More Weight is historical brilliance. The amount of time, research and passion pours out the pages as you're reading. This project took 10 years and you learn to appreciate the work as you read through. Wickey displays a powerful debut as he delves deep into the history of Salem, Massachusetts. Wickey begins the book in modern day Salem, focusing on the commercialization found within the streets. Tourists are popular as many visit to either learn about Salem's history or partake in the gimmicky Halloween attractions. He then shares two more timelines, one during the time of The Witch Trials, and one during the time of Hawthorne's writings during his time in Salem.

Wickey thoughtfully intertwines each era and shows how history changes and shapes what we see today. Wickey's art is stunning, as he displays three different art styles for 3 eras. Not only does he alternate art styles but his use of coloring as well, which shapes the entire graphic novel. Coloring is an important aspect of comics storytelling. The main era, of Giles Corey, is drawn in black and white, but Wickey puts emphasis on certain panels by including a splash of color in the monochromatic pages. This use of color is well thought out and encourages the reader to take note certain scenes or events and how they influence the reading experience.

Research is one of Wickey's strong suits as he expertly shares meticulous details in historical retellings. This book is a culmination of 10 years of work and you can see that in his writing and illustrating styles. His passion seeps through the pages as he shares the impact and true history that Salem has on us all.

I was able to attend a signing of his at San Diego Comic Con, and being able to share my love for his book was one of the highlights of my trip.

This has nothing to do with the publisher directly but NetGalley makes it hard to read graphic novels. That aside, this book is interesting enough but taking a story that has been told over and over again just doesn't make it groundbreaking enough. I found myself flipping through some pages trying to get to the end. Maybe it was just not for me!

Excellent book really deep into salems witch trials it’s dark deep and horrific.

They didn’t burn witches they burned women is always a quote I hear when I see witchcraft in books and how even now this could be a reality because people are still this ignorant and sexist.

The artwork is very odd but fitting for the story and it shows a lot of creative license.

I’d recommend this to teens or adults younger kids might not get it .but it’s quite a story .

When I read the description/ premise of this book it seemed perfect for me. Unfortunately, the book didn’t live up to my expectations.

The book was way too long. I appreciate that there is a lot of information to contain but the text was often quite dense amongst the cartoon and even the more digestible authors notes were a slog to read.

I did love the images because I have travelled to Salem myself from Wales and it captures the enchantment of the city perfectly. I just wonder if this would have been better as a novel accompanied by illustrations rather than a graphic novel.

I am also not really sure what audience it is targeting maybe late teens because the information is very full on I’m not sure early teens attentions would be captured.

I have to admit I’ve never gotten that deep into the Salem Witch Trials, so the in-depth political context provided here was fascinating. Extensive author’s notes at the back provide additional context that didn’t fit within the pages.

The introduction was difficult for me to get through because of the density of text, but the issue resolved throughout the rest of the book.

I love the lettering. I think the art style is great, and the exaggerated features really highlight the increasing paranoia.

I love anything set around Salem or Witch Trials in general, its such a dark yet compelling part of human history, but as someone who reads a lot, in a lot of genres and settings, about witch trials I'd struggle to say this was a standout.

There were some formatting issues with the copy provided, with text being cut off at the top or bottom, i trust these issues have already been found and will be fixed for the print edition. Beyond this at points pages felt clutted, especially with such a bold, detailed art style it could be difficult to follow at points.

I was really intrigued by the premise of this graphic novel. A retelling of the Salem witch trials in visual form? I was immediately interested. But despite the promising concept, the final result left me disappointed—and honestly, kind of confused.

This is a hefty book—over 500 pages—and it felt like a chore to get through. I don’t usually mind a long read, but in this case, I struggled to stay engaged and kept checking how much I had left. The storytelling itself wasn’t terrible, but the structure made it hard to follow. It jumps between three timelines, each with a different artistic style, which felt more distracting than dynamic. The present-day scenes in particular felt unnecessary and didn’t add much to the core narrative.

The biggest problem for me, though, was the readability. The text is small, crowded, and in many places looks more like scribbled handwriting than legible lettering. I had to zoom in constantly just to make sense of it. That alone made the reading experience frustrating—but then there was the sheer amount of text. For a graphic novel, it’s extremely dense. It felt more like reading a history textbook with illustrations than experiencing a graphic story.

