Vincent Ferrante: On a Witch Hunt

By Kevin Noel Olson

Creator Vincent Ferrante and his team have come up with an intriguing and unique publication with Witch Hunter. Employing fantastic and stylistic artwork, and off-kilter humor, the comic is part Silver Age homage, part indie, and all original. Vincent discusses the origin of the story, the struggle against a titanic comic-book titan, and chocolate-chip cookies.

KEVIN NOEL OLSON: Hi Vincent-thanks for agreeing to the interview. First of all, could you tell us a little about yourself?

VINCENT FERRANTE: I like creating a sacred space in the space of a good album, chocolate chip cookies really make me happy and life is meant to be enjoyed for the little things, the simple pleasures and wonder. How little did you mean?

KNO: I’ve heard enough already-chocolate chip cookies; the nerve of some guys! (You didn’t even offer me any.) If you don’t mind, please give a rundown of the premise behind Witch Hunter.

VF: WITCH HUNTER, the comic book, began way back in 1692. Ruling through fear, lies and brute force was just becoming popular in the New World during the Salem witch trials™. Those in power saw the fear of magic as a good excuse to eliminate some people and control everyone else. The witch-hunts paved the way for a future when no one would believe in magic, challenge the status quo or have the courage to look up and see what was going on around them. That’s when the dark powers that be would have their patience rewarded, allowing them to transmute the world into any form they choose. Hopefully by then they’ll know what that is.

A coven of light called The Rite Path knew that the witch-hunters were creating hysteria for their own dark purposes. For this reason, The Rite Path’s leader wove a spell into her son to make him resistant to magic used against him. Then the witch-hunters came. They burned them all at the stake. As they burned, the boy’s father captured his soul in a crystal and saved it for when his power would be needed. His parents had concealed their marriage to spare the father the same fate. Now it was time to carry out their plan…

300 years later, the boy’s father, kept alive by The Rite Path’s magic, returned to the site of the mass grave where the bones of his wife and child were discarded with those of others. The power of the crystal created a new body and deposited the captured soul in it. The revived child grew into a man resistant to the arcane forces controlling the world. In addition, he was outfitted with an arsenal his father had spent centuries building.

He was taught the ways of magic and the art of combat. He learned not to take himself too seriously. His irreverence would give him an edge against the colossal egos he’d be facing, and help to keep things in perspective. He became a new kind of Witch Hunter. Now he has to fight the dark powers that be, called The Scarlet Circle, before they remake the world in their own image, which is sure to suck.

KNO: Where did the idea for Witch Hunter evolve from?

VF: I was playing at a friend’s house when I was 12 in 1976. Staging Mego battles led to comic book creation fueled by Oreos and Tang. We read comics from before we could read, as the incredible Silver Age art we were exposed to didn’t need any words. I had always loved magic and monsters. I wanted a hero that could enter that world but still have the buccaneer in him, a light outlook in a dark book.

I wrote the first Witch Hunter comic book and my friend John Fletcher drew it. In college, I found inner peace through irreverence from sources like Fletch, Soap, George Carlin and Jim Morrison. The perspectives of Carlin and Morrison expose the evils of the world and mock them, holding up a mirror to the idiocy. That’s very inspiring to me, because to oppose darkness without letting it darken you, and in fact making light of it, is what really annoys the powers of darkness. They hate it when you think they’re morons.

KNO: It’s apparent you have more than a passing familiarity with Silver Age material. What from that era inspires you the most in writing Witch Hunter?

VF: My favorite comic books ever are Kamandi, the original Deathlok, Howard The Duck, The Creeper, Shazam!, Eerie, Creepy, House of Mystery, all the EC comics, The Rook, Stan Lee & John Romita’s The Amazing Spider-Man, Tomb of Dracula, The Mighty Thor, Batman, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Aquaman, The Atom, Nova, Iron Fist and Captain Mar-Vell. He’s my hero, a man of war who became a force for peace and cosmic awareness. Marv, being tapped into life, the universe and everything, really saw the big picture. He got it. Captain Mar-Vell enjoyed the simple things in life and would lay down his own life to preserve them. He’s on my desk.

My other hero is the George Reeves portrayal of Superman. George Reeves is Superman to me. His Superman was a nice guy, and he’d always do the right thing. George Reeves also channeled Clark Kent perfectly. The whole cast were their characters. It’s magic. I love that show.

KNO: One of the striking visuals about Witch Hunter is his costume. I would challenge anyone to come up with a more intriguing combination of colors for a costume and still have it work as well as it does for Witch Hunter. Only the Golden Age Green Turtle could offer a challenge on the color combination. Can you tell us a bit about the evolution of the color choices?

VF: It’s a light look in a dark book. Witch Hunter should have a darkness to him but be able to keep it light. In a visual sense, it just developed into the right foundation colors and carefully placed accents to catch the eye and excite the mind, engaging the spirit…and, you know, stuff.

