Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose
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Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose is a comic book, written and drawn by Jim Balent and published by Broadsword Comics since 1999.
It is the story of Tarot, a warrior witch, and her family, friends and lovers. The comic generally features stories of fantasy action and adventure interspersed with scenes of nudity and softcore sex, which have grown progressively stronger as the series has gone on, though stopping short of full-blown pornography.
As well as the comic narrative, each issue is backed up with interviews with "real-life" witches and wiccans, and advertisements for "real-life" spells and potions branded with the Tarot name.
Contents |
[edit] Characters
[edit] Tarot
Originally called Rowan; protects her family and her craft as the Swordmaiden of the Black Rose coven. By her own admission not a master witch, yet still quite knowledgeable and capable, with both a spell and a sword. The more pacifistic of the two sisters, Tarot lives with her mother, and later her sister Raven. She has a winged cat familiar named Pooka, who is seemingly intelligent at times, yet distinctively a cat. She takes her job very seriously, even refusing to get married because of the danger involved.
[edit] Raven Hex
Tarot's older and darker sister. She longs to create a world for witches, and has gone so far as to raise up an island from the sea where only witches may set foot. Despite her militant views, she still loves her sister and mother very much, and has every intention of allowing them to live in her witches' paradise. Her skin is permanently chalk-white, due to her allegiance with dark magic, and black thorn tattoos cover her body. Her breasts are a good deal larger then Tarot's own outsize pair, a fact she was very sensitive about in her younger days before she learned to accept her body. For a short time, she had an apprentice named Willowry, who quit after stealing a necromancy scroll and overhearing Raven's plans for the human race. She is easily annoyed by fairies, and distrusts humans, giving them little leeway. It has been hinted that if she were to actually declare war on the mortal world, that she could easily raise an army from amongst the supernatural beings, though after the debacle with the dragon witch, this assurance remains to be seen.
[edit] Jon Webb
Tarot's lover and ally; a groundskeeper for an abandoned cemetery, he possesses the ability to see, summon, and make corporeal the dead, a gift he received after he was comatose following a near-fatal car-crash. He prefers isolation, and protects his cemetery from looters, vandals and the such wearing a skeletal costume and going by aliases such as Skeleton Man, Graveyard Guardian, and Fright Knight. He seems quite capable in a fight, even being able to outrun a group of angry dragons, although he is still only human, without any overt magical talents whatsoever. As a sort of running gag, he is frequently rendered incapacitated, drunk, drugged, bewitched, or unconscious, and then taken advantage of by any number of women in his vicinity. Once while drunk on enchanted wine, he had sex with virtually every female he came across in the fairy realm. It has even been implied that he has had sex with Raven, although she was not pleased with the idea and he has no memory of the ordeal. He proposed to Tarot after taking her and her family to Hawaii, but she turned him down, saying it was too dangerous. Deeply arachnophobic, and has a loyal ghost-dog named Wraith.
[edit] Recurring Characters
[edit] Crypt Chick
Crypt Chick, aka Brandi, is Jon's ex-girlfriend, a former singer who was killed in the crash that gave Jon his clairovoyance. Deeply resents her death and refuses to move on, going so far as to convince Raven's apprentice Willowry to steal a necromancy scroll to give her back her flesh. The attempt failed when Willowry arrogantly left the Wiccan Goddess' name out of the incantation, and was turned into a tree as punishment. Brandi, who adamantly insists on being called Crypt Chick, once even allied herself with Raven while the latter was still very much anti-mortal, but the alliance fell short when Raven refused to live up to her part of the agreement and restore Brandi to life. She has since mellowed somewhat, in large part due to Jon's having formed a band of ghosts for her to sing with. Of all the females, she is nude the least amount of time.
[edit] Boo Cat
A female werecat who is Tarot's ex-girlfriend and current friend. She is a salesperson in a lingerie store, which is where she first saw Tarot. Often deals with the isolationistic mindsets of less-informed lycanthropes. She retains her cat form only as long as she stands in direct full moonlight, and is quite the exhibitionist (ie extremely so, when you consider the general approach of this comic...). She apparently performed oral sex on Jon twice while he was recovering from the venom of a medusa, claiming that she was only "sucking out the poison".
[edit] Licorice Dust
Boo Cat's lover, a vampire dressed as a goth cheerleader. Her real name is never mentioned, but she apparently took the name Licorice because she was "sweet, and very bad for you." Doesn't like humans because they keep trying to kill her. Like Boo Cat, she too once had an affair with Tarot, possibly at the same time as Boo was. However, it ended when Licorice (or "Licky", as she is sometimes known) mesmerized Tarot and tried to drink her blood. Since the dissolution of that relationship, however, Licorice and Boo have become quite committed to each other, while she and Tarot remain friends.
[edit] Azure
Azure is a dark elf who's attempts at uncoverirng immortality turned him into a maddened vampire-elf. He was chained for a thousand years to keep him from destroying the human world, but he escaped by ensorceling his female guards and turning them into vampires. He tried to raise an army to lead against mankind, with Raven as the leader, but she refused him, forcing him to use one of his vampire slaves instead. After capturing the three witches of the Black Rose, Azure was impaled by Jon with a cross, and electrocuted by Raven, although it is believed that he may truly be immortal. However after his brief revenge, Tarot took it upon herself to permanently deal with the vampiric elf.
[edit] The Dragon Witch
An as yet unnamed female dragon, who is able to assume the form of a humanoid female. Like most of her kind, she hates humans because they hunted dragons in the past, calling these dragonslayers "heroes" when more often then not they were merely murderers. They completely embrace Raven's more militant views, and even join Azure when they believe Raven is leading his army. But when the truth is revealed, the dragons strike at Azure, although they still believe that humans should be wiped out. It is ironic that the main dragon witch featured comes to Raven's aide, when she later attacks and seemingly kills Raven for being slighted at a meeting of the covens.
[edit] Themes
Through the stories told, Balent is also conveying a deeper insight into the often misunderstood Wiccan theology. Within the fictional prose, ideas of tolerance and acceptance are put forth. This is backed by interviews of real witches at the end of each book. The message speaks about much of the trouble of this world, the intolerance that leads to violence, what people can do using theology as their excuse, and the dangers of these narrow-minded beliefs that bring chaos and suffering to the world. Much the way Tarot speaks, the comic does not try to convert people to witchcraft or 'unholy, satanic transpirations', but merely wishes to give an honest view of wiccan theology.
