After a nine month hiatus, Coffin Bound returns this week with issue #5, and with it comes the poetic, vivid, and often deeply interesting identity that so marks its unique nature. Plus it’s hilarious at opportune times. It’s a series about living in the face of death and coming to terms with self-destruction. The fifth issue, which begins its next story arc, is the type of reading that will have you staring off into the distance trying to make sense of its purpose setting forth a new adventure apart from the book as you seek to find meaning in yourself.
On the credits page, Coffin Bound opens with the quote, “Faith is…not the immediate inclination of the heart, but the paradox of existence” from Soren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. We then open on dark whisps, text to think on, and finally Taqa laying in some refuse inside a church. Soon after, police are rushing in and beating these the churchgoers who are more like squatters, and they speak as if from a Shakespearean play. The scene plays out, the conflict averted for the time being, and we learn these people are seeking “God’, a word they use to mean drugs.
The cover to issue #5.
Credit: Image Comics
Over the first six pages, there are many things to decipher, to somehow make sense of, and to analyze to better understand this strange world. The poetic nature of this series is a conundrum to be solved because it’s apparent there is a deeper meaning in it all. Like a bitstream of consciousness, not every sight and word holds purpose, but all together you may find it. That makes this issue, and the series as a whole, a complex and interesting experience.
This issue ultimately moves the plot forward well. The story sets up Taqa’s journey–likely to be filled with oddities and dangers–and checks in on the Eartheater too. Speaking of which, the humor in the Eartheater scenes continues and it helps add a bit of levity to the book grounding things from a dangerously over seriousness.
The art by Dani is equally interesting and absorbing. There is a sketchy style to it that can seem abstract in its purpose, with meaning laying in hiding. It’s abstract in a way that is always interesting. Colors by Brad Simpson help bring a pop of life to the work–the church scene is cast in purples and blues–and it heightens the atmosphere of each scene.
This is the kind of reading you do to turn off the real world and completely envelop yourself in its ideas. Coffin Bound is a work of structured chaos — funny, contemplative, and ceaselessly engaging.
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