Coffin Bound #4 // Review
Izzy is looking for new eyes to see everything that she's already seen. There's a vulture who is going to give her the eyes of a prophet. And the poetry is just WAY too easy when it's writing about Coffin Bound. The post-apocalyptic horror drama by writer Dan Watters continues into the final issue of its first book. Dani's art drips off the page in a cliffhanger conclusion as a woman looking for erasure final meets the EarthEater before the close of the opening book. The final issue of the first series lacks some of the delicious creepiness that opened the story. The drama takes center stage as Izzy confronts her past.
Izzy's kneeling on a kitchen floor wishing for complete erasure, but the vulture offers a fresh perspective on things that she's going to need. She's going to need to confront the fact that she can't simply vanish the way she might want to. So she's going to need the eyes of a prophet, to be able to see anything. Meanwhile, there's a woman from Izzy's past who is reluctant to accept her presence. There's a scuffle. Then the EarthEater arrives. There's no sense in running. Not for Izzy. She's been waiting for this.
The script bubbles and trickles along towards the end of the first book. It's very poetic stuff that Watters has put into motion in a series that's really very interesting, but by this point in the series, the pulse of the story seems a bit muddled. The deep, deep poeticism of Watter's narration and dialogue have all but submerged any sense of a coherent plot behind it all. The murkiness of the dark poetry is beautiful, but it's difficult to feel much empathy for the characters as everything is so completely covered in shadows.
The darkness of the shadows aren't just there in Watters' words. The darkness is there in Dani's art, as well. Deep blocks of black rest alongside scratches of darkness that feel kind of overwhelming in places. Dani's sense of composition in the layout is absolutely beautiful in places. Still, it's all kind of a loss in and amidst the poetic darkness of the story that feels intensely stylish without actually building-up to anything terribly compelling. Still... Izzy's frustrations flare out across the page in a very appealing way. The vulture's presence was initially something of a mystery, but by now it feels powerfully iconic--the skeletal bird head in a cage on a body draped in a trench coat as Izzy muddles by next to him. It's eerily beautiful stuff.
The showdown happens at issues' end without resolution. It's a rather sudden and abrupt end to something that had been building- up to that final meeting for the entire run of the series thus far. Izzy is a very compelling character caught between longing for oblivion and longing for something else altogether...a very distinctive character. It'll be interesting to see her return to the page next summer.
