Witch Doctor comic is a popular comic book series created by writer Brandon Seifert and illustrator Lukas Ketner. The series was first published in 2011 by Image Comics and has since gained a significant following. The story follows Dr. Vincent Morrow, a charismatic and eccentric doctor who specializes in supernatural medicine. He combines traditional medical practices with mystical rituals and voodoo to treat his patients. Throughout the series, Dr.
With Halloween shortly upon us, Sony Legacy embraces the dark side by looking at ten outstanding examples of the art of the soundtrack. Read More.
In fact was introduced at the very birth of the genre by Birmingham legends Black Sabbath, the band using it to great effect in their song of the same name, a magnificently doomy and despairing tale of damnation that has provided a template for numerous musicians ever since. But once stripped of its considerable shock value, the band s uneven mixture of psychedelic and early progressive rock was really more flawed than groundbreaking.
Throughout the series, Dr. Morrow encounters various supernatural beings, ranging from demons to zombies, and navigates a world filled with dark magic and mythical creatures. The comic is known for its unique blend of horror, humor, and adventure.
Effective occultism sound track
It’s Halloween – Dayal Patterson delves into the darker side of Metal, courtesy of Music For Nations… For most of us, the appeal of music lies in its ability to move us emotionally; its ability to provoke joy, excitement, nostalgia, and even melancholy within us, and to be able to do so again and again, no matter how familiar we are with a composition. But what about fear? The most obvious example of contemporary music that is primarily designed to unnerve the listener is course is that of the horror soundtrack, themes written specifically to build an atmosphere of dread and complement whatever scares are occurring on-screen. In the most effective cases, such works have become as recognisable and iconic as the films they accompany: It is all but impossible to think of Hitchcock’s Psycho without also remembering the violently stabbing strings utilised by Bernard Herrmann. Or John Carpenter’s Halloween without recalling the creepy (and strangely catchy) piano refrain. And any prolonged discussion of Spielberg’s popular shark-maligning movie Jaws is very likely to provoke a mental or hummed rendition of the bassy theme that accompanies the terrifying attacks in the movie. But while such works are fairly contextual – rarely listened to outside of the films they are created for, except by the most devoted fans – composers and musicians have sought to cause dread in their listeners, and frequently without visual aid. Accordingly, people have begun to fear the power of music itself. One of the earliest examples (at least in the popular imagination) is that of the ‘diabolus in musica’ or ‘devil’s tritone’ (the interval of three tones whose dissonant qualities have a naturally unsettling feeling) which was supposedly banned by the Church prior to the Renaissance, due to its inherently unholy and godless properties. There’s not actually much evidence that this happened, but it does appear, at the very least, to have been discouraged due to both the technical challenges and the fact that its eerie qualities ill-fitted the mostly religious-themed subjects inspiring the music of the time. Still if it wasn’t used then for godless purposes, it certainly was with the emergence of heavy metal. In fact was introduced at the very birth of the genre by Birmingham legends Black Sabbath, the band using it to great effect in their song of the same name, a magnificently doomy and despairing tale of damnation that has provided a template for numerous musicians ever since. From that point onward heavy metal would continue to grow in popularity and in doing so managed to confirm many of the worst fears that had always surrounded rock music – a movement which had been scaring well before religious fanatics began burning Beatles records in protest of their supposed blasphemy. By the eighties, heavy metal was a definite force to be reckoned with and bands like W.A.S.P., Venom and Mercyful Fate began worrying parents in earnest with tales of sex, drugs, violence and, worst of all, overtly devilish subject matter. Many of them would end up on a list called ‘The Filthy Fifteen‘ for their trouble, a list created by a group called the Parents Music Resource Centre as part of their draconian crusade of censorship. This debacle actually resulted in a senate hearing before it collapsed, a highlight being a memorably eloquent defence by Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, one of the bands being accused. While the members of Twisted Sister and W.A.S.P. were actually about as Satanic as Elvis (another musician who found himself under attack by censors decades earlier), Mercyful Fate were, in fact, led by a committed Satanist, namely the charismatic showman King Diamond, a man with links to the Church of Satan. Such connections made songs like ‘Into The Coven’ and ‘Desecration Of Souls’ all the more worrying for Christian authority figures but naturally also all the more compelling for fans. The band’s songs already had an eerie and disconcerting quality but a line had also been drawn in the sand – there were now Satanic/occult metal songs being created by genuine practitioners and not merely for shock value. Stylistically-speaking, Mercyful Fate’s music was in many ways a more ‘evil’ take on Judas Priest’s progressive and melancholy early works and not particularly ‘heavy’ musically, but like the aforementioned Venom (a band who helped push metal into more extreme music territories generally) the group are also considered godfathers of the black metal genre. And it was black metal, more than any other form of rock or metal, that would consciously harness Satanism, occultism and misanthropic sentiment, creating purposefully sinister and punishing music that would prove all but impenetrable to