Dave Stewart (1)

Mike Mignola's comic book universe based around Hellboy and the BPRD is a fine and amazing thing, but this is an unusually distinctive entry that stands out a bit. 1881, and Sir Edward Grey, England's official Witchfinder, is dispatched to the town of Hallam to investigate the odd death of a Crown official. At first disgruntled at what he perceives to be a mundane murder mystery, he soon finds himself attacked by giant eels, and so starts to feel right at home. Hallam is the source of a show more popular health tonic, a model industrial town reclaimed from the marshes. naturally there are all sorts of evil goings-on going on, secrets and mysteries and monsters for Grey to explore unravel and fight.

It all has the feel of a wonderfully British period gothic Hammer horror. There's a terrific and loving attention to detail, with glimpses of life in a town dredged from ancient marshes and propelled to a glorious and progressive future by a reforming baron of industry. The cylinders of instructive music played to the workers in the factory, the penny dreadful version of the constable's suspicions, the touches of local dialect, successfully used without mocking or demeaning the speaker and effortlessly touching on tensions between class and education, and eels, lots and lots of eels. It also has a rather bleak sting at the end, a vision of the glorious future everyone's heading towards, and tying in with later evens in the Mignolaverese too, I think.

A splendidly entertaining read that can be enjoyed without much reference to other titles in series, but why deny yourself the pleasure? It's a lot of fun, even if this is a particularly rich and satisfying example. show less

This started out so good. SO good. The art, while not my favourite style, fit the tone and actually had some breathtaking panels...especially when it came to the creature itself.

But then the story reached it's climax and there was a reveal—which I won't spoil—but I literally turned the page, saw the reveal, and said, "Oh come on! Really? That's stupid!"

Because...well, it was stupid.

And it shredded all the goodwill the first half of the story had built up.

I really hope the upcoming ones show more are better than the two I've read so far. show less

I'd not heard of 'Witchfinder' when I picked it up, and it has been a pleasing discovery. Sir Edward Grey is an investigator of the supernatural by appointment to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. In 1888 he investigates a seemingly mundane murder in Hallam, Somerset, which turns out to have many secrets. The story definitely has a hat-tip to 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' by H.P. Lovecraft, but pleasingly is not a carbon copy of that tale. Mike Mignola does not disappoint with his artwork. There show more are horrific moments but Sir Edward is steadfast in the face of danger. This is the third 'Witchfinder' book; I will seek out the first two based on this reading. show less

Much finding of witches and killing of monsters and gentlemen explorers dying ghastly deaths because of the unspeakable things they uncovered in the desert but also EELS. Kim Newman writing an arc of this made me wish they'd made Grey a more flamboyant, dandyish figure - it would have been a contrast with all the sometimes dour and earnest monster-hunters in the rest of the Mignolaverse.