Pocus Hocus #1 is a comic written by Allen Dunford & Will Radford with art by Brian Balondo and colors by Jasen Smith. A stage magician sells his soul for real magic powers. This is a supernatural comic with dramatic elements and bit of comedy. The main man for this tale is Pocus Hocus, he is attempting to obtain real magic powers all for the sake of one person. The story begins at a bar where he is recounting his meeting with the demon to a fellow patron. It plays out as a flashback with some interruptions in the form of questions. Using context clues this appears to take place sometime within 1900-1950 in what seems to be the UK. The violence here is physical with no blood, or gore. The pacing is steady with a slightly comedic tone. There are a couple intense moments but nothing too big. The dialogue is a bit modern and mostly conversational. There are no word-heavy pages here. This is an interesting debut issue that focuses on setting the scene and establishing the main character while hinting at greater things to come.

            The art here is very detailed and looks a bit like classic literature illustrations with notable shading. This is in black-and-white except for anything involving the supernatural which can be a number of colors from neon green to electric blue. A good chunk of this story takes place in a twisted forest during what must be a colder month as the trees are mostly barren. There are many locations here from the stage to the street with a bar being visited and a manor as well. The backgrounds are kinda split between showing the scene and being a gradient color/heavily shaded. The expression level here is a tick below-average as the main person we’ll see is Pocus and he doesn’t veer too far off his resting face. The emotional range consists of sadness and happiness with some annoyance. The faces have a high amount of detail and show the different looks clearly. The magical effects take different appearances and colors depending on what they do. The violence here is physical but nothing too serious. The lone action scene is only a couple panels long.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you like supernatural stories with drama and a bit of comedy that star a magician and takes place in the past then this is for you.

“What would this comic’s film rating be?”

PG.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“Will you pull a coin from behind my ear?”

 

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/allenandwill/pocus-hocus-1/description

***IN-DEPTH COMIC STATS BELOW***

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 23

Violent Pages: 1, for 4% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 0, for 0% of the comic

 

**The levels below aren’t necessarily maintained throughout the whole comic, but they were definitely reached**

 

Violence Level – 2

“Wasn’t no tussling at all.”

“Sometimes you gotta hit somebody.”

“I’m getting charged with how many counts of assault?”

“This was a tournament arc.”

“All my life I had to fight.”

 

Gore Level – 1

“The only thing leaking out your face is tears.”

“Looks like somebody spilled some ketchup.”

“Might need to soak that up with a bath towel.”

“That isn’t supposed to be outside the body.”

“This is a slaughterhouse.”

 

Death Level – 1

“And everybody lived happily ever after.”

“We might have gone to a couple funerals.”

“It just LOOKS like a serial killer was here.”

“Yeah this was a tragedy.”

“Think Gettysburg.”

 

Porn Level – 1

“Everybody kept their clothes on.”

“I guess it was too hot for a bra.”

“Sometimes you got to let everything air out.”

“This is like late night Cinemax in the early 2000’s.”

“Oh. This is porn.”