Gang War Reaches The Home Front In Bone Parish #11

The Winters family has suffered multiple casualties, but in a world where death is no longer final, could there be life left for those afflicted?

This is it. Almost. Bone Parish #11 is the penultimate chapter in this crazy tragedy. Brigitte is working on some kind of insurance policy. Grace is creatively tying up loose ends with the Mafia. Brae and Leon are about to have it out, and Detective Herron has some choices to make. Lots of stabbing, a dismembered ring finger, and a couple slugs to the gut.

Cullen Bunn basically boils the whole series down to four major plot lines in this chapter, so that he can wrap everything up cleanly in next month’s blow off. Interestingly, there’s zero drug use in this installment. The driving force in Bone Parish has always been the complex familial relationships within the Winters brood, and in the end, that’s the essence of the thing. There are still a few unrelated players involved, but I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts everything will be settled in a Winters on Winters no holds barred battle royal. 

Again, no ash tripping in this one, so we didn’t get to see any more of those amazing ethereal fantasy sequences. Come to think of it, those haven’t been featured heavily for a while. Jonas Scharf and Alex Guimaraes do get to a couple different ways to sever a carotid and how to win a bar fight from your belly with an attacker in rear mount. Lots of blood spilled in really creative, unique, and distinctive ways.

Bone Parish has been a brilliant blend of horror, crime procedural, gangster tropes, and family drama. Disgustingly beautiful, mean and emotional. Pain, personal loss, growth, loyalty, betrayal, haunted drugs… poetry. Twisted, horrific, hideous poetry. Can’t wait for next month’s finale, but damn it, I’m gonna miss this book. 

Bone Parish #11, Boom! Studios, released 24 July 2019. Written by Cullen Bunn, illustrated by Jonas Scharf, color by Alex Guimaraes, letters by Ed Dukeshire.