Better Late Than Never: Witch Doctor #2 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: It turns out that this “new release” is actually a second printing of a book that was initially released in July. Normally I would put the review aside and start on something more recent, but it’s almost beer o’clock. So fuck it.

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Witch Doctor is what House M.D. would be if the diagnoses were supernatural and House were allowed to skip the medical pretense and just physically abuse his patients. If that makes Witch Doctor sound to you like a derivative knockoff with an originality problem, that’s because it is and it does.

If it also makes Witch Doctor sound to your like it’s fucking full of awesome with a dark, cynical and filthy sense of humor? That’s because it is, and it does, AND you are a dirty, dirty misanthrope. Which only means you are in the right place, both with your choice in comics Web sites, and in choosing to read Witch Doctor.

Witch Doctor is the story of Dr. Vincent Morrow, an M.D. whos been chucked out of the medical community and who now treats supernatural infections, and before you pick up the phone, your herpes doesn’t count. Just because you don’t remember banging that skank doesn’t mean you got it by magic.

This issue’s case-of-the-week (Seriously – you will see House M.D.’s fingerprints all over this thing. It didn’t stop anyone from watching Tim Roth slum his way throough two whole seasons of Lie To Me, and it shouldn’t stop you from reading this book): a cuckoo fairie, which is a monster who steals babies and replaces them with their own grotesque, jabbering demon spawn. When this shakes Morrow’s assistant, Eric Gast, Morrow comforts him:

GAST: God, that old man’s voice, coming out of that… THING… like a recording over and over again, exactly the same…

MORROW: You’re taking this too hard. You need to lighten up. Want to hear a dead baby joke?

I would say to the easily offended that this book isn’t for you, but it’s easier and more fun to say “Fuck you” to them. Seriously: writer Brandon Seifert has loaded this book with dark humor and a very cynical edge to the storytelling overall – the things that Morrow is called to deal with are rarely things that can be CURED, only STOPPED, which isn’t good news if you’re the one calling for help – that is refreshing in a genre that made it’s bones on stories about characters that never fail to save the victim.

The pencils by Lukas Ketner are appropriate for a horror comic – and if you strip away the sick jokes, that’s what this book is. He draws a heavy line and the monsters are horrific in the best way for a book like this in that they look just SLIGHTLY wrong. The possessed / replaced baby is terrible because it looks TOO cherubic. The cuckoo looks a little TOO much like a beaming pregnant woman. It’s disconcerting, and while I don’t think I’d ever tap Ketner to draw, say, Spider-Man, it works here.

This book probably doesn’t need my help; I just noticed that the copy I have is a second printing, which should mean it’s selling pretty well. But still, I wanted to give it a little attention in case you’re all wrapped up in the New 52 and Ultimate Spider-Man, because any book with this line…

I HAD to shake [the baby]! When else am I going to get the opportunity?

…deserves to be read. Check it out.