The Rabbit's Out of the Hat! Pocus Hocus Exposed in Issue 3

Pocus Hocus made a deal with a demon: his soul in exchange for unlimited magical powers. But now his stage assistant, Emily, has uncovered his secret, as well as just what she's been assisting with!

In this world created by Allen Dunford and Will Radford, souls are currency for demons -- and demons use that currency to gamble. When the demon Pocus dealt with finds himself in debt to other demons, he strongarms Pocus into adding a new trick to his act, one in which he would deceive volunteers from the audience into signing over their souls. When Emily finds this out, she confronts Pocus -- and that brings us up to Pocus Hocus #3, the issue currently at hand.

At Emily's insistence, the two take a trip into Hell to win back the innocent souls she unwittingly helped send there. Naturally, upon arrival, the first thing they do is feed a cat -- and that gets the ball rolling toward wanton death and destruction!

Pocus Hocus is a full-color comic that chooses to represent much of its story in black and white. Only things embued with magic get color added to them, so when our heroes find themselves in Hell, the pages come alive, leaving only Hocus himself in monochrome, as the two face down demons in their search for the one demon with whom Pocus has his deal. They should survive so long.

The series is a sarcastic riff on Faust and The Devil and Daniel Webster. Pocus has become disenchanted and disaffected since he achieved his powers, after facing the irony of not getting to use them for the one thing he truly wanted them for. In addition to his no-nonsense assistant Emily, there is Horus, the pink bunny who is actually a creature from Hell, and Ivan, the Hocus family manservant who has seen too many things a mortal shouldn't see and has pretty much cracked from it. It's all a great bit of fun, presenting the worlds of the supernatural with a veneer of banality from which the writers derive much of the humor in the series.

Pocus Hocus #4 is preparing to launch soon. Watch the Critical Blast YouTube channel for upcoming interviews with the creative team.