The Lunch Witch

I will admit that I wasn't much interested in this when I first received a galley. But once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down and I found myself alternately laughing and gasping in disbelief "ewww, really? REALLY?" to the very end.

Grunhilda the Black Heart is the descendant of a long line of nasty, evil, powerful witches. Unfortunately, witchcraft isn't so in demand any more and her skills are, well, not all that they could be. She's good enough that her boss at the Salem Witch Museum regrets firing her. (Possibly. Do pieces of dung have regrets?)

But Grunhilda still needs a job. When she finds an ad for being a lunch lady, she decides it's the perfect job for her; and it is, until one of those annoying children figures out show more that she's really a witch and blackmails her. Madison isn't as smart as Grunhilda thinks she is. In fact, Madison knows she's stupid - everyone says so. She absolutely needs that potion to make her smart. But what she doesn't know is that Grunhilda, well, not all her potions work out exactly right and pretty soon Madison is living a new life in which flies figure largely and snakes are more of a worry than the principal. But Grunhilda has an unexpected change of heart. There's only one problem - will her wicked ancestors let her do something *gag* NICE?

Lucke's art is grotesque and covered with messy black sketches and artfully placed stains. Characters flare their oversized nostrils, smirk with caricatured mouths, and Madison is afflicted with freckles, glasses, and little, tiny legs. It's perfect. This isn't a pretty-pretty story, it's meant to make you giggle and gasp and groan and the art looks fresh out of the kitchen of a lunch witch. Don't miss the final sketch. I won't give it away, but leeches are involved.

The publicity promotes this as similar to Roald Dahl's Matilda and while there's certainly some Dahlesque elements to the story, I'd say this is more grotesque than Dahl ever got. Plus, there's some poignant moments as Grunhilda suddenly empathizes with Madison on feeling stupid. Dahl's children are all rather...perfect, if you think about it.

Verdict: This won't be for every kid, but for those who like gross stories and nasty characters getting a swift comeuppance with an unexpected underdog coming out on top, this will fly off the shelves. Definitely a must have for your library to balance out all those *gag* NICE stories.

ISBN: 9781629911625; Published March 2015 by Papercutz; ARC provided by publisher; Purchased for the library show less

The Lunch Witch has about everything I would have enjoyed in a comic as a kid. Gross-out humor, strange characters (a Witch forced to work as a lunch lady!), and a weirdly rubbery and sketchy drawing style replete with weird stains and pages that look to have been painted with algae and swamp water. The character design, by the way, reminds me of Ronald Searle and Mike Judge collaborating on some sort of weirdo European woodcut comic pamphlet.

The Lunch Witch is the story of Grunhilda Blackheart. As the name might suggest, Grunhilda is a witch, descended from a long line of witches. When she finds out witchcraft just doesn't pay what it used to, she is forced to seek employment at a school cafeteria as a lunch lady. When a young girl finds out Grunhilda's secret and is accidentally turned into a frog, Grunhilda, accompanied by her loyal dog familiar, a spider, and three bats, has to make things right while avoiding the wrath of her ancestors.

This was a ridiculously fun and cute concept: a lunch lady witch? A modern-day witch trying to fit into modern society? Great! I love it! Unfortunately, this just never reached its potential. The story seemed unsure of itself and where it show more was going, and seemed to either plod along or wander off aimlessly at times. The jokes were few and, quite frankly, not very funny, though that may also be due to the odd artistic choices, which made it difficult at times to see what was going on.

The art itself is... unpleasant. I have no other word for it. I understand the deliberate, scrawling artistic style; I understand the joke about the brown cover and pages and the dullness of a cafeteria; I understand the nasty, gross-out humor at points because she is a witch. And yet, sometimes knowing it does not change the fact that it was unpleasant to look at, and not in a compelling way, either. The dull colors and scratchy art style just cast an unpleasant pall over the entire story for me.

As a concept, lovely. As a book, I'd give it a miss. show less

Recommended by Catherine D.

When a witch's store goes out of business, she finds a job as a lunch lady, but when a student discovers her secret and attempts to blackmail her, Grunhilda has to decide whether to stay true to her badness or anger her ancestors by helping the girl.

The pages are intentionally dark gray and grimy, seemingly stained with tomato sauce and grease, and in one case burnt away.

Quotes

"What are you doing here? Go home! You're ruining my normal-person disguise!" (28)

[Instantly, the climate of the room shifts.] "Hail!" (83)

"What is happening to me? Is it puberty?" (Madison, as she turns into a frog, 94)

"Was this Mexican yam dug in the dark?"
"It's certified fair trade, but I can't commit to dug in the dark." (at the show more grocery store, 128) show less

Loved it so much. All the gross-out humor, the spells, the dead witches, the totally ordinary girl, the tomato stains on the pages. It reminded me of my favorite book from childhood, Malcolm Bird's [b:The Witch's Handbook|2244178|The Witch's Handbook|Malcolm Bird|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1218640679s/2244178.jpg|2250038], and I'm so excited that this is just the first of a series.

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Read Harder: Non-superhero comic that debuted in the last three years.

Liked it! Quirky fun. Sketchy art perfectly fits a sketchy witch. Story is interesting and different.

The art and dialogue weren't my cup of tea, but there were some funny moments.