A LOT of stories have started with a girl starting class at a new high school. Writer Dan Panosian adds to the list with the first issue of An Unkindness of Ravens. The modern-day witch-based horror/fantasy series opens with some endearing wit and a whole lot of potential that is rendered for the page by artist Marianna Ignazzi. High school witchery isn’t entirely uncommon in popular culture, but there are a few elements of distinction being crafted by Panosian and Ignazzi that suggest something distinctively unique on the horizon for the new series. Panosian and Ignazzi find a firm foundation for the series with the first issue. 

It’s in Maine. The town is named Crab’s Eye. Wilma Farrington has arrived only to find her face on the poster of a missing girl named Waverly Good. If that wasn’t weird enough, Wilma’s been given Waverly’s locker. There’s an eerie, glowing message in her locker that only she can see. The message tells her to go to the school birch trees after class. The message was left there by as group of girls who call themselves the Ravens. It’s tough to be the new girl. Wilma might have known that much when she moved to Crab’s Eye. She might not have been expecting to fall-in with a group of witches, though.

Panosian’s dialogue is crisp. There’s a tension between everyone at the school faculty and students alike. Panosian gives that tension an edge while making it feel very organic. Wilma’s a cool girl to hang out with. She’s got a sharp sense of humor and a very vivid personality that makes it to the page with a clever economy. She doesn’t have to say too much. Thoughts start out as spoken dialogue and move into inner narration quite fluidly. Panosian charmingly contrasts the small-town milieu against Wilma’s personality.

Ignazzi populates the high school with a casually diverse student body. She’s captured the feel of a small-town American high school at the beginning of a school year without trying to over-render the atmosphere. Ignazzi brings a variety of different emotions to her rendering of Wilma. The drama between characters inhabits the relatively wide expanse of a small-town high school in Maine. Without congesting the background, eyes are drawn to faces in the crowd. Which all seem to have a life of their own. Ignazzi manages a socially immersive landscape. It’s not difficult to imagine some seemingly insignificant face in the corner of any panel being a major supporting character. 

Panosian and Ignazzi burn through the first 20% of a five-issue mini-series on the first day of a new school year. The subtly immersive world they’re putting together will be wrapping itself-up long before the end of the school year on this side of the comics page. A thoughtful, measured introduction like the first issue of An Unkindness of Ravens deserves something that might at least fill a bit more of a single school year. 

Grade: B