WITCHY (graphic novel) by Ariel Slamet Ries







Originally published in 2019.

Witchy started out as a highly acclaimed webcomic that has since been printed as a graphic novel on high quality paper. 

Witchy is set in a world where magic exists and the length on a person's hair determines the power of the magic user. The kingdom of Hyalin uses magic users to enforce its regime. They train young users in an academy with the goal of providing magic users as soldiers in the elite Witch Guard. The Witch Guard fights external enemies and tamps down internal dissent with brutal, often lethal force.

The graphic novel has a lot of positive things:

-The drawings are clean, crisp, and very clear. The art is great.

-The characters all easy to differentiate from one another (sometimes artists makes a lot of characters that look alike).

-There are several great characters, especially the raven familiar.

But, there are negative things as well:

-The ground rules of the universe are not explained well. This graphic novel deserved an written introduction page, much like the famed scrolling text in the Star Wars movies. It would have benefitted from even a few sentences, like the three sentences at the beginning of James Gunn's Superman movie. The back cover of the book provides some necessary information, but not enough.

-Because the ground rules were not explained well, I often was somewhat confused and did not understand the actual stakes involved in some dramatic scenes.

-Interesting story lines are developed and then dropped in an effort to move the story along. In particular, I am thinking about the characters in the school and how they relate to the main character, Nyneve. It didn't help to move the story along when this reader was still trying to understand the basic rules of this world. Remaining in the school longer would have allowed more character development and let the reader learn more of the ground rules.

I rate this graphic novel 3 stars out of 5. Not bad, but it seems like it was a missed opportunity to be so much more.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Witchy by Ariel Slamet Ries.

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