When I sit down of an evening and the first thing I read in a comic is a round of drinks being ordered, I know I’m in the right place. The right place in this issue is the Copper Shield pub - I'm guessing this is the local cop-shop for when the cops don’t want to be in the shop, as it were. And while half the team is watching the game on the big screen TV, not surprisingly the other half are talking about the bloated floater found last issue - Bruce Dunridge. And none of them seem overly sorry to hear that news.
One drink and Rowan’s off home, to find Alex on her doorstep. More is revealed about the hammer, the symbol of the Aira, and the importance in Rowan Black being faced by the now crispy Rowan White. Talk of the sinister hand of a murderer seems to suggest something called a ‘Hand of Glory’, but apparently no one in the coven knows how to make one and it’s deep (as in dangerous, possibly dark) magic. Alex thinks she can find out who sent White for Black if she can get the lighter White used, the one with the hammer symbol. Which, for Black, would be stealing evidence. When Alex leaves, she tells (well she orders) Rowan to set wards before she goes to bed.
Next day, Rowan buys a plain silver lighter, carves a rune on it, blows on the lighter and low and behold it glows. Somehow the swap isn’t noticed. Glowing here may not be a coincidence, me thinks.
Cut to a church. And priests speaking German. Thankfully they soon switch back to English, my German got about as far as “Ich komme aus London” being “I’ve come from London” and then fell down completely, and that was the second panel. What is revealed in the last pages is well worth the read - international man of mystery in a dog collar, could be interesting.
As ever the artwork here is fantastic. I particularly like the first view of Rowan’s grimoire collection and the effect over the house of the wards she sets. The last panel of the issue starts to tie in this new religious thread with the old pagan one and makes it all work nicely. This issue is more plot than action, and works well to illustrate the various personalities of the precinct and the depth of not only Rowan’s concerns, but Alex’s too. The new elements coming into the story look like they are going to add a great deal to the future of this comic.
One of the things people may or may not know about me, is that I’m a cat lover (no jokes about forty candles and forty cats please, I have a husband and two kids… yes, okay and a cat). So I know what moggies are like, familiar isn’t always the word. Rowan’s familiar is a lovely sleek black cat, who never has a speech bubble -- because despite what the cat ladies say, they don’t talk to you. Scream and shout till they get their way - yes, but they don’t speak -- still the cat gets its point across just the same, just like every cat I’ve ever known.
Loving this series. Four out of five, and that’s only because I have no idea was what being said for three whole pages as I didn’t want to type the German into Bablefish.
Gail Williams lives in her own private dungeon populated with all the weird and the wonderful she can imagine. Some of it’s very weird, and the odd bits and pieces are a bit wonderful. Well okay, she lives in Swansea with her husband and daughter. And the world’s most demanding cat. To find out more about Gail, check out www.gailbwilliams.co.uk - Dare you!
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