In COFFIN BOUND #6 from Image Comics, Taqa must work to prove its very existence. But with the Vulture on her trail, can she live long enough to prove His existence? Find out in this strange work of existential dread in your latest Major Spoilers review!

COFFIN BOUND #6

Writer:  Dan Watters
Artist: Dani
Colorist: Brad Simpson
Letterer: Aditya Bidikar
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $3.99
Release Date: September 2nd, 2020

Previously in COFFIN BOUND: God isn’t someone you pray to, or if it is prayer, then injecting God into your veins is the surest way to commune with Him.  But in this strange, blighted city, there is an effort to ban God, so Taqa, a regular communicant, seeks to prove God’s existence, and thus ensure He continues to hold sway.  To do that, Taqa must summon the Vulture…

EXISTENTIAL MEDS

COFFIN BOUND #6 is one of those strange comics that will leave you scratching your head long after you’ve finished reading it, all the while impressed by the writing and artwork.  There’s an almost hypnotic power to Dan Watters’ writing, which wanders from strange allusions to outright bonkers poetry. But the writing, like the drug God, is an alluring presence throughout the issue.

Not so much a story as a series of powerful, but puzzling vignettes, COFFIN BOUND #6 is distinguished by the impact of its imagery.  Brad Simpson, inspired in part by the artwork of Frank Miller/Klaus Janson, provides some stunning images of a post apocalyptic city, drowning in rain and hail, populated by a legion of misfits.  His work is ably complemented by colorist Brad Simpson, whose work I have long admired.  COFFIN BOUND #6 would work wonderfully well as a black and white comic, but Simpson’s use of colors elevates the artwork to a new level.

INNER PIECE

COFFIN BOUND #6 really is a journey of discovery for the main character, Taqa, and the reader as well.  Taqa wants to prove the existence of God, who can be found in the barrel of a syringe.  There is a surrealistic section where a group of addicts, assembled in a derelict church, are preached to by a priest about the need to sacrifice for Taqa.  The sermon reminds us that we aren’t in Kansas anymore, that Taqa’s world is one where the expected order of things has been turned upside down into a gritty, rain drenched hellscape.

The terrors she faces are physical as well as of the mind, proving that Watters is interested in examining the interior lives of his characters as much as their physical well-being.  This provides some of the strongest writing and imagery of COFFIN BOUND #6, as Taqa, in a drug induced fugue, confronts a figure out of a literal nightmare.

Watters interest in the strange extends to the other characters featured in this issue, from the boxing trainer Polloy, a man with a caved in skull given to ruminating on existence, to Tatter, one of his boxers, who speaks in cod-Shakesperian about the nature of life, to Reginald, who has mastered the art of psychic torture, and is able to inflict pain on his victims at the merest suggestion.  It’s hard to know where COFFIN BOUND is heading, but it will surely feature more absorbing writing and outre characters.

BOTTOM LINE:  NOT FOR EVERYONE

There is a conventional narrative buried beneath the existential dread and strange imager of COFFIN BOUND #6.  But it feels that the issue exists solely as a vehicle for Watters’ take on life and existence, set against a harrowing backdrop of a hardscrabble existence in a world gone to Hell.  If you’re looking for a book filled with heroes doing heroic things, COFFIN BOUND #6 isn’t necessarily that book, but if you’re looking to be challenged, then this is the issue for you.

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Coffin Bound #6

93%

93%

Not for Everyone

In COFFIN BOUND #6 from Image Comics, Taqa must work to prove its very existence. But with the Vulture on her trail, can she live long enough to prove His existence? Find out in this strange work of existential dread in your latest Major Spoilers review!

• Writing

  8
• Art

  10
• Coloring

  10
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