The Occultist #1
Publisher: Dark Horse
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artist: Victor Drujiniu (cover by Steve Morris)
When college student Robert Abraham Bailey stumbles upon a book of spells one day, he’s not really that impressed at first. Later, as the book begins to speak to him, he’s freaking out and suddenly has some on the job training he wasn’t expecting working at a book store in New Hampshire. Robert and his friend Cole try to use the internet to dig up some info on the book and its previous owner. The ‘net nets no results, and it’s back to the drawing board. Robert soon gets a visit from the local police, and when he’s questioned about the death of his boss, the store owner, he needs to resort to spell casting to keep the officer out of harm’s way. She wouldn’t be able to handle the new world that Robert has been opened up to. A world of magic and sorcery that he must quickly learn to master, or be killed by every other magical entity that wants that book.
The Occultist is brought to us by Tim Seeley (Hack Slash, G.I. Joe), and he is someone that should be on everyone’s radar. He’s worked on many different books, and that has given him a good deal of knowledge on how to write and draw comics. He does a good job on this first issue with introducing the main characters and not giving too much away. We all know by now that’s a big key that some people still are off the mark with. The artist, Victor Drujiniu, is new for me personally, but does seem like he’s quite an accomplished artist. He does a good job with the beast in the first couple of pages (see image above) and with pretty much everything else throughout the book. The only complaint I have about the entire book is the “look” of the main character when he goes into action. He closely resembles a Marvel villain that was a big part of one of the “big events” a couple of years ago. Other than that, this book was great and I can’t wait to check out the next issue. Rating 4/5
Billy Dunleavy
billy@comicattack.net
