There’s this idea that sometimes you just have to throw your all against the wall and see what sticks. It’s tedious, but certainly some of the ideas are here to stay and could be good ones. However, it is rare that the same philosophy is practiced and all stick. This is the case with Ben Ross-Davies’ Hexas, a strange and magical story about the wonderful chaos of authoritarianism, self-creation, and pure self-expression.
Hexus follows a young witch who attempts to hypnotize an authoritarian leader and force him to resign. To do so, he teams up with a secret magical council that operates in a hidden realm where technology and paganism intersect. Gooey portals, liquid teleports, and strange museum mirrors all play a role in this quest.
All of the story elements are present and remain relevant throughout, but it’s the journey that makes Hexas special. It’s especially fascinating and satisfying to traverse the realm of shadows and see how the technology-infused fantasy behind it manifests itself before the witches. The book is presented in a pattern-heavy grayscale color palette. It evokes the buzz of dead channels, mixes it with a cyberpunk-like industrial feel, and has a mystical aesthetic that dominates it all. This allows Ross Davies to experiment with shapes and angles in truly unique ways, allowing him to delve deeper into the type of magic that the witches embody and experience.
Text is minimal. The flow is first established on a visual level, incorporating a number of expressive styles that are partially reminiscent of 90’s CGI. Everything from the character designs to the various fashion choices they make is imbued with a sense of early digital art nostalgia. What Ross Davies and many others who take on this challenge succeed in doing is making trippy, liquid-like visuals accessible to readers. There’s a kind of crazy structure that prevents everything from going in an incomprehensible direction, and it works to ensure that the reader spends more time on each page.
Queerness embraces the same interpretive design of the world that the young witch navigates. There is no attempt to strictly define the human relationships that are central to the story. Instead, Ross-Davies establishes an environment that is intangibly beneficial to everyone in it, and is more interested in what people bring to that environment than what he has to force. There is no deep questioning of where someone stands in terms of identity. Everyone exists and shows up as they wish, without owed anything to anyone.
Hexas is a striking and welcoming storytelling experience that invites readers to discover for themselves the meaning behind the pages. It’s like a creative art exhibit in comic book format, which readers can explore at their own pace. For maximum enjoyment, embrace the properties of the magical liquid and provide your own definition of reality. And when fighting authoritarianism, remember to use every available spell at your disposal.
Something like this:
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