The detective/noir/occult tale continues! Volume 1 introduced the reader to Rowan Black, Portsmouth Police detective who is also a witch. She has a good relationship with her work partner Morgan and with her friend (lover?) Alexandra Grey, who is also a witch. These relationships are in peril, however, as a series of crimes shows that dark forces are at work, and they are targeting Rowan. The first installment ends with a shadowy group of technologically savvy investigators tracking down Rowan. We cannot yet guess who […]
A Witch with a Badge
Black Magick is a really well written and beautifully drawn series by Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott featuring a police detective named Rowan Black who, unbeknownst to her colleagues, is also a witch. In Volume I of what I can only hope will be a long running series, Rucka and Scott introduce the reader to Rowan, some of her fellow Portsmouth police officers, and another witch named Alex, who is also Rowan’s friend/lover. The story opens with a Wiccan ritual in the woods interrupted by […]
Short and Simple Expansion on a Couple of my Favourite Star Wars Characters
A short and sweet little story to expand on a couple of characters we see all too briefly in the Star Wars cinematic universe: upon watching Rogue One, I immediately fell in love with Baze Malbus and Chirrut Imwe, the two “guardians” of the Temple of Kyber in the city of Jedha. They act like an old married couple, one a little gruff and the other full of mysticism and hope, joining our heros in their quest to bring hope to the galaxy in defeating […]
Wonder Woman and I Are Confused
In volume one of Rucka’s newest Wonder Woman run, something is very wrong. Our protagonist doesn’t trust her memory – everything from her birth onward is shrouded in mystery. Was she created by clay and a prayer? Is Zeus her father? How did she come to leave her home and enter our world? Is she the god of war? Wonder Woman doesn’t know. Rucka’s decision to make the powerful protagonist such an unreliable narrator is a good one. If Wonder Woman isn’t in control of […]
Han Solo Han Soloing About
The title is long and unwieldy, but the story is short and tight. Shortly after Star Wars: A New Hope ends, the Rebel Alliance is abandoning Yavin IV, scattering, and will end up meeting at a new destination. One of the recon teams has been ambushed by the Empire’s Intelligence Service and all are dead but one. That one operative knows too much to fall into Imperial hands. Princess Dr. Leia* asks Han Solo and Chewbacca to retrieve the operative and get him back to […]
Who Guards the Guardians (they do, of course)
“We didn’t know that when they first arrived. Manty thought their occupation would not last, or would be token. Most believed they had come because of the temples. We thought, they have come to crush belief, because belief leads to hope, and hope can topple monsters. They will stay long enough to crush hope, but they do not understand that hope can be a very small thing. It doesn’t need much to survive. An occasional breath of air. A flicker of warmth. Hope can live […]