Prison Witch #1 is a comic written by Amy Shand and Pat Shand with illustrations by Erica D’Urso. Cam gets used to her new life in prison as she struggles with demonic possession. This is a supernatural drama comic that takes place in a women’s prison and features violence, intensity, and noir vibes. The leading lady for this tale is Cam Turner, she is a demon-possessed woman who values her alone time but can’t seem to get any. She tries to be a good and kind person but that doesn’t always work behind bars. Her cellmate Katherine is a blonde and very blunt woman. Tanya has short black hair and a lot of energy but her bubbly personality can sometimes annoy others. The story begins in the morning with Cam in her cell knotting her hair and getting introspective about her current life. This is interrupted by her cellmate Katherine who is checking to make sure she isn’t crazy, and they are interrupted by the C.O. Ramirez telling them it’s time for breakfast. The action consists of hard-hits and some blood but there isn’t any gore or gruesomeness. The pacing is steady with some slow moments and the tone is like most popular prison shows. The intensity spikes due to drama and violence. There is a near 50/50 split between conversational dialogue and thought narration from Cam. The back-and-forth is good and most of the characters are upbeat. There are more than few word-heavy pages and thick text bubbles/blocks. This is an interesting debut issue that gives us a large cast with a fiery, conflicted, struggling lead and an intriguing story that has multiple plotlines.

            The art here is a drawn in a clean, modern style with decent shading. There are no colors, this is in black-and-white. Aside from the dirt ground and some plants there isn’t much natural scenery here. This takes place in a prison with many different areas featured from the cells to the showers to the chapel and other places. The backgrounds usually show the immediate and distant surroundings thought sometimes it’ll be a gradient, a pattern, or just blank. The expression level here is very high as the looks can change on a panel-the-panel basis. The emotional range is very wide with feelings like anger, rage, happiness, confusion, joy, tiredness, sadness, fear, and annoyance. The faces here tend to have a decent to good amount of details with all the different expression coming across clearly. The mystical effects have a fire-like appearance and transparency. The violence is mainly delivered physically but there are some objects used. There is light blood and brutal attacks but no gore and nothing gruesome. The action scenes are short and are scattered throughout.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you like supernatural drama stories that star women in prison and feature violence, noir vibes, and lesbian/queerness then this is for you.

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

R. Violence, blood, nudity, sexual scenes.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“A beating is nothing to be ashamed of.”

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

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 23

Violent Pages: 3, for 13% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 1, for 4% 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 – 2

“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 – 2

“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.”