Loveless, Vol. 3: Blackwater Falls

Loveless #3

by Brian Azzarello

Wes Cutter, a former Confederate soldier, is appointed sheriff of Blackwater, his hometown, by Union soldiers and must find the killer behind a series of brutal murders that may reveal the town's dark past.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Westerns, Graphic Novels Comics, Historical Fiction, Comic Book, Thriller

288 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2007

About the author

Brian Azzarello (born in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American comic book writer. He came to prominence with 100 Bullets, published by DC Comics' mature-audience imprint Vertigo. He and Argentine artist Eduardo Risso, with whom Azzarello first worked on Jonny Double, won the 2001 Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story for 100 Bullets #15–18: "Hang Up on the Hang Low".

Azzarello has written for Batman ("Broken City", art by Risso; "Batman/Deathblow: After the Fire", art by Lee Bermejo, Tim Bradstreet, & Mick Gray) and Superman ("For Tomorrow", art by Jim Lee).

In 2005, Azzarello began a new creator-owned series, the western Loveless, with artist Marcelo Frusin.

As of 2007, Azzarello is married to fellow comic-book writer and illustrator Jill Thompson.

information taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Az...

Reviews

[Ill D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another worthy and highly successful addendum to the Loveless series. Pay no attention to the detractors! They're inbred philistines!

Florid artwork is supremely wedded to a story that gets grittier and nastier with each page. Splatters of blood drip with as much ferocity as numerous depictions of equally gnashing fire which seer across the pages and into our mind(s). Replete with gut-wrenching catharsis and highly believable characters, its a true emotional tour de force.

Imagine if Ken Burns was an angry drunk (with a nasty drug addiction) who made comics instead of documentaries. If you can plug that into your brain, the outcome would be Loveless. It feels as well researched as it is depicted and each page screams with a genuineness and verisimilitude that is a potent as it is enjoyable.

Move over John Wayne! Say hello to Brian Azzarello and Danijel Žeželj!

Blam! Blam! Blam!

Two thumbs up!

[Timo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sad disappointment of series. All the time teetering in the verge of no-good and some-good but then dropping in the no-good box. Although the wee fill up stories at the end of this collection saved a bit.

[Matt Spencer · Rating 3 out of 5]

At a glance, this final volume leaves one with the strong sense that the series peaked with Vol 2. The climax of the main storyline we've followed thus far feels somehow simultaneously overly drawn out/convoluted yet also rushed and undercooked. For example, one of the big overarching problems of the series was that I never had a solid, coherent sense of why Wes and Ruth had it in for the whole town so badly, as opposed to specific individuals who'd wronged them...until it's spelled out directly mid-final-bloodbath, right before Ruth gets hit with a surprise twist revelation that's quite clever/changes everything/makes sense...except then we never get to see how that's followed up, and the way Azzarello just kind of forgets to give Atticus any meaningful payoff leaves one almost wondering why we've spent so much time with the character at all. Instead of tying up any of these loose ends with a traditional denouement, the last four issues switch gears entirely, to what feels like a nonlinear epilogue of sorts, made up of four only tangentially connected, largely separated stories, all of which are quite good on their own, but as a whole feel like some experiment that's interesting but never quite successful. Learning that Vertigo pulled the plug on this series prematurely explains the frustrating sense of incompleteness (I had been led to believe that the series had been allowed to finish as intended), so one begins to see a better sense of what Azzarello might have been going for, while we're left to puzzle over what the full picture might have looked like.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

LOVELESS stands as a great example of potential unfulfilled and the risks of the serial form for those writers who haven't mastered it. As a "postmodern Western" it had a lot going for it, aspiring perhaps to something like DEADWOOD in comics form directed by Innaritu. But it seems that Azzarello only started figuring out what he was trying to do with the story around the time he was told the book was cancelled. Volume One sets introduces the characters and sets the stage: a small town in the South during Reconstruction, when just about everyone was on edge and had a grudge. Volume Two seems to stumble a bit aimlessly. Volume 3 is in a hurry to wrap things up, and offers a sort of conclusion to the main story while also serving up some out-of-time vignettes to add color. The vignettes are pretty good, but the whole thing doesn't hang together. Much of the pleasure in the early chapters was the artwork of Marcelo Frusin. He goes missing later in the series as the less talented Werther Dell'edera takes over. Danijel Zezelj does some relief pitching in a few issues--and they are gorgeous, but by then it's too little too late. One wishes LOVELESS had been better conceived from the beginning.

[Ashkin Ayub · Rating 3 out of 5]

At last..He did it! Thank you Mr. writer for making a hasty story.
Okay...one thing for the fraternity, if you are a fast reader, then don't read this. Vol. 1 sucks. Vol. 2 sucks and yes, Vol. 3 is somehow good. :s

Art: 3/5
Story: 3/5

[John J Milton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why Brian, why?

[Sebastián · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nope, didn't do it for me and, on top of it, it was canceled so it doesn't really have an ending

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this was the best volume of the three, because finally something is actually happening. The first two volumes built up to this, one final act of revenge, but I have to say it really left me cold. That may be my problem with this series - it's not bad, really, but I just couldn't bring myself to care. The exception was the first story collected in this volume, the one focusing on Colonel Redd. There you get a glimpse of a real person, as opposed to all the other characters in this book.

The thing is, it's not that I don't think that horrible and traumatic events can and will change people. It's also not that I don't think that Hobbes wasn't right when he said "homo homini lupus". But when I read something I need to be able to care what happens. And nothing in this book - apart from the chapter previously mentioned - made me care. In fact, that's something I noticed whenever I'm reading Azzarello - I don't think he's a bad writer, but he's just not doing it for me.

