BOOM! Studios’ Gory Necromantic Crime Drama Concludes- Bone Parish Volume 3 SC

Every high has its comedown, and the Winters family is in for a rude awakening. Once the innovator and sole dealer of the new necromantic drug that’s all the rage on the streets of New Orleans, they have since come under siege by rivals on all sides trying to steal the market for themselves. And while the family has suffered heavy losses to this point, there’s more to come before the harsh light of morning…
Eisner Award-nominated author Cullen Bunn (Harrow County, The Empty Man) and illustrator Jonas Scharf’s critically-acclaimed horror series concludes in Bone Parish Volume Three, as the Winters fight off reckonings both personal and professional to preserve their family empire.

In this third and final arc of Bone Parish, Leon and Brigitte are dipping their toes in some awfully deep, dark waters. While the exact mechanism of Ash is never explained, there’s obviously an occult element in play.
Souls and ghosts and magic and whatnot. Of course Brigitte will try to apply her scientific mind to the problems at hand, but science and hoodoo don’t usually mix with great results. 
Brae’s still in bed with Leticia, and Detective Herron is ramping up her efforts to bring down the illicit NOLA Ash trade. The Winters clan is crumbling from within. The durability of their familial bonds will determine who makes it to the other side of this thing, in spite of all the seedy side deals and secret outside alliances. 
The best way to end a series? Burn that sucker down.

Cullen Bunn lays everything out right here. Truth will out. Has to. This is the end. All of the subplots and angles Bunn’s been steadily building are about to pop. The rivalry between Brae and Brigitte, Leon’s need to protect the family, Detective Herron’s grief-driven need to single-handedly bring down the city’s Ash trade, the Cartel blood feud… Somehow, Bunn keeps it all straight until it all reaches a natural and very satisfying (and bloody) resolution. 
The Winters brood implodes and lots of folks die. No way around it, really. In for a penny, in for a pound, yeah?

Art by Jonas Scharf and Alex Guimaraes takes a turn in this final arc. Gone are the happy, hyper-saturated Disney ash trips. The visions are much darker these days. The side effects of bootleg ash are beautifully grotesque. We’re headed down some deep, dark holes, and this art team strikes an insane balance between dark, dismal reality and increasingly intense and twisted ash trips.
Every death is visually unique and memorable. Lots of blood spilled in creative, unique, and distinctive ways. An avulsed scalp, mummies, monsters, explosions, and fire. All of it blended together in Bone Parish’s signature hypnotically elegant gore.

Cullen Bunn is well known as a master of horror, and there’s plenty of that here, but it has always been the complex familial relationships that have defined Bone Parish. Tension between siblings and a grieving materfamilias who just can’t let go of the ghost of her late husband. 
Sure, there are those Mafia capos and lugartenientes jockeying for position and a detective fighting through her own grief to bring them all down, but everything eventually boils down to family and loyalty. The Winters’ actions toward each other ultimately decide who stays upright and breathing, if anyone at all.
Bone Parish is a brilliant blend of horror, crime procedural, gangster tropes, and family drama. This is it. The blow off. Disgustingly beautiful, mean and emotional. Pain, personal loss, growth, loyalty, betrayal, haunted drugs… poetry. Twisted, horrific, hideous poetry.

Bone Parish Volume 3 TP, collects chapters 9-12, BOOM! Studios, 18 December 2019. Written by Cullen Bunn, illustrated by Jonas Scharf, color by Alex Guimaraes, letters by Ed Dukeshire, cover by Lee Garbett, series designed by Michelle Ankley, collection designed by Jillian Crab, edited by Eric Harburn.