Rating: 
Summary: Untitled
Review: For anyone who's lost someone they love to some form of horrific trajedy, this is the book for you. The images take you back to that dark lonely corner, as the foreward puts it...it's when your soul dies, but you're still left breathing. Perhaps the greatest difference between the comic book and the movie is how the crow acts as the main characters conscieosnous. No matter how much it hurts, we're always revisiting our old painful memories.
Rating: 
Summary: A Decent Book
Review: Personally, I'm no big "Crow" fan, and there's definitely a lot of people who are really "into" everything that this book is about. So, if you're more inclined toward "goth" reading material, you're probably way more likely to be into this book.
Personally, I'm not goth by any means, and I picked this one up for no specific reason, mainly because I hadn't read it, and I figured since it had been made into a movie it couldn't be all that bad. But, I'm not really infatuated with the whole "dark" or "goth" aspect of the book, so I probably don't take that into account when I look at it.
In terms of writing, the book is okay. Some of the lines are a little on the corny side sometimes ("I know pain at the molecular level...it pulls at my atoms...sings to me in an alphabet of fear...") but most of the time they aren't bad at all, and don't detract from the narrative of the story. The story kind of weaves around and doesn't flow in any concentrated order (as it does in the movie) so if this is your first exposure to the story, a re-read or two might be necessary to pick up all of the general events of the storyline.
Artistically, the book is well done. By the end of the book, the art has developed leaps-and-bounds since the beginning. Overall, the art takes a surprising amount of influence from Will Eisner, surprisingly, and a bit of Steve Bissette, Dave Sim (especially in layouts and story setup) and a lot of the late-70's-ish, early 80's american comics crowd.
The movie probably did a lot better handling the story in terms of visuals and narrative flow, but the book seems to give a lot more one-on-one character interaction with the reader.
The only detraction to me is that Eric's motivations just don't feel too realistic to me. Perhaps O'Barr may have made a mistake in holding the murder scene until late in the book, because prior to that I find so much of the emotion almost unbelievable. At the same time, the book almost bogs down a bit from having a few pages of a fantastic action scene accompanied with some nice dialogue (or even a bit of a monologue) then is interspliced with a few too many pages of Eric sort of crying in a fetal position or something like that. All of which brings to mind, for me, mental images of pretentious goth teenagers.
Frankly, though, I'm willing to begrudge O'Barr his faults here, because this book as far as I'm aware is one of the earliest comic books to use the "goth" theme on a semi-mainstream level. So, buy it for the excellent art, decent story and value as a graphic novel. Or if you like the movie. It's a flawed work, but contains much promise.
Rating:
Summary: Art
Review: I have been a fan of "The Crow" for years and believe it to be one of the greatest graphics novels ever inked. The pain reflected in the story line is monumentous. It took a man on the edge of sanity to write something this. I feel that J. O'Barr has written something here that may never have an equel in its field.
Rating:
Summary: A Love Story masterpiece
Review: It took me seven long years to finally find this novel. When I recieved it in the mail and openned it up, I was not dissapointed. As a matter of fact, this is the only piece of art (movies, books, etc.) that has ever really made an impression on me.The story is a classic love and revenge story. Man and woman who are deeply in love are both murdered and man comes back to life to avenge their murder. However, James O'Barr has written this story with such a passion(this story is loosly based on his own personal tragedy). It's as if he bleed his soul on paper and put it into book form. However, this book should be read with a slow pace. It is easy to miss some of the smaller things in this book. I made the mistake of reading it fast. I went back and read it slowly and it was five times better. A must read if you are into a. Comics b. Love Stories or c. Poetry
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