Witchfinder: City of the Dead #2
Writer: Mike Mignola, Chris Roberson
Artist: Ben Stenbeck
Colourist: Michelle Madsen
Letterer: Clem Robins
Editor: Scott Allie
Publisher: Dark Horse
A review by Amelia Wellman
After narrowly surviving an attack by the reanimated corpses in a London cemetery, Sir Edward Grey, occult specialist for Queen Victoria herself, follows his only lead to a dead end. Quite literally. When the shadowy organization of the Heliopic Brotherhood of Ra makes themselves known with some pertinent information, the questions Grey has to answer to solve this case in Witchfinder: City of the Dead #2, double.
This tale of Victorian occultism continues on at the same pace of issue one. While it opens with a zombie attack, it slows down into research and interrogating suspects throughout the rest of the issue. City of the Dead #2 is the same slow, dreary march through a fairly wordy story. While I didn’t think all the stops would be pulled out for issue two, I was hoping the pacing would start to ramp up and that a little more action besides a few panels in the beginning would occur. The rather strait-laced approach to the story fits the Victorian time period, but isn’t really the most exciting thing to read.
The art of City of the Dead #2 continues to be as bleak as the story. The colours are muted browns, greys, and blacks, all washed out and faded with very brief blasts of orange and red to donate action. There are a lot of close-ups on faces with backgrounds that are completely empty and just one, solid colour as well. Overall, the whole comic has the feel of a Victorian photograph, which is a nice way to reaffirm the tone and time period.
The Verdict
Much like the verdict for the first issue, I’m giving Witchfinder: City of the Dead #2 a Wait and See. This is possibly a comic arc that will be better taken in all at once in a trade release, or it might continue on at the pace it’s on now and not be worth reading at all. Next month’s issue will (hopefully) reveal a solid verdict.
