James O’Barr did not have a pleasant childhood as he was orphaned at a young age, and the people who adopted him at the age of seven did not treat him very well. Later, his fiancé was killed in a drunk driving accident, shortly before their high school graduation. To deal with the intense pain and anger that resulted from this tragedy, he joined the Marine Corps and spent three years in Germany, and developed the idea for “The Crow” during his service in Berlin. O’Barr states this in an interview, when he says “I joined the marines after someone very close to me was killed by a drunk driver. I just wanted to stop thinking about it 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.” This project became a way for him to direct his feelings about his fiancé and her death. His work O’Barr expresses the love that two people can share and the agony and rage of loss. He suffered through an unhappy childhood, and then lost the person in his life that gave him the most hope, making it fairly easy to see why O’Barr created the dark outlook one sees when reading “The Crow” or watching the film adaptation. O’Barr is also a guitarist, and was heavily influenced by the bands The Cure and Joy Division in writing “The Crow”. These influences play deeply into “The Crow” and many of his other career works. O’Barr fashioned the book’s illustrations of Eric from Goth music influences: Bauhaus’s Peter Murphy, Joy Division’s Ian Curtis, and The Cure’s Robert Smith, all which were also heavily drawn into the film version (Brandon Lee’s wardrobe, look, and acting characterization). The film’s soundtrack featured “Burn”, written and performed especially for “The Crow” by The Cure as well as a cover of Joy Division’s “Dead Souls” performed by Nine Inch Nails. Along with the rock and drug cultures of the 1980s, O’Barr depicts his familiarity with Detroit in such incidents as the one depicted in “Lament: Fear and Pain,” in which Jones tells Eric that Tom Tom lived at the corners of “Gratiot and Ten,” and Top Dollar stays at the “Hotel Reno on Schaefer.” Schaefer and Gratiot are both streets in Detroit. Also, in “Book One: Pain”, a newspaper machine for the Detroit news is in the background, while in “Book Two: Fear,” an ad slogan used during the 80s to increase tourism to Michigan, “Say Yes to M!ch!gan!,” is found on Captain Hook’s desk.
Barr, James. The Crow. Gallery ; Special Edition (July 26, 2011). Print.
http://www.thecrow.info/granovel.htm
Interview With “The Crow” Author, Artist, Musician James O’Barr: “Let The Picture Tell The Story”
https://web.archive.org/web/20090113160346/http://www.angelfire.com/zine/darkdreams/crowbirth.html
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