Hexed is a spinoff of Michael Alan Nelson’s comic series for Boom! Studios, Fall of Cthulhu. It centres around the escapades of Luci Jenifer Inacio das Neves, AKA “Lucifer,” (yes, that is her name), a thief-for-hire and occasional witch who is technically apprenticed to an immoral sorceress from another dimension. Lucifer works for a gallery owner and uses her supernatural thieving skills to make sure the weird and unspeakable artefacts that are so beloved of Lovecraft’s monsters don’t end up in the wrong hands.
The series ran for two volumes, in 2008-9 and 2014-15 and they’re both worth looking into. Hexed has a lot going for it: Dan Mora’s fantastic line art; a badass yet likeable female lead; an urban fantasy setting with a darker underside; and a colourful supporting cast of strange eldritch creatures. It feels a lot like Buffy, in a way: the same youthful wit in the face of unimaginable horror. Both series are pretty short and self-contained, and worth checking out.
Nelson also wrote a young adult novel about Lucifer’s early years called Hexed: The Sisters of Witchdown. It’s full of YA tropeyness (cute boiz and high school angst), but it’s an easy and less hardcore intro to the series for those who prefer prose to sequential art.
PBE Welsh 