There are things to appreciate—the main art style has a gritty, expressive feel that worked well with the tone, and the historical material is clearly well-researched. But the confusing structure and difficult-to-read formatting really got in the way.

In the end, More Weight just didn’t work for me. It was overly ambitious, oddly designed, and hard to enjoy. A great idea in theory, but the execution missed the mark.

The story of the Salem Witch Trials feels old, yet familiar. It is a dependable source of cringe worthy horror. Our nation's history is dark and laid out in detail in this spooky ode.

There were no witches in 1692. That is a central them of Ben Wickey's More Weight, a graphic history of Salem and its role in pop culture, literature, and politics since the town first made its name as the location of the 1692 witch trials. Toggling between the 1692 witch hysteria, the 19th century Salem of author Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the modern Massachusetts city that is home to parking lots and tchotchke shops, Wickey creates a completely unromanticized and devastating portrait of the trials, their perpetrators, and victims. Past chroniclers of Salem have always seen what they wanted to see in the trials: Arthur Miller saw political persecution and sexual repression, Longfellow saw his own grief. Wickey's depiction of these events is not so melodramatic; although he takes inspiration from centuries of Salem-based literature, his sympathetic portrait is likely closer to what those Salemites experienced: confusion, frustration, and terror. The use of a cartoonish drawing style, reminiscent of Edward Gorey or perhaps even the engraved tombstones of Salem itself, lulls the reader into thinking that they are reading a fable the likes of the Crucible, something distanced from the 19th and 21st century Salems, which are rendered in a realist style. That only makes the later collision of these two styles, and the visceral depictions of the victims, all the more effective at pushing forth one of Wickey's central ideas: that Salem is not a fable, and there is no moral. It is not an allegory for political "witch hunts", or the last vestige of a "women's holocaust", and there were no witches in 1692: the witch trials were a terrible miscarriage of justice that resulted in the deaths of dozens of people and trauma to countless more. Like many children growing up in Massachusetts, Giles Corey's infamous last words "more weight" (the historicity of which are debated) were seared into my memory. Wickey's chronicle of Salem, astounding in its scope and depth, paints new emotion into these words and has given me a new appreciation of one of Massachusetts' darkest chapters. The extensive notes and bibliography, as well as the breadth of Massachusetts history touched on, will also give history enthusiasts much to chew on long after they have closed this book.

I loved the idea behind this, as Salem witch trials are an interesting historical event - although really dark - and the author delivered a really detailed research on characters and settings. However, I don't think I really appreciated the execution at the end.

The book is massive, really crowded both in words and images. I liked the art style, many plates were really outstanding, but I found it difficult to follow along because I couldn't read everything with ease. I don't know the format in which it will be printed but I hope that both the author and the publisher will be careful with this. As a consequence, I found myself sometimes looking at the bottom of the web app to see how many pages were left, and this is something I found really unpleasant.

I would suggest this for the artwork, but probably skipping many paragraphs.

I didn't enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. My expectations going into the book were a lot different than what I ended up reading in the story. I still enjoyed learning more about the Salem Witch Trials and the people involved in this historical event, but the plot lacked the magic and suspense I was hoping for. Otherwise, I can see how this read would appeal to those who enjoy the more factual side of said events. Sadly, this read was just not for me.

While I think the history of Salem is very interesting, I feel like this graphic novel tried to squeeze in too much information into one book. For a graphic novel it's quite long and there is a lot of text crammed into some of the panels. The font was also a bit overwhelming too which just made every page feel very cluttered. I also didn't particularly enjoy the art style, but that's a personal preference.

It's definitely an important part of history to learn about, I just don't think a graphic novel is necessarily the best way to convey the information.

I really wanted to like this book. I think the Salem Witch Trials are very interesting and I liked that the author focused on the Coreys. But I felt like this would have worked better as a book instead of a graphic novel/comic. The author obviously had a lot to say (including in the author notes, which in all honesty, I couldn't bring myself to finish), but that came with the price of squeezing text in to the point where I couldn't read some of it and found myself glossing over the rest of it. I did enjoy the art style though!

