Wytches #3 – Review

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After the cliff-hanger of Wytches #2, where we found each of the Rook family in peril, things start in Wytches #3 on a more tranquil and loving note. Obviously, this doesn’t last long but we get to see Sail and her parents enjoying themselves before everything went to hell. The family dynamic is very touching and both parents clearly dote on Sail whilst still giving her the space to breathe and develop as she approaches those difficult teenage years. The family joke among themselves about the “zombocalypse”, igniting kid’s farts in a tunnel at a soft play centre, and upping the stakes on a game of Hide and Seek with a cyborg pony as a reward for Sail if she can remain unfound. It is at this point that we are brought crashing into present day. Ma and Pa Rook, along with the local police are hunting for Sail in the woodland area we left her in at the end of issue 2.

I think it is worth noting that the Rook’s are certainly starting to think that something is up and have trouble convincing the police of any of the weird activities surrounding their daughter and themselves. It is at this point we are taken back the legless woman who assaulted Charlie in their home and told them that he and his wife don’t have a daughter. This is when we are back in familiar creepy-as-all-hell Wytches territory. We are given a teasing glimpse of how the entire town might be involved and how this mysterious woman has been to a place called The Cauldron. Charlie has trouble convincing anyone that this event even happened as he recalls a particularly nasty procedure yet lacks any marks to back up his claim.

Snyder then turns things up a notch and paired with Jock and Hollingsworth fantastic art, we start to see some really creepy shit. Things which hark back to the opening pages of issue 1. Is it real? Is it a figment of Charlie’s imagination? I think we, as the reader are under no false pretence that everything is absolutely bloody real, but like all things which go bump in the night, it is never there when we have a witness.

We then get an insight into what young Sail has been experiencing. We get to read an excerpt from her diary and it is not pretty. Especially when the page ends with her writing out the one word which is now synonymous with this book, over and over. CHIT. CHIT. CHIT. Are you creeped out, dear Consumers? Yeah, me too. Hold me?

The issue ends with the dovetailing of the Rook family in present day returning home, feeling exasperated and impuissant from the search in the woods, and also back to 2011 where they are searching for her at the soft play centre we saw in the first couple of pages. Oh, how these are completely different situations. Yet, as a parent I can completely understand how even if you lose sight of a child in a safe environment, your parental instincts kick in.

At this point, in the far more serious situation of their teenage daughter missing in present day, Charlie finally reaches that point that all desperate people reach – willing to believe and do anything if it returns their loved one to them. Remember the nasty procedure I alluded to earlier? Turns out that this might actually come in handy now and we are treated to a particularly bizarre image involving Charlie’s own body. Only in Wytches.

I want to draw special attention to 2 pages at the back of the issue. Matt Hollingsworth, who colours the book gives us a little insight into his process. His approach is just mindboggling and only adds to the creepy writing of Snyder and the gorgeous inking by Jock. Make sure you check that out and let us know what you think of Wytches. Seeing as it is selling around 90,000 issues a month, some of you Consumers must be reading it!