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The Witching Hour #1-3
The Witching Hour
People who touch the dark, embrace the wicked, or are doomed by desires all run the risk of being caught in the deadly enchantments of "The Witching Hour". The mysterious Amanda Collins moves through the troubled lives of those she meets on the streets of Manhattan armed only with a blank white business card and a strange, supernatural presence. She gives them the chance to change their lives...if they can. A dark and mysterious new collection from Vertigo.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
2 people are currently reading
172 people want to read
About the author
Jeph Loeb
1,589 books1,378 followersJoseph "Jeph" Loeb III is an Emmy and WGA nominated American film and television writer, producer and award-winning comic book writer. Loeb was a Co-Executive Producer on the NBC hit show Heroes, and formerly a producer/writer on the TV series Smallville and Lost.
A four-time Eisner Award winner and five-time Wizard Fan Awards winner (see below), Loeb's comic book career includes work on many major characters, including Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Hulk, Captain America, Cable, Iron Man, Daredevil, Supergirl, the Avengers, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, much of which he has produced in collaboration with artist Tim Sale, who provides the comic art seen on Heroes.
A four-time Eisner Award winner and five-time Wizard Fan Awards winner (see below), Loeb's comic book career includes work on many major characters, including Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Hulk, Captain America, Cable, Iron Man, Daredevil, Supergirl, the Avengers, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, much of which he has produced in collaboration with artist Tim Sale, who provides the comic art seen on Heroes.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
May 19, 2020
My favorite book of all time!
October 12, 2017
Quedé gratamente sorprendida con la hora bruja.
Nos cuenta las andanzas de un grupo de brujos/wiccan que se dedican a repartir una especie de justicia y oportunidades en Manhattan. La líder del grupo es la Sra Blanca, que tiene toda la facha y una historia fascinante. Y en su tarea la acompañan Gris, su protector libertino; Azul, el jugador tranquilo; Negro, el pequeño citador compulsivo y Roja, la misteriosa Lolita.
Tiene una estructura narrativa que se vale de varios estilos para ir dándonos a conocer las diferentes historias que componen el total. Tiene reflexiones geniales y el arte es precioso en cuanto a personajes, los fondos a veces son diluidos y en algunas ocasiones llenos de detalles.
Es de esas historias que te dejan bastante satisfecho con los finales que terminan descubriendo.
Nos cuenta las andanzas de un grupo de brujos/wiccan que se dedican a repartir una especie de justicia y oportunidades en Manhattan. La líder del grupo es la Sra Blanca, que tiene toda la facha y una historia fascinante. Y en su tarea la acompañan Gris, su protector libertino; Azul, el jugador tranquilo; Negro, el pequeño citador compulsivo y Roja, la misteriosa Lolita.
Tiene una estructura narrativa que se vale de varios estilos para ir dándonos a conocer las diferentes historias que componen el total. Tiene reflexiones geniales y el arte es precioso en cuanto a personajes, los fondos a veces son diluidos y en algunas ocasiones llenos de detalles.
Es de esas historias que te dejan bastante satisfecho con los finales que terminan descubriendo.
March 1, 2022
A little confusing at some point with the way the story jumped around and I really would've liked more background on the other characters. But, it was cool to follow White and Gray's story and see how things connected.
November 26, 2022
Liked the story, but it was confusing for most of it. Enjoyed the illustrations.
October 18, 2010
I'm a fan of Jeph Loeb's collaborations with Tim Sale, and I like Chris Bachalo, but I'd never even heard of this book for some reason before I saw a copy in a used bookstore.
The writing is a weird combo of Wiccan philosophy (or maybe pseudo-Wiccan philosophy, I don't honestly know) and EC-style "they had it coming" horror stories, done in what I've come to think of as the sort of Vertigo style, with lots of quirky characters giving long philosophical monologues. It's definitely not Loeb's best work, but what really makes the comic shine is the art. This may well be the best work I've seen from Bachalo, especially in the beautifully laid-out and colored flashback sequences.
The writing is a weird combo of Wiccan philosophy (or maybe pseudo-Wiccan philosophy, I don't honestly know) and EC-style "they had it coming" horror stories, done in what I've come to think of as the sort of Vertigo style, with lots of quirky characters giving long philosophical monologues. It's definitely not Loeb's best work, but what really makes the comic shine is the art. This may well be the best work I've seen from Bachalo, especially in the beautifully laid-out and colored flashback sequences.
August 6, 2014
It wasn't bad, just not for me. It felt choppy and I felt disconnected from it. Basically its kind of wiccan-themed vengeance horror shorts. Following Ms. White (with snippets of Gray, Black, Blue, & Red) through horror/crime stories of people getting whats coming to them. I think maybe recommend for bigger fans than me of Twilight Zone and Sin City.
