Wytches Vol. 1 Kindle & comiXology

It's not fashionable these days to see intelligent horror... meaning horror that also pays attention to the emotions and experiences of its characters. Scott Snyder's Wytches seemed to offer that when I first noticed it on my Amazon reading list, so I went in with high hopes. This story most definitely did not disappoint. The plot is fairly basic - beastly creatures tormenting a family in New Hampshire. As I read it, though, something unexpected came to the surface; a story with emotional depth that stayed with me long after any of the scares or gore of the story.The main characters in this story are Charlie and Sailor Rook, a father and daughter who have been through emotional hell even before the story starts. Charlie and Sailor are still dealing with the recent accident that has paralyzed matriarch Lucy when an added trauma is heaped on top of them; the death of a teenage girl who had been bullying Sailor. The family decides that a new start in a new town is what they need to heal, but the traumas still follow them (as we see when kids in Sailor's new school ask her if she killed the now deceased bully). Of course, this is a horror story, so the move stirs up more trouble in the form of the misshapen, flesh-eating wytches of the woods. It seems that someone has 'pledged' Sailor to these monsters in exchange for having them fulfill their deepest wishes.The story follows a familiar path, with Charlie fighting to find and free his daughter from their grasp. What sets this story apart is the emotional weight that Synder handles so deftly. Sailor appears to suffer from an anxiety disorder that Charlie struggles to understand and alleviate for her - while Charlie himself struggles with alcoholism that has made him a absent in his daughter's life. A parent reading this novel may very well identify with the deep fear and anxiety that both Charlie and Sailor suffer through - that is, how to keep someone that you love more than life itself safe in a dangerous world. As the tale motors along towards its finale, a Sophie's Choice type of dilemma is presented, and it is an emotional gut punch that far outweighs the horror of the story.In fact, it may be this choice and its implications that is the real horror of Wytches. One fault with the story is that it may not explore this question as deeply as it could have - but again, for it to be revealed and played out the way that it was may have better suited the story. In the end, Wytches seems to say that its not monsters that we have to fear, but each other.

I love Scott Snyder's writing. I'm obsessed with Jock's art and have spent too much money on posters of his work. I'm also recently in love with horror–ˆwith the itch of familiar fear it creates in your head, the chill of realization that hits you when you realize the monsters might not be the scariest thing out there––so you can imagine that I was really excited to (finally) sit down and read this first volume of Wytches.Except, I didn't love it. It's obviously a deeply personal story for Snyder, and his connection to the themes the comic wrestles with is clear and easily the greatest asset the book has going for it. The fears, the anxieties, the paranoia that Snyder injects his horror with are so familiar and raw that they easily make an impact on the reader. It's just...as much I loved the themes and the worldbuilding of Wytches, the characters failed to make a real impression on me.The motivations of the Rooks family are great, and again, offer a strong foundation that the core themes of the story get to build off of. But the explanations for those motivations and the ways they manifested themselves lacked...something. I can't even put my finger on it, but there was some piece, some sharpened edge that was missing, and its absence made the characters feel more like tools for plot progression than actual, individually driven people in their own right. I was still invested in the story, but not on account of the characters, unfortunately, but on account of wanting to see how Snyder was going to continue grappling with the themes of the book.While the story was a bit muddled, thankfully Jock's art is, as always, sharply powerful. His framing, expressions, and general eye for the most grotesquely upsetting images play a huge role in giving tangible form to the ideas Snyder's script deals with. What's didn't work for me, unfortunately, was the coloring, or more specifically, the watercolor "splashes" that occupied literally every single page of the book. These bright, colored splatters were effective occasionally––especially early-on when the actual Wytches are still kept in the shadows––but when the action picks up and the reader is supposed to be on the edge of their seat...I wasn't.The splattered colors were distracting and actually made it difficult to read what the characters were doing on the page. It pulled me out of the story and the (otherwise effective) horror, and that's disappointing. Hollingsworth colors are good otherwise, and he adds an impressive level of mood and general discomfort into Jock's artwork, but the splatter effects felt overdone and self-indulgent, which is a problem since they're apparently a staple for the comic's general aesthetic.Still, I enjoyed Wytches, and am eager to see where Snyder, Jock, and Hollingsworth take it next. The ideas and thematics Snyder works with feel distinctly personal, and it's that level of sincerity that gives his script just enough energy to overshadow a cast of characters who never felt fully realized. Jock's art is also great––his design for the creatures is especially unsettling––but I hope that in future installments of the series his art is less shrouded in the distracting color-splatters that seemed to keep me *out* of the book, instead of in it.

This book is worth getting for the artwork alone. The monster design is original, the artist uses an interesting layered-collage technique I haven't seen before, there are elements of impressionism, pop art and graphic art combined in novel ways, and even the most blood-spattered panels are beautiful to look at. IMO the writing doesn't quite live up to the art, though.The premise is interesting and chilling, and the overall story is good, but I found the writing a little weak overall. At the beginning when the dad and daughter are bantering, because I didn't yet know the rules of the story world I didn't know they were joking when they talked about the girl being a monster slayer. Also, at times it was hard to follow, as the characters jumped back and forth between four different points in time in the characters' lives. It wasn't always immediately obvious when a jump occurred, and I often had to stop and get my bearings from context cues before I could continue reading. This pulled me out of the story.But again: worth buying for the artwork alone. So much so, that the book still gets 5 stars from me.

This is a deeply creepy and often gruesome horror story with stunning artwork and fantastically atmospheric use of different colour palettes. The concept and plot work brilliantly.However, I found of a lot of the dialogue incredibly grating. The characters talk primarily in irritating cliches that makes them sound more like characters in a film than real people, and the emotional journey of Charlie and his daughter Sailor (whose name also grates on me) came to a schmaltzily earnest ending that I think would make a lot of British adult readers cringe.

I wanted to love this story and to a point I did however at points it got a little confusing what was happening as some of the images were so detailed they began to lose what they were actually drawing. I think to that point it sometimes missed the horror atmospher by trying to describe too much at once.

This book is amazing! It's not just the best graphic novel I've read in years (and I read a lot of them!), but it's one of the most enjoyable, gripping, thrilling pieces of media I've seen recently.You know when you've seen a great film or read a good book, you always want to tell people about it? Well, I buy a lot on Amazon and this is the first review I've written in a few years - it's really that good. It's (currently) £4.74... less than even a cheapo bottle of wine and will give you one hundred times the enjoyment, so trust me and buy this.Oh, and once you've read it... be careful what you wish for and stay out of the woods!

Got this after watching a review on YouTube 'Coptic pop' and I was not disappointed. This is a great book lovely drawing and just enough exposition when needed. I like to think that I saw the twist coming towards the end but not in its entirety. This would suit a shot for shot transfer to a film and would be hands down any of the young adult tripe being churned out nowadays especially if the made it rated 15 up. For a good horror alternative to any standard marvel dc give this a try. Can't wait for volume 2 .

Really unimpressed. Offered something different and creepy at the start but turned into a fairly boring story that finished too quickly to develop anything. Characters dull, dialogue dull, artwork meh. Really disappointed.