Jonas Crow and Rose Prairie: Against their better judgement

Jonas Crow (otherwise known as “The Undertaker”) is an amoral anti-hero with florid vocabulary. Rose Prairie (otherwise known as “Saint Rose”) is a puritanical English housekeeper with a penchant for measuring table settings. Crow for death, Rose for beauty. Yet another duo of opposites.

This unlikely pairing was created by the strange circumstances of the death of Rose’s employer, Joe Cusco. Crow (Cusco’s undertaker) wants what he’s owed, and Rose is honor-bound to stick by him to ensure that Cusco’s sordid dying wishes are carried out. They’re tied to each other, against their will, by the strength of their determination to achieve their respective ends.

The friction is palpable as our two protagonists enter a battle of wills, one moral and one mercenary. But this is a series about the appearances and contrasts that each hero/anti-hero represents. And, as we all know, appearances can be deceiving. Jonas Crow might seem like a brute, and he certainly knows how to handle a gun, but beneath his rough façade, he’s got a good heart… and a soft spot for dumb vultures. As for Rose, behind her rigid principles is a woman who’s suffered greatly, and yet whose high-mindedness and faith in the good of mankind remains unshaken.

Both characters have much more to them than meets the eye, and it’s through the revelation of their respective pasts and their darkest impulses (yes, the saintly Rose does have a few) that they come to understand each other. As artist Ralph Meyer says, “All we are is the story of our suffering.” Slowly but surely their affection grows, as they each expose their personal tragedies, and as Rose realizes that Crow is willing to put his life on the line for her sake.

By the end of The Dance of the Vultures (La Danse des Vautours, 2015, Dargaud, 2016, English publication, Europe Comics) Rose needs a job, and Crow’s business needs a revamp. Instead of using the prize money left to her by Cusco to go back home to England, Rose takes advantage of Crow’s indisposition to renovate his hearse, much to his disgust. She insists on a business partnership (fifty-fifty), and once that’s settled, she takes the reins of Crow’s precious hearse. A significant gesture indeed, considering the undertaker’s “Rule number one”: no one drives the hearse but him.