Witchblood #3

Witchblood #3

Vault Comics 2021

Written by Matthew Erman

Illustrated by Lisa Sterle

Coloured by Gab Contreras

Lettered by Andworld Design

The Hounds of Love are hunting. Next stop: San Sangre, a city of blood, faith, and bad vibes. The stomping grounds of curse-hunters and gunslingers. But with a special kind of horror watching from the utility sheds, do our vampire biker dirtbags know what they're getting themselves into? Find out in Witchblood Chapter 3: The Darkness in the Sheds of Town!

This is a rather fun little book. It is completely unexpected in the way it introduces us to new characters and as it delves deeper into those that we have already met we get a much more complex look at these characters. I more than pleasantly surprised by just how intense this book is and how with Lisa’s work on the interiors we this kind of dichotomy that doesn’t always match up but still leaves us with such a marvellous feeling. That these long lived witches are being chased by vampires, who love drinking witches blood which apparently is of much higher quality than regular humans. I’d equate that to drinking Wine by Lamborghini to wine out of a box there just isn’t much by way of comparison.

I am in love with the way that we see this being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development is extraordinary to see thanks to the dialogue, the character interaction and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter. I also like that when characters meet up and they are interrupted followed by another interruption as all the players seem to converge at once. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story, the characters lives and mixing in this wonderful action we’re glued to the page.

I am greatly appreciating how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story grow, evolve and strengthen while new ones emerge. It is these layers that build up the tension and near awkwardness of learning about them. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is exceedingly well achieved.

The interiors here are deceptively sweet. Lisa has a very distinct style. The linework is phenomenal and how the varying weights and techniques are being utilised to create the detail work that we see is superb. That what we see is elevated all-ages style, this is as I see it, and then to add the horror elements create and leave such a bigger impact on the reader. The creativity and imagination here is sensational and when we see a witch like Yoshi that creativity is incredibly important. The way we see the composition within the panels, mostly without backgrounds much to my chagrin, we get some rather nice depth perception, sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope to the book. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a marvellous eye for storytelling. The colour work is beautifully rendered as the various hues and tones within the colours are utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work.

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The way we close out this issue is phenomenal! It seems that all the good bits really happen at the back end of the book and leaves us with a great cliffhanger ending. The only downside to this is that now we have to wait another month to see how this is going to play out, this again is a great way to keep us coming back to see what will happen. This is a fantastically written story with some delightful interiors that honestly takes you by surprise at how intricate and involved it is.