October 10, 2020
In this graphic novel we follow 5 witches, Miss white, grey, Mr blue, Mr black and red, but we mainly follow one witch Miss white, both back in time and at the present.
It tells the story of what all the witches are up to at the moment, trying to pull in humans to do magic for them, to help their lives, all for a hidden price. We also go back in time here for a story which is really cool, as we get to see what happened back in the 1600 with witches and their families. We follow the story back in time with Miss White and what she sacrificed for all witches in the future, and how she comes back, reincarnated and how she finds herself and find her way back to Mr Grey again
I loved how the style went from black and white to old comic book colours, it made it more fun and interesting to read.
I loved reading this especially in the spooky time coming up, I love all things to do with witches and the wiccan side of things.
It tells the story of what all the witches are up to at the moment, trying to pull in humans to do magic for them, to help their lives, all for a hidden price. We also go back in time here for a story which is really cool, as we get to see what happened back in the 1600 with witches and their families. We follow the story back in time with Miss White and what she sacrificed for all witches in the future, and how she comes back, reincarnated and how she finds herself and find her way back to Mr Grey again
I loved how the style went from black and white to old comic book colours, it made it more fun and interesting to read.
I loved reading this especially in the spooky time coming up, I love all things to do with witches and the wiccan side of things.
March 4, 2025
Nos anos 9o a DC inovou com a Vertigo, uma chancela que se tornou lendária pelo espaço que abriu aos comics, permitindo aos criadores americanos um espaço de expressão além do infanto-juvenil dos comics tradicionais. Saíram de lá títulos marcantes, séries de grande fôlego e lívros visualmente arrojados, que de facto alargaram as fronteiras da BD. Esta Witching Hour pretendeu, à época, ser um desses títulos, mas não o conseguiu. Vale pelo grafismo, a cargo de Chris Bachalo, elegante e expressivo. O argumento de Jeff Loeb tenta contar uma história convoluta às voltas com bruxaria positiva, com alguns personagens aparentemente imortais a usa o poder mágico para castigar aqueles que são predadores sobre mulheres.
November 24, 2019
Witches, they mostly drink tea and reminisce of ye olde days. Well, being six hundred years old I imagine they'd do that. Oh yeah, and they screw around with people. But these people, they, like, deserve it because they're evil and had it coming. All this is made intentionally confusing by the art, multiple narratives and loads of little monologues everywhere. But once you get who's what and where's when then it all neatly ties up in the end. Bunch of do-gooders.
September 19, 2019
DNF. Pretentious. Unreadable. Claptrap.
I suspect that the historical details are wrong. The characters are indistinguishable except at the most superficial level, and not all of them then. Nothing caught my attention.
I suspect that the historical details are wrong. The characters are indistinguishable except at the most superficial level, and not all of them then. Nothing caught my attention.
December 6, 2019
Gorgeous art, interesting subject matter, but structurally unsound. By which I mean, everytime I put this down, I had to start over. As many threads as a spider’s web, but too slickery to hold its place.
November 7, 2022
The art was amazing... but the story itself was really confusing. I finally started to understand about 2/3 of the way through. Maybe it'll be better on a second read when I actually know what's going on.
July 15, 2023
I have a weird love for this one since I was a pre-teen. I cannot describe why. It is a bit all over the place but in a way that I find so strangely appealing
July 18, 2024
Too slow for my taste and I got kinda lost, but the character archetypes and lettering really drew my eye.
November 26, 2016
Didn't grab me at all despite topic and creator team being right up my alley....
October 29, 2011
Forever and a day.
"Do you believe in the Wiccan Rede?
That everything we do comes back to us threefold?"
There are five of them, like points of a pentagram.
Gray is a charmer. In more than one sense of the word.
Black is a mulatto child prodigy, who only talks through quotes from Victorian writers. And he loves to talk.
Blue instead never speaks. He likes to play card games, though.
Ms. White was Amanda Collins, illicit daughter of an Irish Wiccan witch and a pastor. In one of her lives, that is.
And then there is Red, whom White sent to Los Angeles. Much to Gray's annoyance.
They've been around a long, long time.
"We listen to those who need to be heard.
We are there to speak out for those who can't.
To try to make those who will not see, open their eyes."
This miniseries was published by Vertigo in three 48-page installments in 1999 and then collected in volume in 2000.
I originally bought it out of my passion for Chris Bachalo's, the penciler's, style. I'd not read anything by Jeph Loeb, the writer, before. He turns out to be a very good writer. There are pearls on every page of this comic book.
And Bachalo is in excellent form. This is his first work for DC Comics Vertigo, since his début in the late eighties with Shade written by Mulligan and the two Death miniseries by Gaiman. Which are amongst my most beloved comic books. By 2000 Bachalo had already developed a rounder, less edgy style, but was still ahead of the cartoonish turn of his more recent works. The panels are excellent, with a variety of atmospheres and multiple levels of reading. This is an artist at the heights of his powers; and Art Thibert serves him uncommonly well as a one-stand inker.
