I am pleasantly surprised by how much I truly enjoyed this! I had flipped through it a couple times before, but just hadn't felt the urge to read it. But once I read the first few pages, I became hooked and really wanted to know what was going on. "Wytches" is about fear. The fear that comes with anxiety and depression; the fear of not raising your child well; the fear of being in a new place; and yes, the fear of things that creep in the woods.

-The story itself is engaging and really creepy- I had to force myself put this down a couple times so I wouldn't be reading about the Wytches at 1am. There are a couple questions that were left unanswered, but I get the distinct feeling Volume 2 will expand in those areas. Also, the narrative style was really cool- often, scenes would overlap with one another, and I'd be reading about a scene from 2011 and 2014 at the same time. It was neat to see how Snyder wrote them to play off of one another, and I think he pulled it off excellently.
-I LOVED the characters, mainly Sailor and her dad. They were both realistically flawed and so very human. I loved how the story had such a deep focus on their relationship and how they learned from each other and became stronger through one another.
-One of the things that pushed me away from reading this for so long was the art style- it just seemed to be too splashy and dotty, but once I started reading, I saw how well the style complimented the story. I actually grew to like the art a lot, and I think it's interesting to watch how the images become more vivid and distorted depending on what's happening.
-Additionally, the letters by Scott Snyder in the back of the volume were really great to read. They provided some interesting context to the story, and Snyder wrote about how "Wytches" had some very real and very personal relation to him. Definitely would recommend reading his letters (especially the first 3) after reading the story.

MINOR SPOILER AHEAD: The only thing that REALLY bugged me about this was Clara (the peg-leg lady). Why on earth did she have to break into the Rook home and attack the dad, just to make him come and find her at another location? Why couldn't she have told me everything he needed to know right there, instead of carving a weird map into his stomach?? I felt like that was a bit of a waste of time and space.

I can't wait to read Volume 2 now! I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS! ( )

CW: Horror, Blood, Child Death, Drugging, Stalking

This is a visually stunning and narratively engaging comic that really does something interesting and different with the idea of witches and takes some big swings. Unfortunately, for me, the last issue/ handful of pages spoiled what would have been an absolutely cracking comic.

The combination of the fragmented panels and generally masterful direction with the rough gorgeous artwork and mixed media splatter layers are is truly a visual feast that captures the horror and emotion of the narrative exquisitely.

The narrative is interesting with a relatively fresh take on witches, albeit one that does imply that the women accused of witchcraft were guilty of something, though there is no gender delineation of followers of the supernatural. Primordial mutated magic monsters giving superior specimens of the Monsters from The Descent are very cool. Sailor is a believable teen and a character I could easily emotionally engage with, which is all I ask for a story like this. The dad had such potential and felt like a big swing with what could have been a rewarding and cathartic arc, but I think they perhaps had too much of the writer inserted into them to allow them the needed reckoning and pathos that would have seriously elevated this comic. The mother is an incredible weak and tertiary character, which truly is a shame. I don't want to get into spoilers, but the handling of her and various aspects relating to her really ruined the comic for me.

While, the Wytches themselves are largely free of the femme-coded misogyny, I don't think the comic is free of its taint, with the portrayal of the mother and the only other significant adult woman who is written and drawn in ways that evoke hags and 'perverse femininity'. This character is also an example of the way disability is handled without sensitivity in this comic, with it being and used for shock, suprise, and offensively condescending motivation.

Huge potential and absolutely knocking it out of the parks, but ultimate hoisted by its own lack of diversity, perspective, experience, and sensitivity. Still, seriously impressive, but that also makes it all the more disappointing. ( )

Wytches by writer Scott Snyder (Batman, Swamp Thing) and artist Jock (The Losers, Green Arrow: Year One) succeeds on so many levels at being not only a good horror comic, but a touching tale of love and betrayal. Wytches is dark and brutal, funny and sad. It's about not being able to control your surrounding and not being able to protect those you love. And it is also about the fact that we all possess the power to give permission to evil. Wytches is really nothing like horror fans have ever read. Wytches - is ultimately a book about the terrifying parts of ourselves we don't like looking at. The Wytches are monsters, but they're monsters that only act when we give them permission to.

So who are you going to pledge?

Reread: 2021 - still an AMAZING work of horror.
Reread: October 2021 - I think I'm gonna make this a yearly reread. This comic resonates with me. A story about how far you'll go to protect those you love and how to overcome suffering. A terrifying classic.
reread: 2022 ( )

I finished this last week and visited my parents today (Easter) with the sneaky side mission of checking on the woods behind their house. I have not done Easter since the early 2000s. This was prompted by Snyder's essay that followed the first issue of Wytches in which he described searching the woods for witches as a child and using the random items found as evidence. He included pictures of an old truck left in the woods.

I had a similar experience (though we searched for evidence of murders and ghosts of the victims) and thought I would share a couple of "car in the woods" photos from my old stomping ground. As a "bonus," I've learned as an adult that my woods were full of sinkholes, and my dad set up a tire swing over one.



There are at least 7-8 vehicles that stretch back roughly in a line.



A couple more.

Anyway, back to the book. Ultimately, I think something better could have been done with the concept of witches capturing people in trees, but I also enjoyed the read overall.

While there are some points of interest in that it's a modern take on an old fairy tale trope (which I won't specifically mention to avoid spoilers), I feel like there is something about the pledging rules that seem a bit loose and, well, broken. That makes the whole story seem a bit loose and broken. ( )

Where the heck is volume 2? it's been over half a decade. ( )