Bloodborne: The Lady of the Lanterns

I really liked the first volume of Titan Comics’ “Boodborne” series by writer Ales Kot and artist Piotr Kowalski.  It managed the really tricky task of adapting a game with a famously abstract/inscrutable/hard-to-parse story and communicated its style quite well into the medium of sequential art.  That didn’t last as while vol. 2 was solid, volumes three and four had stories that were as opaque as their source material’s and I can’t say that I lamented the fact that we didn’t get any more “Bloodborne” comics after that.

Until now, that is!  Kot is gone, replaced by the prolific Cullen Bunn, but Kowalski is still here.  This means we get a story that is much easier to follow with art that’s just as good as what has come before.  The problem is that the story isn’t all that interesting at first as it looks like we’re getting an anthology about people who encounter the title character, a singing specter with a voice that reminds whoever hears it of someone close to them.  Which is bad news for the children waiting for their father to come home with food, a priest trying to keep the people in his church safe, and a father who gets a chance to redeem his cowardice.

I wasn’t surprised by what happens in any of these stories, nor was I scared by them.  What I did like was how Bunn tied them all together in the end in a bloody confrontation against the title character.  It was also neat to see that the Lady of the Lanterns had a connection to an actual enemy from the game, and I could actually muster enough suspension of disbelief to entertain the idea of this being a deviation that could work in “Bloodborne” itself.

Kowalski’s art is still on point here, his fifth visit to the city of Yharnam.  While his work has never looked like it was ripped from the game itself, it has always managed stylistic consistency.  The monsters and the weapons are all immediately recognizable, while the characters themselves look like they belong here as well.  I’d hope that Kowalski continues to illustrate this world as this volume leaves things open for further stories here.  “The Lady of the Lanterns” may boast a clarity of storytelling that feels antithetical to its source material, but I feel that’s an acceptable loss as the game’s overall style still feels respected here.