The art in this volume sadly was a far cry from the really great art in the first book. It seems like this is all of Loveless we're ever going to get. I can't say I'm disappointed. I'm giving this three stars rather than two because it was better than just okay, just not my thing.

[Fugo Feedback · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cuando terminé este tomo pensé "Esto no es un hasta luego sino un adiós", aunque creo que la serie sigue abierta y falta al menos un tomo para que concluya la historia. ¿Cómo se puede mantener cuando prácticamente todo lo que había que contar ya fue contado, incluyendo el trágico cierre? Fácil: yéndose al carajo. Nuevamente para bien. Y por "al carajo" me refiero a jugar con el tiempo y el espacio. El segundo se limita a varios lugares del oeste los Estados Unidos, pero que dan una idea bastante abarcativa del tipo de país que es -para bien y para mal- o al menos que era hace siglo y pico. En cuanto al tiempo, cachos de décadas contadas de a capítulo, con varios hijos de puta más y algún que otro "magnificent bastard" o pobre infeliz dando la cuota de humanidad. Ahora me pregunto cómo vendrá el tomo siguiente, que supongo será la conclusión. Predecible seguro que no va a ser.

[Boots LookingLand · Rating 1 out of 5]

what a disappointing end to a promising effort. it feels as though azzarello just gave up on it (and maybe he did?). what started out as a wonderfully rendered (though not terribly original) premise, spirals into a confusing series of small, wretched climaxes, none of which satisfy or offer any meaning beyond a nihilistic assertion of the pointlessness of struggle. the characters are so vile, you're glad when they're finally dead. there are no heroes, no one to even root for and any sympathy garthered in the early installments is lost in mindless revenge.

also, the final installments in this series are pure filler, dispensing with the original plot, and wandering into equally fatalistic one-shots that have very little appeal.

[pierlapo quimby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Con questo volume termina la serie non per volontà dell'autore, mi sembra, ma per le scarse vendite in America.
Alti e bassi; i primi due episodi sono tra i migliori in assoluto.
Resta il rimpianto di non poter scoprire cosa Azzarello volesse farne di questo Loveless, anche alla luce degli ultimi due spiazzanti capitoli.
Sul fronte disegni, Frusin, che è sparito dopo i primi numeri, viene sostituito da Zezelj (bravo ma forse un po' troppo pesante per una serie regolare) e Dell'Edera (bravo ma non eccelso).

[Mikael Kuoppala · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Loveless" started out really well, but lost its way somewhat with its second volume "Thicker than Blackwater". The third and final volume of the series "Blackwater Falls" continues with the somewhat chaotic way from its predecessor, offering satisfactory plot points and some interesting characters but also an overall tone of aimless focus. Somehow the "Loveless" saga doesn't form a whole, even if it does offer some nicely crafted scenes and clever similitudes between the wild past and our present world.

[Elh R' · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let's start saying that I'm not a big Azzarello's fan, I find his writing very amateur, I think he have potential but he needs to work on it.

About this book, and this series, I can't understand what this series was about, the "script" was very confused, and the art didn't help, most of the time I didn't knew who was who.

I think, it could be better if it was single short stories intersected between them ...

I really wanted to like this comic, but I couldn't, I just can't figure out was this comic was about.

... Lot of potential, but it remains there, in the potential.

[kirkesque · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the story comes together, the oblique writing hinders it less and less. Still, if Azzarello got his shit together—e.g. had a better feel for the subject and locale—and stopped trying to be sneaky with his writing (when such sneakiness seems to disguise the lack of wanting to give his readers crucial information), and the illustartors were able to better differentiate the characters visually, this could have been a phenomenal series.

[Matt Sabonis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one's harder to review. The triptych that opens the volume really only pulls together when you pay attention to dates, but there isn't, unfortunately, enough attention called to that fact.

The second story, the 6-part Blackwater Falls, is exhilarating, but simultaneously frustrating, due to the open nature of the ending.

Finally, the closing triptych is excellent, but, again, frustrating for the potential of where the story can go.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good ending to the main plot, where a lot of threads that had been running since the first issue got resolved, but not everything was so neatly tied up that it came off as cheap. The last few issues tacked on the end seemed out of place, and the last issue in particular seemed pointless, and just raised more questions that didn't need to be asked.

Some more art by Danijel Žeželj which is always a bonus.

[Victor Drax · Rating 1 out of 5]

Aaaaand everything went to shit.

De nuevo los cambios de artista y la impresión de que Azzarello no sabe qué hacer con la historia es más profundo. El final es abrupto y cambia, de ahí, a otra línea argumental que no tiene nada qué ver con la anterior, con incluso episodios sueltos con gente que no tiene nada qué ver con los Cutter.

Fue chimbo.

[Matt Shaqfan · Rating 2 out of 5]

this series was better when it started out...may be why it got cancelled. the last three issues or so don't even really tie into anything that's happened to any of the characters we know. just random stories about random people. oh well...

[Acturi · Rating 2 out of 5]

It maybe didn't help that I didn't read the first 2 books, so I didn't have all the context. But Azzarello has written some incredible stuff, and this just seemed "meh."

Not nearly as compelling as, say, early 100 bullets.

[Hillingdon Libraries]

Find this book at Hillingdon Libraries

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely the best in the series. The bleakest, most brutal and ambitious g.n. Western Series I have read.

[Gonzalo Oyanedel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mal remate para una serie perjudicada por su abrupta suspensión.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loveless finally pays off its slow start with some fine, if occasionally murky, stories.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tremendous. Loved it.