Actually, I'm tempted to give the whole thing something more than a mere three stars.
"Oh Lord won't you buy me a Mercedez Benz?"
When Joplin ―Janis, not Scott― sang those words in her wonderfully whiskey-soaked voice, she touched on something dear and near to us all. Whether it's Moses throwing down the ten commandments at that golden calf, or Jesus casting out the money lenders from that temple, or Mastercard declining that latest eBay purchase... In God We Trust. All others must pay cash.
Oh, and I almost forgot...
I bought it in Uppsala, one monday afternoon last summer.
When I chance upon a good comic bookstore I'm bound to enter, and if it so happens that I find a good book, I'm likely to buy it. It has happened in more than one country yet.
This is the shop: http://www.prisfyndet.com
I have long since come to the belief that things should end, provided that you immediately seize the chance to begin again. Just as the seasons and the earth and the sky teach us at the end of every second, minute, hour, day and night.
"Do you believe in the Wiccan Rede?
That everything we do comes back to us threefold?"
There are five of them, like points of a pentagram.
Gray is a charmer. In more than one sense of the word.
Black is a mulatto child prodigy, who only talks through quotes from Victorian writers. And he loves to talk.
Blue instead never speaks. He likes to play card games, though.
Ms. White was Amanda Collins, illicit daughter of an Irish Wiccan witch and a pastor. In one of her lives, that is.
And then there is Red, whom White sent to Los Angeles. Much to Gray's annoyance.
They've been around a long, long time.
"We listen to those who need to be heard.
We are there to speak out for those who can't.
To try to make those who will not see, open their eyes."
This miniseries was published by Vertigo in three 48-page installments in 1999 and then collected in volume in 2000.
I originally bought it out of my passion for Chris Bachalo's, the penciler's, style. I'd not read anything by Jeph Loeb, the writer, before. He turns out to be a very good writer. There are pearls on every page of this comic book.
And Bachalo is in excellent form. This is his first work for DC Comics Vertigo, since his début in the late eighties with Shade written by Mulligan and the two Death miniseries by Gaiman. Which are amongst my most beloved comic books. By 2000 Bachalo had already developed a rounder, less edgy style, but was still ahead of the cartoonish turn of his more recent works. The panels are excellent, with a variety of atmospheres and multiple levels of reading. This is an artist at the heights of his powers; and Art Thibert serves him uncommonly well as a one-stand inker.
Actually, I'm tempted to give the whole thing something more than a mere three stars.
"Oh Lord won't you buy me a Mercedez Benz?"
When Joplin ―Janis, not Scott― sang those words in her wonderfully whiskey-soaked voice, she touched on something dear and near to us all. Whether it's Moses throwing down the ten commandments at that golden calf, or Jesus casting out the money lenders from that temple, or Mastercard declining that latest eBay purchase... In God We Trust. All others must pay cash.
Oh, and I almost forgot...
I bought it in Uppsala, one monday afternoon last summer.
When I chance upon a good comic bookstore I'm bound to enter, and if it so happens that I find a good book, I'm likely to buy it. It has happened in more than one country yet.
This is the shop: http://www.prisfyndet.com
I have long since come to the belief that things should end, provided that you immediately seize the chance to begin again. Just as the seasons and the earth and the sky teach us at the end of every second, minute, hour, day and night.
June 14, 2013
Witching Hour is an interesting, non-linear, philosphical story with the character of a witch named White at the center of it. Although there are 4 other witch characters (grey, red, blue, black), they appear mostly as peripheral characters, tengentially and then more distinctly related to White at the center.
What appears as random vignettes slowly begin to coalesce by the end of the book into a single storyline told from several perspectives. It's about White's past and her idealism - she goes after those who have wronged others, others who cannot stand up/speak for themselves (a child abandoned by a drug addict mother, a daughter whose father chose a trophy wife over her and her mother, a gambler with a debt, a psychotherapist with a side benefit, and a barkeep. Each of those characters will reveal more about White as the story progresses - and each will have their own story to tell. What's interesting about the book is that we're not talking simple revenge stories here - each one ends very differently but also very poignantly.
I have to admit, I'm not a fan of the art, though it is very well done. Black and white infused with splashes of full color. Very moody, angular, and indistinct. I'm reminded of a lot of the 1990s experimental art work that was so popular at the time. But that said, it beats the soft core porn superhero drawings we have these days - and certainly fits the story well.
The book is definitely one that you will want to read several times - giving you quite more each time. Especially since the first read will be confusing due to the non linear tangential vignette chapters. But at the same time, I felt that it was both original and done before - something clever but at the same time too clever.