outsiders, the wonderfully illegible logos of the bands echoing a similar ethos. In the years that followed bands such as Samael, Blasphemy, Beherit, Master’s Hammer and the memorably-named Rotting Christ kept the spirit of Venom, Mercyful Fate and Bathory (a Swedish outfit that would likely have given the members of the PMRC heart attacks had they been a bit less underground) alive. Nevertheless it was in the early 90s in Norway that the movement really exploded, creating an international swell in activity. Both the music and the culture were given new gravity, not least thanks to scene godfather Euronymous of Mayhem, who as well as promoting and helping bands, also made clear that black metal should be genuinely Satanic and encouraged a wave of church burnings from his store Helvete (‘Hell’). In many ways this was only the tip of the iceberg, and key musicians in the scene were ultimately also involved in grave desecration, assault, suicide and murder, not least Euronymous himself who unfortunately was murdered by his bandmate, a musician then known as Count Grishnackh whose project Burzum also had an enthusiastic following. Yet, just as the quality of many punk recordings have outlived the controversy and colourful circumstances of their creation, so too is black metal now recognised by many for both its originality and artistic merits. Today the movement is bigger than ever, with bands such as Sweden’s Watain and Poland’s Behemoth bringing blood, fire, Satanism and epic, well-played extreme metal to an increasingly large audience. Meanwhile, beneath the surface, a legion of underground artists from around the world remain busy in the scene’s ever-expanding underground. And though not black metal by any means, the Swedish metal band Ghost have more or less managed to enter rock’s mainstream, channelling the spirit of Mercyful Fate and Italian occult outfit Death SS among others, their subtly creepy songs and imagery winning over fans across the world. It’s a cliché of course, but perhaps the devil does have the best tunes… Dayal Patterson, author of Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult, The Cult Never Dies and Into The Abyss
METAL & THE OCCULT
It’s Halloween – Dayal Patterson delves into the darker side of Metal, courtesy of Music For Nations… Read More.
THE DEATH DISC PHENOMENON
In our latest Halloween think piece, Kris Needs explores the Death Discs phenomenon… Read More.TEN OF THE GREATEST HORROR MOVIE SOUNDTRACKS
With Halloween shortly upon us, Sony Legacy embraces the dark side by looking at ten outstanding examples of the art of the soundtrack. Read More.
Why Has The Devil Got All The Best Tunes?
Three guitars are strung on the telegraph pole at the intersection of highways 61 and 49 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, ‘The Crossroads’ where blues legend Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. This Halloween Kevin Le Gendre is taking you there… Read More.
A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND BURNING SOULS
When it comes to extremity in art, Cradle of Filth have stood proudly above their peers. With Halloween around the corner, Dani Filth talks us through the artwork for their three seminal Music for Nations albums. Read More.
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A band of many firsts (and quite a few lasts, too), Coven was a unique product of their liberal, late-'60s environment, transforming their concerts and albums into full-fledged satanic rituals on a scale never seen in pop music up to that time. But once stripped of its considerable shock value, the band's uneven mixture of psychedelic and early progressive rock was really more flawed than groundbreaking. Coven was formed in late-'60s Chicago by Jinx Dawson (an Indiana native, first name Esther, who had previously studied opera), bassist Oz Osborne (no relation to the Black Sabbath singer), and drummer Steve Ross, and by 1967/1968, they could be seen opening local shows for visiting luminaries ranging from Vanilla Fudge to the Yardbirds, with the help of ancillary players Chris Nielsen on guitar and John Hobbs on keyboards. From the very beginning, Coven's performances took the shape of elaborate satanic rites that largely overshadowed their music, but this didn't stop local producer Bill Traut (the owner of local independent, Dunwich Records, and a major mover and shaker in the Windy City rock scene) from recognizing the core trio's potential, then pairing them with external songwriters, and securing a wider distribution deal with Chicago's own Mercury Records. The first spawn of their unholy union was 1969's legendary Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls album, which draped Coven's diffuse mix of psychedelic prog rock and pop under a veritable catalog of deeply occult lyrics, opening with a song named -- remarkably enough -- "Black Sabbath," and culminating in a 13-minute reading of the Satanic Black Mass itself. What's more, the album contained a now-infamous poster depicting said Black Mass, where bandmembers and associates dressed in monks' robes hoisted torches, upside-down crosses, and threw devil's horns hand signs over a stark naked Dawson, who herself served as the object of their human sacrifice. It should be noted, however, that the striking singer (who made it a point to cast the devil's horns throughout the band's shows) possessed a highly distinctive and refined voice reminiscent of Grace Slick, only much more powerful. Unfortunately, none of this would matter when the not-unexpected controversy that followed the album's release led to widespread boycotts from retailers and mass returns. Then, the imminent rise to fame of Britain's Black Sabbath and their own Ozzy Osbourne just a few months later muddled the situation even further, simultaneously causing much confusion for consumers and overshadowing Coven's quickly dating psych tendencies under the deadweight of heavy metal's leaden boots. The final blow came when Coven were cited in a March 1970 article in Esquire Magazine entitled "Evil