Review – Bone Parish #11 (Boom! Studios)

Bone Parish #11 Brings Us Closer to the End

Bone Parish #11 is perhaps the fastest-paced issue in the series to date, which is saying something. You can tell that the series is nearing its end because they’re starting to weave everything back around. Not that we’ll be happy to see this one go.

This issue is actually the second to last issue in the series. That means that everything needs to be tied up in a neat (or bloody) little bow before things finish. I think they can do that – especially considering all of the progress made during this issue.

Bone Parish #11 lives up to the expectations laid upon it from past issues. It’s intense, brutal, and has so many intricate plots and schemes weaving in and out of each other. The brutality at points is borderline grotesque, but it fits the tone of the series perfectly.

Writing

Now that the series is nearing an end, you can really see everything that Cullen Bunn was building to. There have been many twists and turns throughout the series, but none like what happened in Bone Parish #11.

I’m still reeling from some of the twists in this issue. Several of them Bunn had been building to for a while. So they weren’t precisely shocking…but they were shockingly dramatic despite that. Other twists lived up to their namesake.

This issue was all over the place – but in a good way. Every plot that has been in progress was touched upon here. From the stories covering the past to the plots happening in real-time. From the main plot to all of the subplots. It’s easy to forget how intricate this series had become until it was all placed neatly in front of us. Okay, the events themselves were anything but neat, but you get what I’m saying.

Throughout all of this, the tone for the series held true. It still read like a modern horror, with elements from the drug trade and the supernatural seeping in. Since it was the tone of the series that sold me, I’m grateful for that fact.

Art

Due to the fast-paced nature of Bone Parish #11, there were several changes in scenes and main perspectives. That would have been difficult to keep up with, but the creative team did a brilliant job of always making it clear when the setting had changed.

Jonas Scharf provided the lines for this issue, while Alex Guimaraes did the coloring, and Ed Dukeshire provided the lettering. Together they made this entire tale possible. They really pulled in the darker tones of the series – sometimes literally.

I loved the gothic influence in this issue. It combined well with some of the more graphic scenes. It made for an exciting duality, if nothing else. There were other, trickier things the artists had to portray in this issue as well. But talking about them would be spoilers.

Conclusion

Bone Parish #11 did a brilliant job of moving the plot forward. It’s begun to weave all of the plot lines back in together. Surely setting up for a theatrical conclusion to the series. I still have questions, and I sincerely have no idea what is going to happen before it ends. And I couldn’t be more excited to see what happens.

This review was originally written for Word of the Nerd, but has been ported over to Quirky Cat’s Fat Stacks now that the site has shut down.