The Witch Queens

The Witch Queens is a five-issue miniseries and the debut of the Lady Baltimore comics series.

Publishing history
The Witch Queens was originally announced on March 13, 2020 as the first arc of the new Lady Baltimore series, promising a different sensibility from Baltimore and "a dynamic new lead protagonist." Artist Bridgit Connell was already a fan of Baltimore prior to her Lady Baltimore work, and took her responsibility to bring the world to life very seriously.

"'I talked with Stenbeck and Bergting before I even started, and asked them if there are any good tips they’d like to give me on how they personally think in the world. They are both amazing artists in their own right, and our styles may all be a little different, but I wanted to know what they think makes the Baltimore world and stick with that. There are also key effects that Mignola uses in his panels that I think influences other artists working on his titles while handling certain compositions, so I incorporated at least a hint of those elements as best I could.

'I didn’t copy their styles, nor would I ever want to, but I keep several books of Mignola, Stenbeck and Bergting’s art by my desk that I flip through often, and one of those is the — very handy, for me — first Baltimore omnibus that recently came out. It’s just nice to have nearby to make sure I don’t stray too far from the classic feel of the series. I also hope that my own style brings some weird elements to the world as well.' —Bridgit Connell in an interview with Hollywood Soapbox"

Writer Christopher Golden has spoken about the close collaborative work on Lady Baltimore with Bridgit Connell during pre-release interviews for The Witch Queens:

"'Bridgit’s an absolutely wonderful creative partner. Every creator has their own process of trying to make a story or a fictional world make sense for them. In the previous Outerverse stories, we’d introduced different kinds of witches and witchcraft, but what we’d done was a bit too nebulous for Bridgit, so she started to break them down into different schools or disciplines of witchcraft and I built on that, incorporating it into what we’d already established and into the larger history and mythology of the Outerverse.

'During my earlier work at Dark Horse over the years, contact with the artists wasn’t necessarily discouraged but nor was it encouraged. Once we started this, I was in touch with Bridgit right away and our editor, Katii O’Brien, was really supportive of that. Bridgit and I video chat or text or whatever fairly frequently. She’ll send me questions and suggestions that I always love. I’ll invent a few background characters that I intend to do more with down the line, and Bridgit immediately wants to know more about them. So when I’m being lazy, she makes me think!'"

And Connell has spoken about how she was encouraged to offer ideas that ended up shaping the way witches were written:

"'Mike and Chris have been so gracious as well. They’ve been so open to any questions I have, and it’s nice to feel like my ideas matter on this project. Especially with the lore behind the witches too, when Chris and I talked about this hierarchy of witches, I tossed some ideas his way really to just give myself some variation on witches to draw, different covens and such, and he really picked it up and ran with it. It’s exciting to come across these collaborations in the script, and getting a chance to bring them to life.'"

Chapter One

 * ''Originally published March 24, 2021

'''Bruges, Belgium. May 1938.'''

Cover gallery
All covers by Abigail Larson unless otherwise stated.

Design gallery
A few hours after the initial announcement of Lady Baltimore, Dread Central ran a piece revealing concept work for The Witch Queens by Mike Mignola and Bridgit Connell.



Trivia

 * Bridgit Connell's variant cover for Lady Baltimore: The Witch Queens #1 is a tribute to Mike Mignola's cover for Baltimore – Volume 1: The Plague Ships.