This masterful simultaneous attack on Catholicism, witchcraft and feminism is in fact a pretty well done, humorous, and concise history of the Salem Witch Trials. To begin with the cover is ‘off the hook’ as my buddy T-bone would say. It consists of a graphic of the blue waters and blue sky off of Plymouth Rock. A large sailing ship approaches with but one passenger, a gigantic winged devil with horns and fangs. He is holding onto the main mast with one hand and pointing to land with the other.
The first page has two liberals discussing the Salem Witch Trials outside of the University of Mass. A third person then begins to tell them what really happened, "In the 1690’s, while the bloody Roman Catholic inquisition was terrorizing Europe…Satan made a quick two-year visit to America to destroy the Puritans.”
Actually, this comic is much better than the Rob Zombie movie on the same subject. The narrative is well worded throughout, and is then interrupted by a brief history of Jesus.
After the Christ interlude the author shifts into high gear with an illustration of four-year-old Dorsey Good, the daughter of a homeless deserted wife. This little girl was accused of turning into a small yellow dog. After her mother was hanged the little girl was locked in chains.
The best scene is the torture of Giles Cory, a man who refused to confess to witchcraft. Giles was laid beneath a board as his fellow Puritans added stones until he was crushed to death. An official is pictured standing over the tortured man as stones are being loaded, and asks, “Confess?” Miles answers with, “More weight!”
The sordid story plays out and then J.T.C., ever on point, reminds us that the Catholic Inquisition killed 68 million victims and that the 20 innocent people slain by the witch hunters of Salem have given modern witches, pictured as broom-riding lobbyists, an excuse to complain. He wraps up the comic with the threat of the final End of Days with his faceless God seated on a ghostly throne above the roiling apocalypse, and a UMass student praying for salvation on a campus sidewalk.