It’s a sick world – literally. That’s the tag line for Witch Doctor, the nifty new comic from Portland creators Brandon Seifert and Lukas Ketner. We ran into these guys at this year’s Stumptown Comics Fest and I was immediately taken by the cover (see below). Witch Doctor: First Incision (best first issue title ever) is a sixteen page medical horror comic and is a damn fun read. The premise, as related on the inside front cover, is that the universe is an organism and all the creatures of myth and legend (werewolves, vampires, etc.) are parasites with humans acting as Earth’s antibodies. Enter Doctor Vincent Morrow, a trained physician who is also skilled in black magic. His assistants are EMT Eric Gast and the mysterious Penny Dreadful, herself some kind of supernatural being. This first story gives us the first medical dissemination, and dissection, of a vampire that I’ve ever seen. Seifert and Ketner give a nice twist on the nature of vampires with a plausible sounding medical explanation that is pretty fascinating. They also manage to give the lead characters three dimensional complexity. And that they manage to do all of this in only sixteen pages is maybe the most astonishing part of the whole book. With Seifert’s snappy writing and Ketner’s amazing artwork, this is one book you don’t want to miss and you won’t have to! You can check out the first issue online for free right here, along with a streaming soundtrack. How cool is that?
Hey, if you’re in the Portland area be sure to come out to the Witch Doctor release party at Floating World Comics on Thursday, May 1st from 7:00PM – 10:00PM. We’ll be there and will report back with all the details. Also, check back in the next couple of weeks for an interview with Brandon and Lukas right here at Pop Culture Zoo.
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