The Witch’s Hand by Nathan Page
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m totally biased towards graphic novels and include a lot of them in collection development. This reads like a cross between Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Road to Riverdale Vol. 1 and Scooby-Doo! and the Haunted Castle. For a first in a series, there are a lot of characters to be shown, relationships to be developed, and then the mystery itself, of course. I don’t yet care about these characters, but I like the sibling relationships and can see a long trajectory as they discover more magic. As a practising pagan myself, I was glad to see that the witch is a scary misunderstood practitioner, and that the bad guy who killed her is a true villain with a history of violent misogyny. Still, it’s a lark, pretty fluffy, and the artwork reads like an Archie, rather than sequential art. There is a subtle but authentic coming-out scene, but this is no Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me in terms of artwork in terms of design or depth.

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