Thank you Ben Wickey, IDW Publishing, and NetGalley for the ARC!

This is a beautifully illustrated and well written look at the chaos and tragedy of the Salem Witch hysteria, especially when it comes to the tale of Giles Corey.

Thank you to IDW Publishing and NetGalley for a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Being a descendant of one of the women hanged and two others accused, I have a special fascination with the Salem Witch Trials and have read dozens of books on the subject.

"More Weight: A Salem Story" is a long-overdue focus on the story of Giles and Martha Corey. Even with all of the books I've read before, I realized how little I knew about the Corey's before this book. Too often, Martha is barely mentioned, and Giles' story is limited to being the one person who was pressed to death.

If I rate the book only on the research put into it, and Giles and Martha's storyline, I would give it five strong stars. The effort and thought put into the story presented by this author is impressive and the story of Giles and Marth will stick with me for a very long time. I learned so much.

I am not giving it a five-star rating as a whole for a few reasons. The book is very long and has so much information it was overwhelming. I am very interested in this subject, and I had to put the book down every few days and take a break. The 1860s timeline with Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was distracting, and for me it took away more from the story than it added. I read the graphic novel on a tablet with a good-sized screen and still had to zoom in on text regularly to read all of it, and there is a lot of it. I grew up both reading and writing cursive, and have studied handwriting styles of the past, and the parts of the text presented in a cursive font were very difficult for me to read. Some of it I just skipped.

I hope readers give this book a chance as the story of Giles and Martha Corey, and by association other victims of the witch trials, is an important one to learn about. I hope readers will look past these and give the book a chance. The story and history is important to know.


#MoreWeightASalemStory #NetGalley

My thanks to NetGalley and IDW Publishing Top Shelf Productions for an advance copy of a graphic novel that serves as both a history and a rumination on the Salem Witch trials, why they happened, why they were allowed to go on, and what in this day of fake news and trial by public opinion it tells us about ourselves.

Growing up it every Halloween like clockwork we always spent a week on the Salem Witch Trails. Didn't matter the grade, for two weeks we read books, made crafts, dressed as witches or I guess warlocks. My school wasn't that free yet. This was a school in Connecticut, so maybe it was a history thing. I can't see this happening in Alabama or Oklahoma. As we got older we learned more about it, read books of fiction, nonfiction, a few poems and of course Arthur Miller's The Crucible. However we never really got to the heart of it. Religion run amuck. Power of the crowd against the weak. Though the image of what the witch trials were has changed in the public eye. Even now one can hear both innocent men and guilty presidents scream about witch trials, being railroaded, beset on all sides. I have read a few books on witches in New England but I learned and even more importantly felt quite a bit at the end of this graphic novel. Sadness, rage and an understanding that history repeats itself in so many different ways. More Weight: A Salem Story is written and illustrated by Ben Wickey and tells of witches, ghosts, outsiders redemption, fear, mistakes, love, and of course the power of others over our lives.

The book begins with a look at modern Salem around Halloween, with people in costumes walking around following tours of witches, ghosts and hauntings, while taking selfies with statues. Wickey sets the scene for what happened in the past at Salem, the different sides that were feuding and how little things could be used to consolidate power, get back at enemies, and get out of control quickly. The story is told by different characters and times. Our main during the Salem trials is the Coreys, Giles and Martha. Giles is a man who regrets his past, his coldness, his indifference, his acts of violence. Martha hides a secret, but one that has not let her get jaded, though one day a spat with her husband leads them both down the path of ruin, and terrible death. During the 1860's Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet and writer is doing research on the Witch trials for a play, and is joined by his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne. Both roam the area, seeing ghost, are haunted by the past, and in Hawthorne's case hiding a secret. All while in the background people are being accused of witchery and being sentenced to horrible deaths.

A big book that I think could only be told in a sequential art story. There is just so much, and yet the book reads so well that one learns much while not even noticing. The story is good, jumping in points of view, into different eras, and one never gets lost, the art working with the words to keep the narrative smooth and engaging. The art is excellent, different in each story, and really fit the tale being told. One can tell this is a real labor of love. I can't imagine the time and research needed to get this right, but Wickey does an incredible job doing so. One of my favorite graphic novels of the year so far, and one I don't think will be beat.

