The Sandman Presents: Thessaly - Witch for Hire

Another one of the Sandman series I didn't have. I would've appreciated the sender using a more appropriate box to send it in though. As it arrived bent.

One of the more enigmatic characters in the unfathomable world that is Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman," Thessaly has also become one of the most endearing. She is a waifishly cute witch of the bookish, granola variety -- at first glance -- but more of the powerful and ruthless type once you get to know her. In "Witch for Hire," Thessaly is saddled with a fetch, a ghost-like being comprising the souls of the many thousands of people killed by the witch over the millennia-long existence. She's also being attacked by a variety of vile beasts, and the fetch is seemingly the cause. Soon, Thessaly finds herself faced with a force of chaos so powerful that it can't be killed. But since failing to best it means dying herself, she's quite motivated to prove the legends wrong. The climax of "Witch for Hire" seems a little anticlimatic, to be honest, but the journey getting there is loads of fun. Bill Willingham, creator of the "Fables" series, has taken Gaiman's lead and run with the character, and her development here is spot on. Shawn McManus has illustrated the book with a fable-like gloss that makes even the most disgusting bits -- vomiting frogs, stuffing eyeballs in jars, you know the sort of thing -- look innocent as pink bunnies. By Tom Knapp, Rambles.NET editor

Thessaly is growing on me as a character. It would be interesting to see some stories from her past

Thessaly, the world's most powerful witch, is back in a sequel her tale in Sandman Presents: Taller Tales. Thessaly finds herself fighting a Naga. This is not the first monster she has fought recently. Then Fetch returns and claims that the monsters were sent by him and that they are a monster-slaying team (even if she didn't know it). Now there is one last case but the monster doesn't really exist. Except that it does and it cannot be stopped. Thessaly knows the coming monster will be her destruction so she sets accounts right and goes on a quest to discover a way to stop the monster. But everything says the monster can't be stopped. Can Fetch and Thessaly pull a rabbit out of a hat and stop the unstoppable? You will have to read it to find out. A very interesting tale told in an unusual way. Dome of the action occurs completely off stage with very little description (a technique that worked well in The Books of Magic). The art is clean and the monster has a Kirby-ish look. I did not feel the story was either dragged out or condensed. It seemed to be told at just the right pace. Quite entertaining.