Rich Woodall And Jake Allen Unleash Cyberpunk Occult Action With ‘Whomever Wields The Witchhammer’
by Anton Kromoff
Welcome to the table,
In ages long past, I found myself in New England for a large majority of my time. I got laced into the local comic scene, made friends, and even lived there for a while. At that point in my life, it seemed I was at one comic convention or another up and down the East Coast. When you spend that much time in those places, you end up making friends with the people who are also there. One of those storytellers, whom I ended up hanging out with more often than not, was a creator by the name of Rich Woodall.
Rich is a Ringo-nominated creator who has been working in comics for over 30 years. He’s worked for Image, IDW, Dark Horse, and Hasbro on all sorts of IP you know and love. In addition to all of that, he has creator-owned titles like Gods of Brutality, Sgt. Werewolf, and a favorite of mine, Johnny Raygun.
Now, much closer to now than then, I had the pleasure to work with another titanic New England talent by the name of Jake Allen. Jake lent his powerful artistic skills to a tabletop role-playing project titled Outer Seas that I created.
In addition to breathing life into that salty setting that has hit troubled waters (due to less-than-reputable people outside our control), Jake has worked on everything from true crime comics to sword & sorcery books, TTRPGs to fantasy stories featuring polar bear pugilists, and even working as the Senior Comic Artist at Bit Fry Game Studios for a spell.
So when I found out these two creators were teaming up to make something really rad, I just had to take a second to tell you all about it. Let’s get into it!
The project is called Whoever Wields the Witchhammer and it sounds positively radical. It follows Rozalin Mauceri, a small-time cat burglar, who dabbles in witchcraft. Rozalin is about to take on a job that will change her life forever, and what should have been a simple burglary turns into a fight for her life. “The Children of Ormhäxan,” a snake god cult, breaks into the same apartment and finds the “witchhammer,” an ancient weapon used for a millennium to fight evil all over the world.
Jake does something with art that astonishes me. He can craft something that feels alive on the page. It’s so full of energy and liquidy. Watching him apply that technique to the paneled page is nothing short of an absolute delight. Rich has a keen mind for storytelling, so between the two of them, I am pretty sure this is going to be one hell of a ride.
Whoever Wields the Witchhammer is currently funding over on Kickstarter, so if you dig these kinds of amazing talents and some seriously cool concepts in comic form, slide on over there and check it out!
Until next time, Jake is seriously one of the best artists I have ever known. I’ve watched this man work himself to the bone for years, and I have never seen him phone it in. Without a doubt, one of my favorite living artists in the game, and he should 100% be on more projects that value him for his talents and pay him his worth.
