Wytches: Volume 1 Graphic novel. Story by ScottSnyder. Art by Jock. Image Comics, 2015. $9.99.

Abstract

A quick but potentially useful read for courses on folklore or myth, this comic could also open up interesting conversation in classes exploring conceptions of nature. In this story, even the stand of trees at the back of a suburban yard is wild, full of dark mystery. The “wytches” in question are grotesque humanoid creatures, dwelling in subterranean caverns and existing symbiotically with small-town society through a system in which humans “pledge” victims for the monsters to eat. Speculations about history abound: that these wytches represent an alternate branch of human evolution, that the ginger grown around entrances to their burrows is the source of “the myth of the witch in the gingerbread house.” Such analysis, proffered by characters within the tale (one of whom is the author, in turn, of a fantasy story, snippets of which are woven throughout this text) offer easy entrance for student discussion of both forms of and approaches to tales traditional and modern. To lead them further into the woods of analysis, the plot is built of rather blunt-edged Freudian blocks (a father, devoted to his daughter; a mother, quick to abandon said daughter to death). The daughter (our hero, though largely, in this volume, in the passive role of victim in need of rescue, first from mental health issues and then from carnivorous wytches) makes use of elaborate “myths” in order to maintain sanity in her adolescent social life, and the wytches, while presented as very much real, are nonetheless linked with and attracted to the scent of anxiety, desire, and fear, which “they can sniff out.” While stitching back to tradition (a satchel of special objects winks back to Baba Yaga stories, for instance) this book, with its elongated, semi-faceless creatures crouching in their caverns and communicating with a rodent-like “chit chit chit,” has moments in which it is plain scary, and promises to be a fun way to spark class discussion and push students to draw connections and ask questions about the stories we tell and the ways we use them, both in and outside of the academy.