Review - Blood Song: A Silent Ballad

Blood Song: A Silent Ballad
by Eric Drooker
Dark Horse Comics

It's very rare that I feel music in a graphic novel. But with Blood Song, artist Eric Drooker creates a simple lyrical tale of a young woman and her journey away from peace and innocence. The story starts out in a primitive fishing village where a family enjoys dinner. But as an invading army with helicopters destroys the village, a young woman escapes with her dog. As she flees, she is transported to many different settings and eventually ends of up a city where she meets a man who is a street musician.

As I mentioned, this story is one of the most musical that I have read. Wordless, like a symphonic tone poem, there is an ebb and flow of emotion. With many large single panel pages, even diptychs, to very small panels with several on a page to tell the story, the size of the panels is a way Drooker is able to control the tempo of this work. The color palette is another tool used to influence the timbre. He uses mostly cooler colors of blues and purples. But there are snippets of warm colors that make infrequent dramatic appearances. A butterfly, a sunset, a hut on fire, a single flower, colored red/orange stand out like beacon on the page drawing attention to an emotional point in the piece. The reader can not help but feel the melody as the young woman dances though her journey, through the good times and the bad.

It's obvious that Drooker was thinking musically when he created this work. Though it only takes a couple minutes to go through, I found myself going through the book a couple times. Its musical quality amazing me each time. Artistic and poignant, this book can be added to many public library collections into they teen collection. But don't think too many younger people will "get" this book. Maybe I'm being too critical of young people, but I don't think they will be able to hear this music Drooker has composed for us.