Wednesday Comics: Wytches

Wytches (2014) is a limited series written by Scott Snyder and drawn by Jock. It's film rights have been optioned, so if you read it now, you'll feel like one of the in-crowd when and if the film comes out. Beyond that, I think it's worth your time for the comic itself.

The titular "Wytches" aren't your typical humans who have made a deal with the devil. Instead, there are inhuman creatures people make deals with. Their angular forms resembling trees in silhouette and allowing them to blend into the forests. Their abilities may be magical, or maybe not. They are presented as "sciences" not known to humans, allowing them to cure diseases for humans who give them what they want. What they want is sacrifices, people who are "pledged" to them.

Sailor, the teen daughter of the Rook family, newly arrived in Litchfield, New Hampshire, has been pledged.  By the time her father, Charlie, comes to believe her fears that something supernatural is stalking her, it may already be too late.

Wytches reminds me a bit of the fiction of Laird Barron with its hidden race in an American woodland and secret cults. Snyder's story felt a bit slim for 6 issues, but in no way incomplete. It is no doubt well paced for a film. Jock's art fits the story well, and wisely only gives us glimpses of the wytches or their horrors. Matt Hollingsworth's color aid in this obscuration by at times strategically hiding parts of the seen with blotches of color. It's a more effective technique than it may sound.

There may well be sequels in the works that further the conflict between wytch-hunting "Irons" and the wytch-cults, but this story stands on its own.