What appears as random vignettes slowly begin to coalesce by the end of the book into a single storyline told from several perspectives. It's about White's past and her idealism - she goes after those who have wronged others, others who cannot stand up/speak for themselves (a child abandoned by a drug addict mother, a daughter whose father chose a trophy wife over her and her mother, a gambler with a debt, a psychotherapist with a side benefit, and a barkeep. Each of those characters will reveal more about White as the story progresses - and each will have their own story to tell. What's interesting about the book is that we're not talking simple revenge stories here - each one ends very differently but also very poignantly.
I have to admit, I'm not a fan of the art, though it is very well done. Black and white infused with splashes of full color. Very moody, angular, and indistinct. I'm reminded of a lot of the 1990s experimental art work that was so popular at the time. But that said, it beats the soft core porn superhero drawings we have these days - and certainly fits the story well.
The book is definitely one that you will want to read several times - giving you quite more each time. Especially since the first read will be confusing due to the non linear tangential vignette chapters. But at the same time, I felt that it was both original and done before - something clever but at the same time too clever.
March 15, 2010
Creepy book laid out in beautiful black and white ink layout. Love how Bachelo frames or lack there of his scenes and how Art Thibert conservatively colors and inks the art. If you like your comics using classic 90's comic drawing and 80's style of inking you'll love this comic.
If you liked Sandman and into witch craft mythology then you might like this comic. It's no Sandman by any means and that may be the issue. The story is very simple but the art work saves it. Where as Sandman had a knock out story and Artwork that made you thank you had eyes. If you read comic books for the story and could care less for the art work than this isn't the comic book for you.
If you liked Sandman and into witch craft mythology then you might like this comic. It's no Sandman by any means and that may be the issue. The story is very simple but the art work saves it. Where as Sandman had a knock out story and Artwork that made you thank you had eyes. If you read comic books for the story and could care less for the art work than this isn't the comic book for you.
July 29, 2015
I'm all for non-linear storytelling but at least make the connections clear in the end. Between telling what you could probably call the main character's backstory and stringing in her compatriots as they give people what they have coming, I lost interest halfway through. The comic has a great concept that harkens back to The Endless but the execution is sadly lacking. Also, the Shade The Changing Man reference seemed more like a plug for the Vertigo series than a fun cameo. I may give this another chance one day just to see if a reread clears up some of the story's plot points.
February 6, 2017
The story was fine. Vertigo's output of amazing fantasy and sci-fi was so great in the 90's-00's that this might get understandably lost in the crowd.
However, Chris Bachalo, one of comic's finest artists, is at his zenith here. Truly great work from a fantastic artist.
However, Chris Bachalo, one of comic's finest artists, is at his zenith here. Truly great work from a fantastic artist.
April 22, 2013
I'd bought "Wishes" on sale (it was about $1.50) at the Underworld in April of last year, because, silly as it sounds, it called to me. I read it all in one day, (though not in one sitting, as I was out and about), and it was fantastic in and of itself. It, too will become an icon project. Then, I was going to recommend it to Chuck (the good-comic-book go-to guy), and he gave me the other two.
July 20, 2015
Nice art, if a little confusing at times in the extreme close ups. The story, though, is needlessly convoluted, mixing timelines to no real dramatic effect, and the plot twists fall rather flat. It would probably have done better with some judicious editing - lots of it feels like pages upon pages of text with a few accompanying illustrations.
Want to read
July 17, 2007I've promised Jess, cross my heart, to read this before we next meet. Apparently it is one I should read before I die. Certainly, if I don't read it before I next see her I will be dead. Nothing like the fear of Jess to get a gal to reading...
May 10, 2014
I liked this; not what I was expecting at all. Admittedly there were two parts where things went a bit wonky and I had a hard time following the story, but the rest of it came together quite nicely, if a bit sadly.
January 29, 2015
Enjoyed this quite a lot actually, clever little story jumping between times and lives, with enough threads to keep the interest going. Some nice on-the-fence morality about free will and how much we should intervene in people's lives, etc.
February 23, 2017
i love this and still read from time to time well put together pagan and magick and Wiccan influences as well as interesting characters and non formulaic design organic comuc book pages and love the stylistic art and lettering use of runes and unpredictable writing great read I still enjoy
Read
February 23, 2009Wonderful. I want more.
October 20, 2014
This was another graphic novel I could not get into.
October 31, 2013
Do you believe in the Wiccan Rede?
That everything we do comes back to us threefold?
I do, forever and a day.
That everything we do comes back to us threefold?
I do, forever and a day.
September 28, 2014
I liked the story but there was so much going on visually that I kept getting pulled out of the narrative.
I really enjoyed the art but in some places it was so busy that it became hard to follow.
I really enjoyed the art but in some places it was so busy that it became hard to follow.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews