What do you think?
Rate this book
Hexware Volume 1
Why sell your soul...when you can buy a new one? In a corporate-ruled city where class inequality is greater than ever, a desperate, lonely populace is drawn to neo-spiritualism and hedge magic. When their teenage daughter is murdered, the Marks family is left asking the gods what they did to deserve this. But their android maid, Which-Where, has a different approach. Perhaps if she asked the devil... Now to pay the price, a machine with the soul of a teenage girl must hunt down souls who have escaped from hell. But on the way, she and her only friend, Ren, discover a vast conspiracy threatening to burn the last civilization to the ground. Can Which-where keep her soul, with her humanity on the line? A new futuristic miniseries by acclaimed creator Tim Seeley (Nightwing, HACK/SLASH, REVIVAL) and rising star Zulema Scotto Lavina (The Little Mermaid, Red Sonja)! Collects Hexware issues #1 - #6
144 pages, Paperback
Published August 15, 2023
7 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
About the author
Tim Seeley
1,648 books608 followersTim Seeley is a comic book artist and writer known for his work on books such as G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, The Dark Elf Trilogy, Batman Eternal and Grayson. He is also the co-creator of the Image Comics titles Hack/Slash[1] and Revival, as well as the Dark Horse titles, ExSanguine and Sundowners. He lives in Chicago.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 18, 2023
I don't buy individual comics for most modern series but I liked the 1st issue of this so much that I bought the following 5 and even 2 variant covers, which I now regret cause this is 12 issues of a bad stupid story crammed into 6 issues of a REALLY bad stupid story. "What if a robot became a witch who hunts demons in a cyberpunk world" is not exactly a genius idea but it was enough to get me in the door, but that gets tossed away quickly for the most bland version of cyberpunk class disparity commentary possible, only to throw THAT away to become even-more-boring I, Robot (the movie obvs). The ending is abrupt, hollow trash, Which-Where is the only remotely interesting character in this thing and deserved better. Between this and the astonishingly awful Hack/Slash omni I read last year I think I'm good on Tim Seeley comics forever.
5 star character design though, I love her I wish she was in a good comic.
5 star character design though, I love her I wish she was in a good comic.
October 1, 2023
Witchcraft and cyberpunk? I’M IN. A nice simple story about rebirth, corruption and the inevitable clash between humanity and monstrousity.
April 24, 2024
Writing this is honestly between a 2-3, but the artwork saved it. I do think that sometimes the art was sooo chaotic that with the vagueness in the writing combined I had no clue what was happening.
Read
January 25, 2024A sexy robot witch stalks the last enclave of post-collapse privilege, finding the demons hiding amongst those who profited from the end of the world and sending them back to Hell. Yeah, I have a few quibbles around the edges (the pacing is shot; even the apocalypse doesn't excuse cassette revivalism), but if that pitch doesn't sell it to you, I don't know what would.
March 12, 2025
We've all heard of the Replacement Goldfish Trope, where somebody mourns the loss of their child so much, they give something man-made all the love & affection they would their own child. Found as early as "Astro Boy" and even earlier with "Pinocchio."
So what happens when the man-made something becomes the vessel for the soul of the deceased child?
Apparently the boss of the Bad Place (subtly called THE FIRE) is amused by the lil maidbot who wants to help her masters get over their grief of losing a daughter to a terrorist and so gives her the soul back with the caveat she has to be a bounty hunter for some ne'er-do-wells who've escaped hell.
So in this vast future dystopia with an America we can't recognize where the gulf between the haves & have-nots is ridiculously huge, we have a robot who wars with her double souls fighting international cryptids & figures from mythology, all while feigning being a simple maid to her own parents.
Premise like that is pretty much solid gold for me, but there are a couple of things that hold it back.
Some very last minute plot twists that weren't established as well as I personally hoped, making the
end seem like there were twists thrown in for twists' sake. The part I mentioned earlier about warring souls within one body is not really realized as one is a princess archetype and the other is more subservient what with her just being a basic AI programmed for cleaning & giving people sweaters, and the only real conflict they have in their shared minds is whether or not to default to "GIVE EM THE FIRES OF HELL" protocols, which scares the lil miss, so she tries not to use em in future encounters. The monstrosities they hunt have a sympathetic side. Sometimes that's used to make it easier for the reader to see them as allies in the fight against the big bad corporation, and other times they remind the reader why they were sent to damnation in the first place.
Overall, a fun read with a great premise & interesting worldbuilding, but not as fully fleshed out (titanium plating'd out?) as I hoped.
So what happens when the man-made something becomes the vessel for the soul of the deceased child?
Apparently the boss of the Bad Place (subtly called THE FIRE) is amused by the lil maidbot who wants to help her masters get over their grief of losing a daughter to a terrorist and so gives her the soul back with the caveat she has to be a bounty hunter for some ne'er-do-wells who've escaped hell.
So in this vast future dystopia with an America we can't recognize where the gulf between the haves & have-nots is ridiculously huge, we have a robot who wars with her double souls fighting international cryptids & figures from mythology, all while feigning being a simple maid to her own parents.
Premise like that is pretty much solid gold for me, but there are a couple of things that hold it back.
Some very last minute plot twists that weren't established as well as I personally hoped, making the
end seem like there were twists thrown in for twists' sake. The part I mentioned earlier about warring souls within one body is not really realized as one is a princess archetype and the other is more subservient what with her just being a basic AI programmed for cleaning & giving people sweaters, and the only real conflict they have in their shared minds is whether or not to default to "GIVE EM THE FIRES OF HELL" protocols, which scares the lil miss, so she tries not to use em in future encounters. The monstrosities they hunt have a sympathetic side. Sometimes that's used to make it easier for the reader to see them as allies in the fight against the big bad corporation, and other times they remind the reader why they were sent to damnation in the first place.
