Boom! Studios 2020
Written by Dan Panosian
Illustrated by Marianna Ignazzi
Coloured by Fabiana Mascolo
Lettered by Mike Fiorentino
Excerpts Illustrated by Dan Panosian
A supernatural mystery, where not all the witches burned during the Salem Witch Trials -- and the ones that survived did so together, protecting the ancient secrets entrusted to them for generations. They call themselves the Ravens. Wilma is the new girl in school, and she plans to go completely unnoticed -- except that she bears an eerie resemblance to the Raven member Waverly, who just went missing. The truth behind Waverly's disappearance will put the entire coven in danger -- and Wilma will have to rely on power she never knew she had to save her new friends.
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect out of this one but it certainly wasn’t this. Of course that is a good thing because it’s so much better than I could have imagined. This is like some bizarre version of Mean Girls and I have to say that piling all of that we see here with Wilma being the new kid in town shows so many layers going on. You’d think it would feel overwhelming with how much is actually thrown at us but nope this is so well crafted and structured that everything we see just feels completely natural and normal under the circumstances. Well not that anything is normal in this town.
I love the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see here through how the sequence of events unfold and how the reader learns information is utterly amazing to see. The way this has come together is just breathtaking in the scope of what we see for an introductory issue. The character development is phenomenal and as we see Wilma’s first day at school and how she reacts to the situations and circumstances really gives us this amazing glimpse into who she is. The pacing is spectacular and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story, characters and this world it is easy to see how well everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow.
BOOM! Really has been on the cutting edge lately and bringing game changing titles and stories to readers. The level and quality of the storytelling we see here is fabulous and it really does showcase just why these books have been selling out and going back for multiple printings.
With Dan’s work doing the opening and then heading into the main story it really has this crazy weird effect on the reader. It’s a good thing mind you as the different styles augment the different meaning in the sections. The linework is nicely rendered and how we see everything come together to bring out the detail work is extremely nice to see. The backgrounds we see are great as well as they flesh out the moments, bring us depth perception, a sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the book. Plus it’s nice to see the school hallways and lockers since they make it enclosed but not claustrophobic or wide open. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a nice, solid eye for storytelling. The colour work is great and how the various hues and tones are utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work are rendered really rather nicely.
Prepare yourself for this mixture of The Stepford Wives, Donna Reed, Mean Girls and the show Riverdale. You won’t know what hit you by the end of this issue and you’ll be dying for more. Smart, savvy and full of everything and nothing that you expect but need to see, this is going to be another must read series from BOOM!