You can practically hear the Lalo Schifrin soundtrack emanating from the panels of indie comic Hexpaw: Left Paw of the Devil #1.

It’s a mad ride through a 60s-style, sexy bizarro campfest that wears its influences openly and unashamedly, listing Cat People, Danger: Diabolik and other sources of inspiration in its foreword.

Yet there’s more; our hero – the brilliantly named cat person, Colt Brass – references Steve McQueen in both narration and pose; that aforementioned Schifrin soundtrack intensifying in the mind as the turtlenecked Brass goes about his business.

That business, at least initially, concerns the stealing of a Pokemon-esque card from an ultra rich tech bro; naturally, this goes awry and he soon finds himself up to his turtleneck in magic and heaving, Russ Meyer-esque bosoms.

References to more contemporary culture – Pokemon, as we’ve already mentioned, for one, along with TikTok, as another example – are in stark contrast to the 60s vibe of the aesthetics, but in a world where magic is real and accepted alongside the concept of cat people, who am I to argue with its setting?

At least Hexpaw has its own internal logic and sticks to it, as batshit crazy as it may be.

Which it has in common with the weird cinema and fiction that’s inspired creator Morbid (aka Trevor Markwart). Remember when this kind of juvenile seeming stuff was pumped out by movie directors that elevated such pulpy, often risqué material to critical acclaim, if not in their day but definitely decades on?

That’s what Hexpaw feels like; a comic out of time, beholden to no reality but its own – begging for a Saul Bass animated credits montage to set the scene for what’s to come.

All of which is to say that Hexpaw is nuts. Yet it’s the right kind of nuts; it’s so off kilter with its serious narration, sharp shocks of violence and scenes of a sexual nature that it could just be thought of a pure exploitation piece.

Like Vadim’s Barbarella and other examples I’ve mentioned, however, it’s so artfully put together that you can’t help but be drawn into its weirdness.

There’s nothing quite like it, especially as this kind of thing does seem to have been a lost art for some time. Leave it to Morbid to bring this kind of ice cool, sexy surrealism back in Hexpaw. It’s quite the potent cocktail.

Hexpaw: Left Paw of the Devil is set for physical release on November 22nd, to comic shops and elsewhere. Solicitation begins in September; Blood Moon Comics are on publishing duties.

Many thanks to Trevor Markwart himself for providing me with the review copy of issue 1 of Hexpaw: Left Paw of the Devil.

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