything you have. Nothing will prepare you for that day. Not faith...not religion...nothing. When someone you love dies, you will know emptiness...you will know what it is to be completely and utterly alone. You will never forget and never ever forgive. The lonely do not usually speak as completely and intimately as James O'Barr does here in this book - so, if anything, at least take this lesson from "The Crow": think about what you have to lose.

If you are someone who has nothing to lose, than you are already here...and your lesson is a much more difficult one.
I have sat next to my friend James through many comic book conventions and I've listened to his half-truth answers to questions like: "Where did you get the idea for 'The Crow'?" and "Why did you do this story?" He would always say something about it being based on a true story - something he read in the newspaper about a young couple murdered in Detroit, or he would say something about the influences of great comic book artists like Will Eisner or Vaughn Bode, and sometimes he would talk about all the inspirational musical influences from Joy Division and The Cure to Big Black and Pitch Shifter. So many stories and explinations, but only half of the whole story. James did this book because he died inside, but found he was still breathing. "The Crow" comes from some lonely void far beyond the pain, sorrow, and words. This book you are holding was a place for James to put all the rage and anger he felt at having someone he loved torn away...and it is an attempt to find order and justice where there is none...for some things there is no forgiveness...absolutely none. That hard fact is impossible to learn to live with. The event - the split second of time that brought you to this lonely place - cannot be forgiven, no matter how inevitable it was. It took away the future and it ended everything, except for this: the emotional inertia of a relationship. That is forever and it is all that you have left. Learn to live with that. Influence it. Access it. James wrote a love letter called "The Crow." The most beautiful love letter I have ever read...a dream, a vision, and a real place to recover something that was lost.

You will find a quote in A. A. Attanasio's afterword which reads, "The hand is no different from what it creates." There is no introduction more fitting for "The Crow". This book is James' ceremony...a message to you and me. Listen closely...

Copyright 1995 Kitchen Sink Press

Used without permission, but with the hope that all sins can be forgiven...