Lurks in California," that linked the counterculture with the occult via Charles Manson and his family's heinous acts, convincing Mercury to officially withdraw Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls from circulation. Coven would never really recover from this setback, and had effectively disbanded by the end of 1970; but a new lineup fronted by a then California-based Jinx Dawson was given a second chance at success via the recording of a single called "One Tin Soldier" for a movie soundtrack, which surprisingly charted three separate times in Billboard Magazine's Hot 100 over the next few years: reaching number 26 in 1971, number 79 in 1973, and number 73 in 1974. Amid these recurring signs of life, Dawson and co. recorded an eponymous Coven album for MGM in 1972 and third opus named Blood on the Snow for Buddah Records in 1974; moving closer, each time out, to the hard rock and heavy metal sounds that their iconoclastic debut had influenced indirectly, in terms of imagery and aesthetics, if not the music itself. Blood on the Snow's title track was also the subject of one of the first true music videos ever produced (ironically in partnership with Disney Studios), but its failure to impact the charts would mark the dwindling of Coven's activities over the next few years, as Dawson began focusing on a budding acting and modeling career, instead. Sure enough, it was through Dawson's movie industry work that Coven would eventually reemerge in 1990, when the singer collaborated with original drummer Steve Ross on the soundtrack to a film entitled Heaven Can Help, and then appeared in it with assorted new bandmembers, but this, too, proved a short-lived reunion. Coven's next resurrection would, as with so many cult bands of every stripe, result from organic rediscovery via the worldwide web, followed by renewed engagement by Dawson herself as she realized the lasting power of her "Goth Queen" legacy. Come 2008, she had assembled a new CD of unreleased Coven material entitled Metal Goth Queen: Out of the Vault, which reputedly featured session work from original Steppenwolf guitarist Michael Monarch, one-time Jethro Tull bassist Glen Cornick, and even James Gang/Deep Purple guitarist Tommy Bolin, captured on some of his final recordings. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia
It incorporates elements of classic horror comics and pulp fiction, creating a distinct and engaging storytelling style. The artwork by Lukas Ketner complements the narrative, with detailed illustrations that capture the eerie atmosphere and grotesque creatures of the witch doctor's world. One of the strengths of the series is its well-developed characters. Dr. Morrow is a complex protagonist, with a mysterious past and a sharp wit. He is accompanied by his assistant, Penny Dreadful, who is skilled in the occult and provides valuable support in their supernatural investigations. The supporting cast includes a variety of unique and vibrant characters, each with their own quirks and abilities. The Witch Doctor comic has been praised for its innovative take on the horror genre. It not only introduces readers to a captivating world of magic and monsters but also explores deeper themes of morality, responsibility, and the consequences of dabbling in the supernatural. The series has gained a loyal fanbase and has been well-received by critics, with its clever writing, compelling storyline, and stunning artwork being frequently highlighted. In conclusion, the Witch Doctor comic is a thrilling and imaginative series that offers a fresh and entertaining take on the horror genre. With its charismatic characters, inventive storytelling, and captivating artwork, it has become a beloved addition to the comic book world. Whether you are a fan of horror, fantasy, or simply enjoy a good adventure, the Witch Doctor comic is definitely worth checking out..
Reviews for "Witch Doctor Comics: A Gateway into the Occult"
1. Jane - 2 stars - I was really disappointed with the "Witch Doctor Comic". The story felt rushed and poorly developed, leaving me confused and uninterested. The artwork was also lackluster, with inconsistent styles throughout. Overall, I found it to be a forgettable and underwhelming read.
2. Mark - 1 star - I couldn't even finish reading the "Witch Doctor Comic". The plot was all over the place and hard to follow, with too many unnecessary subplots that only added to the confusion. The characters were poorly developed and lacked depth, making it difficult to engage with the story. The artwork was also a letdown, with muddy colors and unimpressive illustrations. I wouldn't recommend this comic to anyone.
3. Sarah - 2.5 stars - While the concept of the "Witch Doctor Comic" intrigued me, the execution fell flat. The pacing was off, with too much exposition in some parts and sudden shifts in the story without proper buildup. The characters lacked depth and their motivations were unclear. Additionally, the artwork, although detailed, had a messy composition that made it difficult to focus on the important elements. Overall, I found it to be a mediocre read that failed to live up to its potential.
4. Mike - 1 star - I found the "Witch Doctor Comic" to be a complete waste of time. The story was boring and predictable, following cliché tropes that offered nothing new or exciting. The characters were one-dimensional and lacked any depth, making it hard to care about their fates. The artwork was also underwhelming, with uninspired illustrations and a lack of attention to detail. I would not recommend this comic to anyone looking for a thrilling or unique read.
5. Emily - 2 stars - Unfortunately, the "Witch Doctor Comic" didn't live up to my expectations. The plot was convoluted and confusing, with too many unanswered questions and unresolved storylines. The characters felt generic and lacked originality, making it hard to connect with them. The artwork, although decent, didn't do enough to salvage the weak storytelling. Overall, I found this comic to be forgettable and unsatisfying.