Witch Doctor, Vol. 1: Under the Knife

Title: Witch Doctor, Vol. 1: Under the Knife

ISBN: 9781607064411
Price: $12.99
Publisher/Year: Image, 2011
Artist: Lukas Ketner
Writer: Brandon Seifert
Collects: Witch Doctor #0-4

Rating: 3/5

Under the Knife is the first collection of Brandon Seifert and Lukas Ketner's charmingly demented graphic novel Witch Doctor, which concerns th travails of Dr Vincent Morrow, a metaphysical epidemiologist who specializes in tracking down and eradicating transdimensional pestilences, ably assisted by Penny Dreadful (a possessed former art students whose internal demon feeds on pandimensional horrors) and Eric Gast, a paramedic who's learning the metaphysics trade.

Ketner and Seifert's sensibility is perfectly potty, and their titular doctor is a blend of Doctor Who and Spider Jerusalem. The metaphysics they reveal through the gruesome adventures in this volume has a weird internal consistency, but it's so cockeyed and frankly revolting that I can honestly say it never occurred to me before they scarred me with it.

This is a fine debut, and I can't wait for future volumes.