By Andrew A. Smith
Tribune Content Agency
Writer Scott Snyder wants to scare you. And if you read Wytches Vol. 1 ($9.99, Image Comics), he'll probably succeed.
First, it should be noted that the difference between the monsters in this book and "witches" (with the regular spelling) is 100 percent. They are not remotely the same. In fact, the book begins with the dictionary definition of witches, which is then scratched out by something inhuman. Something ... with claws.
So, yes, there are monsters in this book. Monsters in the trees, monsters who have existed invisibly beside us and below us. They are monsters that are uniquely suited to the North American continent, which once had forests stretching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River.
"I’ve always had a fascination with things that are specifically culturally American. ... that sense of things that are really indigenous to American culture," Snyder said in an interview when Wytches launched last year. "With Wytches, it’s taking something that’s sort of a horror trope, or a horror figure, it’s kind of a classic monster, but it’s positing it the mythology ... in a very American landscape and a very primal, I think, a very American set of fears."
But the monsters -- and they are horrible -- are not just the ones in the forest. They are also inside us. Our wants -- our fears and needs and weaknesses and selfishness -- call to them. They only come because somewhere deep inside we want them to. And to get what we want ... we have to give them someone. To eat.
Why would we do that? Snyder plays devil's advocate:
"Imagine your kid has a terminal illness, and ... your neighbor next door is just a complete, terrible person. He beats animals, he’s a drunk, he hits children. Would it be so bad to give them that person to give your child a chance at life? You inch closer and closer to more diabolical things. Let’s say you want to extend your life, you want health, let’s say you have an ailment you want to get rid of. ..."
Would you give the monsters someone to solve one of those problems? And if so, who would you give them?
That's Wytches, which Snyder says allows him "to get to the kind of horror I love." The Wytches are scary physcially, of course, but using them gives Snyder "a way of exploring the kind of monster that would be reflective, I think, of some of the scarier aspects of human nature." Which he calls "a great rabbit hole to ... fall down and explore."
But at the beginning of the book, we don't know anything about the Wytches. And neither do the Rooks, a happy, telegenic, All-American and likable family that has moved to Litchfield, N.H., after some unfortunate things that happened at their last home.
What sort of unfortunate things? Well, Mom was in a mysterious auto accident that left her in a wheelchair. Daughter Sailor was being bullied. And Dad? Well, he hasn't always been the rock of his family.
And despite their efforts at starting a new life, something bad seems to hover over them -- or maybe it followed them. Strangers appear and disappear in the woods. A deer bites off its own tongue. There's this strange growth on Sailor's neck ...
That's the beginning of Snyder's rabbit hole. And it goes deep into the woods, deep into the earth. And what's at the bottom ... isn't pretty.
Drawing The Wytches is one-name artist Jock, who has worked well with Snyder before. His sketchy rendering gives one an appropriate tickle in the back of the head, like there's something missing or hovering just outside one's peripheral vision. It's unnerving.
In the "rough review" version I read online, each page had a subtle filter of variegated colors, as if to suggest (I suppose) leaves or shadows of leaves or flares of light through leaves. It wasn't terribly successful, as it sometimes muddied scenes too much. Perhaps it will only appear on the digital editions.
Another very American book full of horrors is Battle Lines: A Graphic History of the Civil War ($26.00, Hill and Wang). In this book, by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm and Ari Kelman, the monsters are all too human.
Of course, A Graphic History of the Civil War is a grandiose title that shouldn't be taken literally. As the Preface notes, more than 65,000 books have been written about the War Between the States, and still the subject eludes us, still allows room for more discovery.
Battle Lines doesn't attempt to explain or describe the entire war. Instead, it's a series of vignettes that follow the war's timeline, offering portraits of one person's experience at a critical time, one object's meandering path in a battle, or one moment's shocking clarity at the utter futility and bloody mindlessness of it all.
So Battle Lines isn't an intellectual exercise, so much as it is an effort to give the reader a feel, an emotional context, of the times and events. And in that it succeeds brilliantly.
At first the art seemed a bit too cartoonish for the seriousness of the subject. But over the course of the book I came to appreciate it more and more, as its impressionistic nature left wide latitude for the reader's imagination to form a broad range of impressions.
In this book, as elsewhere, the Civil War can be a very personal journey.
Finally, horror and Americana converge in a more light-hearted way in Popular Skullture: The Skull Motif in Pulps, Paperbacks and Comics ($19.99, Kitchen Sink Books).
I ordered the book hoping for a little historical context, or perhaps some pop psych on why the skull has fascinated just about every human culture, or even a little highbrow musing on the collision of Freud's thanatos with thrill-seeking in lowbrow literature. But no, there are very few words in "Popular Skullture" -- the book is precisely what the subtitle describes, page after page of pulp, paperback and comic book covers involving skulls.
And it's a hoot.
There are Nazi skulls! Floating skulls! Skulls lurking behind gimlet-eyed detectives! Skulls using cameras! Skulls playing poker!
And are there any skulls threatening fetching young ladies? Oh, you betcha! The book is chockablock with them!
The images are collected by Monte Beauchamp, an award-winning art director and graphic designer. And, yes, the book is quite handsome.
But really, I doubt Beauchamp had to work too hard to make this book so much fun. I mean, come on: Skulls playing poker!
Reach Captain Comics by email (capncomics@aol.com), the Internet (comicsroundtable.com), Facebook (Captain Comics Round Table) or Twitter (@CaptainComics)
Replies
Wytches was already on my to-read list, but now I'm really looking forward to it. Now that I know the collection is out I'll have to make sure there's a library purchase request.
The story in the first volume is self-contained. I suspect that Snyder is planning to do serial stories of different folks interacting with the Wytches, with perhaps an overarching story loosely tying them together or just filling in the background. Anyway, this story has a beginning, a middle and an end.