Witchblood #5 created by Matthew Erman and Lisa Sterle, colored by Gab Contreras, and lettered by Andworld.
There’s a school of thought that thinks reviews should be objective measurements of worth. You should take a fair assessment of each individual element of a book, follow a set rubric, and then evenly add the score together to come up with the quality of the title. That school of thought is absolutely insane. A comic isn’t the sum of its parts. It’s not an equation of writing + art – continuity ÷ how much the reviewer’s favorite character showed up. A comic is the final product of multiple disciplines coming together to deliver something special. A review, on the other hand, really can’t tell you if something is good or bad. It can try and uncover some truth about a product or experience, but you cannot know your feelings through the lens of someone else. There’s no science behind comics or reviews, it’s more of alchemy.
Alchemy is something Witchblood #5 has in spades. It’s an imperfect series, with an overarching plot that’s been hard to care about. But from that lead has been spun an incredibly charming book, filled with eye-catching designs and memorable characters. Perhaps that the issue has the set up of a side quest works to its favor. Yonna and her misfit girl gang halt their pursuit of the vampiric Hounds Of Love to fill up on gas in Sargasso. It’s a town cursed by witch blood and an impediment to their quest.
Matthew Erman takes the opportunity to explore the gal’s relationships with one another, especially the conflict between witch hunter Atlacoya and Yonna. Freed from the responsibilities of forwarding the greater conflict, we get a chance to see what happens when Texas Red’s efficiency is challenged by Yonna’s bumblefucky approach to magic, which Atlacoya grapples with allying herself with the demons she swore to destroy. Giving Yonna a cast to bounce off helps the character avoid some of her more grating tics that plagued the first issue.
The star of the show continues to be artist Lisa Sterle. Her characters are hyper-emotive, with each action and emotion amplified. Her layouts are clean and tight, with thick gutters and uniform rows that help to sell big moments, like a nearly religious splash page of Yonna reaching out her hand to a young dousing witch. The designs for each character do the heavy lifting. Atlacoya blends into this world that she belongs to while Yonna stands out.
This is only amplified by the conflicted colors of Gab Contreras. The dirt and heat of the Texas plains are contrasted by the shocking neons of the magic world. When the normal feels drab and uninspired, it only serves to make the otherworldly pop. You can see this especially clear in the difference with fill color backgrounds. They are normally earth-toned but explode in feminine pinks and yellows and purples when Yonna is the center of attention. She’s the magic at the center of the book, and each discipline shows that in its own way.
So what we have is a mix, some average writing with some stellar art. Now, we could hold the larger sins of the series against this issue, it drops some exposition and adds character depth, but doesn’t meaningfully advance the plot. But there is enough charm radiating off every drop of Witchblood #5 that it is hard not to cut the book some slack. There’s a golden center here, the team just needs to discover the right alchemy to make it come out right every time.
Zachary Jenkins co-hosts the podcast Battle of the Atom and is the former editor-in-chief of ComicsXF. Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside all this.
