Hexed #1
Michael Alan Nelson, writer
Emma Rios, artist
Cris Peter, colors
Boom Studios

Hexed is a new miniseries coming out of Boom! Studios, and from what I have heard, is going to be a major product in their lineup. Boom! Studios clearly has good taste. The art is lovely, and the plot line is intriguing enough that I want to see where it’s going. The main character is a teenage girl nicknamed Lucifer. She’s a professional thief who deals in occult items and uses magic of her own to get them.

The plot so far isn’t anything unique, but it’s more than enough to keep me interested, and all the magic stuff is well done and sometimes pretty spooky, which makes this a much nicer read. You can tell the writer, Michael Alan Nelson, already knows where he wants to go with this, and what kind of girl Lucifer is. Plot wise, I only rolled my eyes once, after the book used a really old, really worn out cliché, made worse by the writing surrounding it being pretty solid. Having a character say “I hope I didn’t forget anything,” followed by a close-up of a forgotten object hurts to read. But if that’s my biggest complaint on a new book like this, that’s pretty damn good. I was confused at first by a scene of her stripping down to her underwear and tank top to get to another dimension, but it’s a dimension where I think a set of clean dry clothes would be a good thing to have once you’re back on Earth. Her method of getting to the other dimension is particularly creepy, and made much creepier by the penciller, Emma Rios, who knew just how much detailed gore to add without it being over the top and silly looking.

Speaking of art, the art and colouring were really well done in this book. It’s colour on top of fairly rough pencils, but it’s a good style for the book, and the colourist, Cris Peter, has a great eye for contrast and lighting. The actual colouring is fairly simple, mostly cel shading and the occasional gradient, but the palette is well chosen and it works with the pencils. Lucifer has a fairly understated appearance, but it suits her character well, and I’m particularly glad that this tomboy thief doesn’t have the usual trappings of lipstick, nail polish, and D-cups. The big point I’m trying to get across is that Hexed is cool and you should buy it.