History fans will enjoy this, artists will love the art and the way the story works so well with the pictures and vice versa. I learned a lot, and as I said earlier felt a lot. One gets a real understanding of America today from this book. I just hope we don't repeat many of these mistakes.

I really wanted to like this book, but I struggled to finish. More Weight is a retelling of the gruesome Salem Witch trials. The story itself is fascinating, especially when we're focusing on Giles and Martha Corey. But this book's biggest issue is how much it tries to cover. It goes from present-day Salem to the 1600s, to the 1800s, back to present day. It's confusing, especially the parts set in the 1800s featuring Nathanial Hawthrone. Another issue is there's simply too much text crammed onto the page. Many of the panels were difficult to read, especially the parts featuring cursive handwriting. It got to the point where I simply stopped caring about the story. The book would be stronger if it focused specifically on the witch trials because those chapters make for the best read.

It’s evident that an immense amount of love and thorough research went into crafting this compelling narrative. The artwork is truly captivating; while the style maintains a consistent look for each character, I found it remarkably easy to distinguish one individual from another. When we think of Salem in contemporary times, we often get swept up in the playful fantasy of "Hocus Pocus," conjuring images of "Fall! Spooky Season! Witches!" Yet, we tend to overlook the profoundly dark history that involved genuinely innocent victims. Stories like this one honor those victims, giving them a voice and serving as a poignant reminder that real lives were entwined in the tales we’ve come to know.

Regarding the Salem Witch Trials, I am quite familiar with names such as Sarah Goode, Tituba, and Abigail Williams. Although I recognize the Coreys as individuals who faced accusations, my knowledge about Giles and Martha was limited, mainly shaped by what I encountered in "The Crucible." I never quite grasped why that was the case. Many retellings seem to sidestep their story for reasons unknown. However, this particular narrative proved to be not only educational but also riveting and heartbreakingly poignant all at once.

What an incredibly powerful book! The attention to detail is nothing short of remarkable. The dedication evident in the exhaustive research, the diverse writings, and the richly illustrated depictions of the time seamlessly intertwine the lore, historical truths, and elements of pop culture—it’s truly phenomenal. Therefore, the next time you stroll through the streets of Salem, resist the urge to romanticize its past. Acknowledge its stark reality. Appreciate the artistry that has gone into this work, and recognize that the story itself is equally fascinating.

The graphic novel is emotional, well-researched, and exceptionally informative. There’s an abundance to love within its pages, from the tragedy born of intolerance and superstition to the unwavering courage of individuals like Giles Corey, intertwined with the voices of writers and their narratives. It truly stands out as a superb graphic novel.

On a less favorable note, I did find the art style presented an odd mixture of differing styles rather than showcasing a singular, cohesive approach, which I wasn’t particularly fond of. Additionally, as someone who experiences dyslexia, I struggled with the main font choice—it resembled a handwriting style that made reading a challenge.

“Though it is tempting to compare the witch hunts of history to today’s “cancel culture”, I think its worth pointing out that scapegoating among humans is far from anything new.”
Salem is another blight on the history of the United States.
Split into 3 parts:
1) An in-depth look into the town of Salem, the lives of its citizens, especially of Giles and Martha Corey during the terrible Salem Witch Trials.
2) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne taking a walk-through Salem, going down memory lane and the haunted history that follows the celebrated author, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
3) The last bit of the book kind of breaks down the time between the trials and how Salem flourished and then constricted itself by profiting from its harried past.
I found it a little amusing that this book comes out this year, which means that the events of the Salem Witch Trials happened 333 years ago. Multiply that number by 2 and it is the number of the devil.

#ThxNetGalley #BenWickey #MoreWeight:ASalemStory

An informative, excellently researched graphic novel covering the Salem witch trials.

The art styles were beautiful and engaging and the amount of research that must have went into producing this is impressive.

However at times, it felt overly long and the amount of text on some pages, combined with the choice of fonts used made it difficult to read.

Overall, an extremely interesting read - if only more care had been taken to make it more legible!

Thanks to IDW Publishing | Top Shelf Productions and NetGalley for the ARC.