Comics
[Comic Book Review] Pledge Yourself to “Wytches” #2
Scott Snyder and Jock’s “Wytches” is back with a second issue and I’ll go ahead and call it eyebrow raising and eye err…neck-eye opening.
WRITTEN BY: Scott Snyder
ART BY: Jock
PUBLISHER: Image Comics
PRICE: $2.99
RELEASE: November 12, 2014
Reviewed by Nick Brehmer
We pick up just after the final events of issue #1. Sailor’s been attacked by some revenant creature, which she suspects is Annie, sent back by the wytches for reasons unknown. Her parents can sense the supernatural nature of the happening surrounding their daughter. Her father’s concern grows when the biopsy of Sailor’s neck would yields ancient results, and Sailor’s mother is confronted with the bizarre when a patient of hers awakens from a coma with knowledge of the wytches.
The whole concept of pledging is definitely a key interest point for this series. I know in my previous review for issue #1, I may have been a little harsh on my apprehensions regarding Snyder’s reworking of such a classic archetype. But the narrative motivations behind the pledge are very much align with the classic witch. In one word? Suspicion.
The witch trials are so fascinating due to the mass paranoia and suspicion regarding witchcraft and the defilement of community. This is very much present in “Wytches”. There’s an added level of unease with the idea of pledging as sacrifice. That one can choose an individual to be handed over to these horrific woodland creatures make the suspicion level two-fold – who has been pledged and who has done the pledging? Was Annie pledged? Has Sailor been pledged? How is the community involved? Who’s this sandman character and how does he relate? Questions, questions…
The concerns I raised in my last review are still bouncing around my mind as I flip through issue #2. In addition, with the encounter with the wytches themselves in the flesh, things are also progressing a little quickly for my tastes. I wish there was more atmospheric tension. Given the above mentioned relationship between classic witches and community, my hope is that Snyder explores this more in upcoming issues. It’s touched upon a little with her classmate interactions, but I would love to see something more built between Sailor and her new town after fleeing from the previous one due to Annie’s disappearance.
Also as mentioned in my previous issue, I will say that the artwork that Jock’s provided for this series is gripping. The wytches that he’s visualized are indeed creepy as hell.
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A product of the harsh lands of Northern Ontario, Nick Brehmer is in fact a sensitive flower currently blooming in the GTA. He spends his downtime wishing he was British. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @nicholasbrehmer
IDW Dark and Paramount recently joined forces to launch limited comic book tales set in the worlds of Smile and A Quiet Place, and we’ve learned today that they’ll continue hanging around in those franchise universes with two brand new limited series tales.
Entertainment Weekly has exclusively revealed this afternoon that IDW Dark’s Any Given Smile debuts in September, while A Quiet Place: Rising Tides arrives in November.
First up, from writer Stephanie Williams and artist Pablo Collar, Any Given Smile puts a football-themed twist on Parker Finn’s successful Smile movie franchise.
The five-part limited series is “set in January 1995, during the American Arena League football championship game in St. Augustine, Florida. The rising superstar of the Sharks, backup quarterback Dupree, is feeling the pressure from his teammates, the fans, and also the city’s gambling underworld, to whom he owes a considerable debt. Meanwhile, a sports journalist investigates a string of suicides that may be connected to the big game. At the very least, they are connected to a sinister entity that preys on the minds of its victims.”
From writer Declan Shalvey and artist Luke Sparrow, A Quiet Place: Rising Tides will also be a five-issue limited story. The comic book tale “brings the creatures to the Florida Keys, where a father-daughter duo attempt to survive on water in a houseboat.”
EW further details, “This tense family reunion coincides with the arrival of the vicious creatures that hunt through sound. Grace and her dad find safety on the open ocean, but she’ll have to make landfall sooner or later; the father’s oxygen tank and their supplies are running low, while a hurricane swiftly approaches.”
Learn more about both comic books over on Entertainment Weekly.
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