Raise Hell

by Jordan Alsaqa, Mark Bouchard (editor), Ray Nadine (cover_art)

Best friends Victor, Reeves, and Miri thought that summoning their own demonic familiar would be a great way to end their summer vacation, but they never could’ve foreseen the devious little imp the depths would spit up. Still, as lazy and annoying as Alistair the Malicious can be, he’s just the start to a junior year filled with mystical janitors, haunted malls, and demonic possessions. Add on to that all the angst, unrequited romance, and awkward self-discovery that comes with being a teenager, and there’s more haunted hijinks and demonic detours than anyone can handle in Raise Hell!

150 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 7, 2025

Reviews

[Alex Sarll]

A slacker comedy set in an America where demonology is a regular part of life, centred on bickering friends who don't quite know what they're doing when they summon a vaguely underwhelming imp who ends up bonded to the three of them. The worldbuilding felt wobbly in ways that would usually annoy me: there are part-demon kids around too, yet the ethics of summoning their kin don't really seem to be an issue, and nor does the existence of licensed demon-hunters. And the art, while always lively, sometimes tips over into amateurish, especially in the many panels where someone seems to have concluded that in the absence of any drawn background, just filling the space behind the characters with a single garish hue would help (it does not). Despite all of which, mostly I had a good time, I think because it really did feel like a slacker comedy. In a lot of stuff by, for and about young people lately, I get the feeling that the creators and audience are into modelling suitable behaviours, so there's lots of appropriate but stilted interaction which I'd consider more befitting of a workshop than art. Raise Hell, on the other hand, knows that compared to some of its predecessors there's definitely room to diversify the core cast, but that whatever their backgrounds, orientations and pronouns, kids are frequently dicks, and that's much more entertaining to watch.