Hedge #1

Hedge #1

Crow Hill Comics 2021

Created & Written by T.W. Conklin

Illustrated by Joshua Bronk

Coloured by Michael Woods

Lettered by C. Docolomansky

Follow CAMILLE FOWLER, a young, deaf, burgeoning, coven-less witch, as she navigates in a dangerous world of magic and mystery. Camille searches New York City for various artifacts that will teach her more spells, with the help of her studious neighborhood friend, LAYLA. And the more spells Camille learns, the more magical abilities she will have at her disposal to achieve her ultimate goal.

This is one of the perks of being a reviewer and having a site like mine, folks send you books to review that you’d have probably never heard of otherwise. Now for a little context a Hedge Witch is a witch without a coven and usually marked for death because they are seen as dangerous. Without a Coven, rules and those who protect you and teach you you would be more likely to expose the existence of real witches and that could be utterly disastrous, think of the Salem Witch Trials. There is another aspect of this book that’s different and that’s the fact Camille is deaf and utilises ASL, American Sign Language, to communicate and this is done through the visualisation of the hand making alphabet gestures to go along with the full sign language thought or speech bubble. It is a daring way to go and it pays off in dividends with how it is executed.

I adore the way that this is 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 that we see through the dialogue, the narration or text messages as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter all work to really bring us their personalities to the forefront. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages introducing us to the story, the characters and their world the more and more we want to see and know.

I am thoroughly impressed with the way that this is being structured and how we see the layers begin to emerge and grow. How we see avenues for exploration open up adds such great depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward extremely well.

The interiors here are all-ages in nature and that goes well with the story itself and the age of our heroine hedge witch. I am pretty impressed with the way we see backgrounds being utilised throughout with how they expand and enhance the moments. I also like how they work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show an extraordinary eye for how colour works.

How we are introduced to the characters and the roles we see them being alluded to playing is something special. There is plenty of intrigue and the unexpected that we see throughout the book and as we go deeper into the issue the more we want to see and learn about these characters. This is off to a great start and it gives us just enough to get a feel for what her life is going to be like and the kind of young woman that she is and all this really conspires to put her in a category all her own.

This is a great book and it’s currently on Kickstarter

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crowhillcomics/hedge-issue-1?ref=user_menu

Where you can check it out and see if it’s a good fit for you, spoiler alert it most likely will be if you are a fan of good, solid, interesting and complex storytelling.

You can also find them at the following places

https://twitter.com/crowhillcomics?lang=en

https://www.instagram.com/crowhillcomics/?hl=en