Raymond Chandler Meets Aleister Crowley: Should You Be Reading ‘Black Magick’?

With Should I Be Reading… ?, ComicsAlliance hopes to offer you a guide to some of the best original ongoing comics being published today.

Black Magick is a beautiful and haunting Image series by Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott, about the occult, witch hunters, detectives, and the darkness biding its time just below the surface of the mundane world.

WHAT'S IT ABOUT?

When a man takes a group of people hostage, he demands to speak to police detective Rowan Black. He tells her he knows what she is --- "witch" --- and that her and her kind are being hunted. The series follows Black as she struggles to keep her secret, find out who is hunting her, and work her cases for the Portsmouth P.D.

If you think that sounds like the perfect pitch for a television drama, you're not alone. Black Magick has been optioned for development as a television series by the producers behind SyFy's The Magicians.

WHO'S IT BY?

Black Magick was created by Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott, who are currently busy hammering out Wonder Woman's tricky origins over at DC. Rucka is perhaps best known to DC fans as one of the creators behind Batwoman's Kate Kane, and the co-creator of the series Gotham Central, with writer Ed Brubaker and artist Michael Lark.

Scott has provided art for the DC series Birds of Prey and Earth-2, among others. Jodi Wynne is the letterer, and Chiara Arena provides color assists.

WHAT MAKES IT SPECIAL?

Black Magick blends beyond-belief supernatural elements with down-to-earth noir, which is only a bit harder than blending water and oil, yet the team makes it work every issue without fail. Scott's art presents an oppressively drab grey world, until magic crashes into it and literally lights it up.

There may be some comics you read more for the art, and some more for the writing. This is a comic that should definitely be appreciated for both in equal measure.

WHO SHOULD READ IT?

The teenager who carves pentagrams and reads Aleister Crowley. The adult who imagines themselves creeping down dark-lit alleys, cigarette smoke pouring from the shadows. If you enjoy Raymond Chandler or Anne Rice, read Black Magick.

WHERE CAN I READ IT?

Black Magick is on a brief hiatus, but the first five issues can be found on Comixology or in better comic stores, or in the collected volume available on Amazon and in bookstores.