Rating: 4/5 – Fun Intro to the Witchblade Mythos for the Uninitiated.
by ComicSpectrum EiC Bob Bretall.
I’m no expert on Top Cow’s Artifact/Witchblade mythos, so please excuse any mistakes I make along the way in this review. I know, as they say, “enough to be dangerous”. So, Switch #1… I really enjoyed this debut issue, in equal parts for the art and storytelling, both by Stjepan Sejic, who is one of my favorite artists working in comics today. I’m regularly amazed by the sheer quantity of pages he’s able to put out, month after month.
I have read Witchblade and Darkness comics in the past, but neither were series I followed closely. As such I’m aware of the basic mythology with the thirteen artifacts, but couldn’t quote it chapter and verse. This book was good because it provides a nice entry point into this mythology explaining the artifacts as they are introduced with some of the backstory (not ALL of them, not yet) but we get the Witchblade, the Darkness, and the Angelus to start. I guess it’s really just an assumption on my part that eventually we’ll get around to seeing the other artifacts, but I have confidence that if/when we do Sejic will do as good a job introducing the new ones as he did on the things introduced in this debut issue.
The 42-page Switch #1 has everything I look for in a debut issue. I was easily able to follow the story, it gave a great introduction to everything that was going on and helped me understand the world it was set in. That’s particularly notable since it deals with subjects that have a long publishing history and it’s so easy for comics to just assume that readers know everything and jump right into the middle of something. I love the young female protagonist and new bearer of the Witchblade, Mary. Sejic did a great job imbuing her with a personality and making her pretty much instantly likable. He’s a master of facial expressions and body language. His pictures of people talking tell as much if not more story in what is not said as what I get from the dialogue. This plus-sized debut really helped jump start the story for me and I’m looking forward to see where Sejic takes us next!
Reviewed by: Bob Bretall
(bob@comicspectrum.com)
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