Technically this is either the third or fifth book in a series of graphic novels, depending on which set of collections you're reading. Either way, they're about 'Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre', a law firm specialising in supernatural clients, which is a delicious idea and an easy way to target an array of horror and fantasy archetypes for comedic shenanigans with insightful ramifications. I had no problem, having not read anything previous, grasping what was going on, even though there's a serious soap opera vibe to the broader sweep of the series.

It originally started out in 1979 in 'The Brooklyn Paper' under that title and was picked up in 1983 by 'The National Law Journal', which ran it as a weekly strip. In 1994, Lash and his wife, Jackie Estrada, who administers the Eisner Awards, founded Exhibit A Press to publish it as an ongoing comic book and graphic novel series, which was renamed to 'Supernatural Law', on the apparently basis that a surprising number of readers of supernatural legal fiction couldn't pronounce 'macabre'. That's an intensely weird suggestion all on its own. Anyway, this collects issues #17-#22 of the comic book and adds issue #1 of the spin-off 'Mavis' for good measure.

It seems that Wolff & Byrd started out as Alanna Wolff's practice, she with professionally daunting hair and business suit. However, she soon brought in Jeff Byrd as a partner and they work very well together, enough so that they seem to be the only supernatural lawyers in New York, so cornering a rather niche but apparently prosperous market. Mavis is their secretary, Mavis Munro, who is very capable professionally, even if that doesn't hold true in her personal relationships, that spin-off an increasingly chaotic trip into her inability to say yes when her boyfriend, Toby Bascoe, proposes.

By this point in the series, there are other characters in play who I'm assuming weren't there right at the beginning but were picked up as it ran on. Corey Wolff, Alanna's inept sister, is their current receptionist and she's as useless as Mavis is capable. Alanna's kinda-sorta boyfriend is a prominent attorney, Chase Hawkins, but he's in the periphery of this book. Jeff Byrd really likes an ex-client by the name of Dawn DeVine, a supermodel, but she has firmly filed in the friend zone. She takes part in this one, but Corey Wolff is the principal supporting actor this time out.

There are six individual stories here from 'Supernatural Law', plus that 'Mavis' spin-off, but it's the title story that's by far the most substantial, told in three chapters so about three times the length of any of the others. It's about Martin Woodhull, who isn't supernatural himself in any way, but is a son, by adoption, of a witch, who escaped persecution in Salem four hundred years ago and thus is eager to avoid any involvement with the law today. Of course, she doesn't have any choice and she's both the problem and the solution in a story that very capably outlines what this series does.

Woodhull is charged with the gender-based harassment of Susan Medford, who worked for him. He allegedly used preternatural means to make her find him irresistible, then fired her for bothering him too much. And, even on the opening page of this story, she's all over him in court, proclaiming her undying love for him and biting any security guards who try to separate them. She literally has no control when it comes to Martin. The catch is that his only actual contribution was to fancy her. It was his mother who cast a spell, against his wishes, to make her obsess about him, on the basis that he needed help to get a girlfriend.

This opens up a whole can of worms. How can Wolff & Byrd, defending Woodhull, prove that it was his mother's work rather than his? Can they force such a powerful witch to testify and to be honest while under oath? Can they keep Susan away from Martin long enough to complete the case? And, because there's such a soap opera angle to this, how will Alanna Wolff deal with Martin Woodhull falling for her but being too shy and anonymous to do more than confuse everyone? Also, how will Alanna and the prosecuting attorney who hates her, Laura Michaels, deal with each other, both in the courtroom and out of it, given that the former has been invited to join the Associates of Portia, a non-profit dedicated to promoting female attorneys and female-run law firms, and the latter is a prominent member already?

So Batton Lash is bringing us a combination of legal investigation; courtroom manouevering; takes on the sort of nerdy questions that might occupy fan-based panels at conventions, with inevitably comedic answers; soap opera relationships; and office trauma. It's a heady mix and it works all the more in a story like 'Sonovawitch!' that's long enough for him to truly get his teeth into all of those aspects. It works in shorter stories too, but less effectively because of space concerns and often has to resort to clever design shifts to create a different feel.

'The Deaths and Times of Dr. Life' focuses on a man who's figured out how to return the dead to life but promptly bumps into the legal ramifications of his actions. How can the resurrected get work if they're legally dead? What if their estates have already been dispersed? What if their spouses got quickly remarried? Do they have to pay taxes? By the way, that letter question is posed cleverly as a sure nod to Hotblack Desiato in 'The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. There are other problems a resurrectionist suddenly has to deal with and the wrap-up is delicious.

I liked that one more than 'Nosferatu! Special Report', recounting the story of vampire crime boss Count Draculotti entirely as news footage, and 'A Case for Ygor', all about a hunchbacked monster who also happens to be a popular teacher drummed out of the classroom by an organised group of activists named  Parents Against Negative Influence on Children (PANIC, ha!) for bogus reasons. It isn't the stories themselves that make them less memorable; it's the fact that they wrap up so fast that they're gone by the time we're getting into them. They occupy thirty pages between them, a count less than half that of 'Sonovawitch!' on its own.

More substantial are the final two stories, 'Gormagon' and 'The Human Within Me', each of which get over twenty pages to breathe. The former is particularly strong, because it's innovatively told from the perspective of future students researching an old case in our present. They each see it in a very different vein, bringing a sort of 'Rashomon' perspective to the story. The latter is a fun bit about a demon being possessed by a human, who just wants to go to church and sing in the choir. It does have its depths but it's more fluff than its predecessor.

And that leaves the 'Mavis' piece, 'Mavis, World's Greatest Secretary', which is purer soap opera in its approach but provides some important background to some of the other stories here and helps the ongoing broader story arc beyond the individual pieces. It's a lot of fun.

I have no idea which other volumes might be easiest to find, but it may be the larger ones, setting this one up as third of ten volumes. As author and illustrator Batton Lash died in 2019, I presume it won't reach more, but, given the subject matter, I wouldn't put it past him. ~~ Hal C F Astell