Overall, a fun read with a great premise & interesting worldbuilding, but not as fully fleshed out (titanium plating'd out?) as I hoped.
September 30, 2023
I'm certainly no literary genius, and after my second foray into Tim Seeley, I am fairly confident that he isn't either.
The writing:
Issue #1: 3★-Interesting premise. Very cool main character! Trope-y side characters that he tries hard to make not so trope-y. It would have been 4★ if not for Tim's horrible use of "THEN" and "NOW" pacing. There are ways to do it that don't come off Book Of Boba Fail style. Every other page is not the way to do it. I'm assuming it was to give off a feeling of chaos(similar to the art), but it just comes off as disjointed and annoying.
Issues #2-#4: 2★-It just loses anything it gained from issue #1. He introduces too many new characters out of nowhere with nothing interesting developing. Even the main character becomes just another trope, and therefore boring. Also, Tim, you can't shoehorn every current socio-political hot button(I remember 4 off the top of my head) into one story. Well, maybe you can, but not in 6 issues, or 4, as that's as far as I got.
Issues #5-#6: 0★-I couldn't finish it. I had lost all interest, and just couldn't pick it back up.
The art: Ok, hear me out. The artist is very good, but it's not my cup of tea. Cover art? On my wall? Sure! As interior art, no way. Chaotic and not great at telling the story. If I had to compare, I would say it is a cross between Alex Maleev(who I do not like as an interior artist for the same reasons) and Stjepan Šejić(who I do like a lot).
Is this terrible? No, but it certainly is not great. I couldn't finish volume one of Hack/Slash either, and that was a bit better. Your mileage may vary.
The writing:
Issue #1: 3★-Interesting premise. Very cool main character! Trope-y side characters that he tries hard to make not so trope-y. It would have been 4★ if not for Tim's horrible use of "THEN" and "NOW" pacing. There are ways to do it that don't come off Book Of Boba Fail style. Every other page is not the way to do it. I'm assuming it was to give off a feeling of chaos(similar to the art), but it just comes off as disjointed and annoying.
Issues #2-#4: 2★-It just loses anything it gained from issue #1. He introduces too many new characters out of nowhere with nothing interesting developing. Even the main character becomes just another trope, and therefore boring. Also, Tim, you can't shoehorn every current socio-political hot button(I remember 4 off the top of my head) into one story. Well, maybe you can, but not in 6 issues, or 4, as that's as far as I got.
Issues #5-#6: 0★-I couldn't finish it. I had lost all interest, and just couldn't pick it back up.
The art: Ok, hear me out. The artist is very good, but it's not my cup of tea. Cover art? On my wall? Sure! As interior art, no way. Chaotic and not great at telling the story. If I had to compare, I would say it is a cross between Alex Maleev(who I do not like as an interior artist for the same reasons) and Stjepan Šejić(who I do like a lot).
Is this terrible? No, but it certainly is not great. I couldn't finish volume one of Hack/Slash either, and that was a bit better. Your mileage may vary.
June 21, 2023
I know I've been reading a lot of Seeley lately, but as with Tom King I'm a bit late in discovering these writers (and have their earlier work in the infamous TBR mountain).
This is on the dystopian side of things. The rich live in towers with everything while the non-rich live a day-to-day struggle to survive (excuse the brief description but I'm slightly burned out on the dystopian future thing despite Picard being a wonderful pallet cleanser).
Witch Ware is a domestic android who's owners have dressed it up as a typical Halloween witch. Jesminder is unaware, as a daughter of the rich, as to what is really going on in the world.
Until she is killed in a terrorist attack. In the first issue. Story over?
No, because a poor friend of hers uses Jesminder's mother's multiple tomes on religion and mythology to summon Jesminder's spirit and encase it in Witch Ware. Except a demon also comes along for the ride.
Unlike Penric's Demon there is a cost to having this demon in a body even an android's body.
Nice little novella that offers some points about class warfare to think about.
This is on the dystopian side of things. The rich live in towers with everything while the non-rich live a day-to-day struggle to survive (excuse the brief description but I'm slightly burned out on the dystopian future thing despite Picard being a wonderful pallet cleanser).
Witch Ware is a domestic android who's owners have dressed it up as a typical Halloween witch. Jesminder is unaware, as a daughter of the rich, as to what is really going on in the world.
Until she is killed in a terrorist attack. In the first issue. Story over?
No, because a poor friend of hers uses Jesminder's mother's multiple tomes on religion and mythology to summon Jesminder's spirit and encase it in Witch Ware. Except a demon also comes along for the ride.
Unlike Penric's Demon there is a cost to having this demon in a body even an android's body.
Nice little novella that offers some points about class warfare to think about.
October 27, 2023
This took entirely too long to read and I just didn’t care. I wanted to see how it ended to see if I would feel satisfied, but I really don’t. The idea of this was much better than the execution, in my opinion. I liked the art style quite a bit, though, so at least there’s that.
September 10, 2023
The art and colouring are absolutely beautiful but I found the story a little confusing. Not sure is I will continue with this series.
October 23, 2023
That last issue lost me
May 16, 2024
Fascinating and unique concept, and lots of philosophical and religious discussion :)
May 27, 2025
Interesting story. Loved the art.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews