Fanboys Anonymous

Wytches 3 cover by Jock and Hollingsworth

Oh the suspense! I may not have been much of a horror fan previously, but I am very quickly changing my tune thanks to Wytches.

Issue #3 plays on some of the darkest fears we can have. Writer Scott Snyder is playing it close to home, as testified in the post issue notes of the issue, by bringing to the fore every parents' worst nightmare—the missing child fear.

Elaborating on this, Snyder explains that the extrapolated concern is the need for a parent to protect their child and the helplessness they feel when this is impossible, such as from the Wytches.

At the heart of this, Snyder is exploring a richer aspect of the psychotic realm of human nature. This is the capacity for atrocity and harm against one another. The idea of the pledge, which is fleshed out a little more in the third issue, is nothing more than a device one person can use against another to bring harm by way of the Wytches. This replaces a more personal sense of conflict, but the damage can still be the same, if not worse.

The Wytches will get you!

Snyder begins to bring in more back story in Issue #3 of Wytches. The characters are given more depth, particularly Charlie Rooks, Sailor's father. He is the star of this issue, and despite Sailor not being present for much of the issue, the central character remains prominent in an off page role. It is the little things that are starting to set this story apart—I wont quite look at needles the same way again after this issue—and Snyder is setting us up for a climatic first arc in the next few issues.

It goes without saying that the imagery in Wytches from Jock and Matt Hollingsworth is more akin to art in the more traditional sense of the term than that associated with comic books. There is a style here that is unique and striking. It has to be read as a whole experience to appreciate the collaboration between art and story and the creators as a whole.

The process pages from Hollingsworth at the end of the issue, which details how the colors are added to the inked pages from Jock, are eye opening. The steps involved and time it must take to render the final effect makes the reader appreciate just what is involved on producing a high quality comic such as this.

IMAGE continues to produce dazzlingly high quality comics and Wytches is out selling the creators expectations as a series. Given this, what do you think about this issue or the series so far? Does it meet your expectations? How does it compare to other work by these creators? Make sure you leave a comment below.