KNO: You know I had to ask about the mummy with the gloved hands. Was he a gardener at Amarna for Pharaoh Akhenaten or something? There was some reference included regarding this mummy-did he come from some carved hieroglyphs in Egypt?

VF: The Berater was created by a friend of Scott’s, Mathew Spatz. One of the things I always wanted Witch Hunter to be was a world where other creator’s characters could pass through, giving readers a look at somebody they might not have met before and giving the characters another chance to be seen. Plus, it makes Witch Hunter’s world come alive even more with wonder and mystery around every page, never knowing who’ll you’ll meet next. If the readers like a character enough, they’ll see them more in backup stories and maybe their own book. The Berater just fit in Witch Hunter’s world, so Scott put him in a panel. I had so much fun writing that one panel that I suggested a story idea. I’m going to see where Matt wants to take it. Scott will be drawing him rant at the reader from the future.

Like The Berater says, “All men know shame. I shall find ye.” So there! He’s got a unique vantage point on all our lives, being from the future. He comes back to tell us how much we’ve disappointed him, and I’ll be the first one to say we deserve it.

KNO: Can you talk about the team you have assembled to create Witch Hunter? Is it absolutely necessary to have Brian Newton there to do sound effects while you’re reading the comic? Personally, I found it distracting, and he ate too many soup sandwiches.

VF: Scott and Victor Dominicis are both disciples of the Silver Age. Victor’s favorite material is the EC stuff and his favorite artist is Wally Wood. Scott is a fan of John Buscema, John Romita, Gil Kane, Jack Kirby and a list longer than my short-term memory. Scott’s also a stage and voice actor, having been the voice of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Baxter Stockman for years. Victor is the guitarist for his band, The Coffin Daggers. Brian has an animated quality to his BOOM, WHAM and POW! He made me hold my ears with some of the sound effects he created. I think he adds the dimension of sound where it’s needed loud and clear. He was hypnotizing you while he ate the soup sandwiches to fear lint. Dust bunnies will make you catatonic. Have a nice day.

KNO: Okay, that explains the shotgun blasts under my couch (“Be veddy quiet, I’m hunting dust bunnies…”). Scott’s artwork is very much like that of Silver Age comic books. Did he awaken from a deep sleep after being put in stasis by accident on a Star Trek episode from the sixties? Did he lose his surname on the way?

VF: He came back from a twisted future ruled by talking apes to warn us that are actions will have consequences. After he saw how things were being run now, he decided we’ll be better off with the apes. His surname is a secret. It’s a secret surname, even to him. No one knows. We’re thinking of having a telethon to find out, but we don’t know who to call.

KNO: If you could have Witch Hunter team up with any comic book character, which character would it be?

VF: Witch Hunter would get along well with The Creeper. He’d love to go to a Milwaukee Brewers game with The Badger and hope The Badger loses it on a fan because that would be better than seeing the Brewers, and I love the Brewers.

KNO: What’s your take on the future of independent comics?

VF: That might depend on how well independent companies use things like MySpace and other low-to-no-cost methods of self-advertising. The world is getting smaller by the nanosecond. If you want to reach out and touch someone, you can find a way. If you want to reach out and touch a lot of people, you just have to try a lot harder. Is it that easy? No. There are just a lot more ways every day for anyone with a voice that wants to be heard to get people to listen. The only way for any of us to get anywhere is to work together and consolidate our resources everywhere in life. In comics, form alliances that share printing and other business costs, develop new distribution methods,get your character in front of as many audiences as you can while still using some form of moral compass.

Words and actions have power. Use both responsibly and don’t be swayed by a trend, a gimmick or the lure of too sweet a deal. Stick to your guns and remember it’s the journey that matters, cliché’ or not. We are what we do, not where we reach. It pays off in the end and matters above all other things. If you have any doubts about that, look at the state of world affairs where the moral compass of the powers that be couldn’t find magnetic north if it came up and bit them in the crotch.

KNO: I’ll leave the last response for you to say anything you like and cover anything laying out there rotting in the sun. Thanks for the interview!

VF: Witch Hunter is a story about overcoming a dark magic when you don’t believe there’s magic inside you. We have to be at our lightest when it’s darkest if we’re going to find our way out of the mess we’re in. We can’t take ourselves or what we’re told too seriously, or let ourselves get taken. We have to be true to who we really are or our lives are a lie. Witch Hunter tracks down the forces of darkness that are trying to remake our world in their image, and are using all of us to do it. He hunts the hunters. Witch-hunts aren’t about hunting witches. They never were.

I covered what was laying out there rotting in the sun. If you’re not going to have it tonight, make sure you put it back in the fridge. We’ve told you about this before.

Thanks very much for interviewing me. I appreciate the compliments and hope you’ll enjoy what’s to come. Be well.

Visit WitchHunterComic.com for more information