An illustrated urban fantasy thriller

SORCERERS

Hip-hop. Ancient magic.
A very bad day in Harlem.

Malik Hutchens writes rhymes for other men to perform. Now two rival rappers want him dead, and his dying grandfather has a revelation: Malik is next in a line of sorcerers charged with keeping an ancient evil at bay.

Jim Mahfood’s psychedelic collage of a singer, microphone, skulls and lightning.

The hustle

One verse.
Two rappers.
One marked man.

At thirty, Malik has talent, expensive taste and a bed in whichever relative’s home will have him. Responsibility can wait.

Then he sells the same verse to two rival rappers—and both are about to release it. His latest shortcut could get him killed.

A rapper and his entourage stand behind two dogs with studded collars.

The inheritance

His grandfather
guarded more
than the family.

Pop-Pop raised Malik, fought for Harlem and always knew how to get him out of trouble. Before he dies, he gives his grandson a key and a secret: the family’s magic is real. Malik has been chosen to carry it on.

The one man he always relied on is gone.
The responsibility is his.

Pop-Pop, his Harlem brownstone, a record player and a steaming teacup in an intricate collage.

The awakening

The magic
won’t stay
in the music.

Malik has always called himself the magic man. Then his rage shatters the glass of a recording booth.

Visions break into waking life. With rival crews hunting him through Harlem, he must find out what his grandfather left behind—and how to control what’s breaking loose inside him.

Malik at a microphone as the recording studio’s glass breaks around him.

The hidden world

Opened for
freedom.
Guarded against
darkness.

The Corridors were passages through space and time, opened by sorcerers to carry enslaved people to freedom. But tearing through reality also released something monstrous.

Some passages could never be sealed. Pop-Pop guarded one of them. Now it belongs to Malik.

An assembly of sorcerers and skulls surrounded by flames and strange floating forms.

From the page to the screen

For film
and television

A reluctant heir with attitude.

A gifted, irresponsible thirty-year-old must stop hiding behind other performers and accept the burden left by the grandfather who raised him.

Hip-hop becomes sorcery.

Words, rhythm and creative power connect Malik’s everyday hustle to his supernatural awakening, giving sound and performance a central dramatic role.

Black history shapes the mythology.

The Corridors connect an inherited magical duty to escape from slavery, collective memory and the protection of a community.

Street crime meets ancient magic.

A double-sold verse starts a lethal pursuit through Harlem while a larger supernatural conflict breaks into Malik’s life.

The illustrated novella

Read
the book.

“a gem of a novella”

Black Nerd Problems

“visually gorgeous and highly recommended”

Washington Post
Sorcerers by Maurice Broaddus with Otis Whitaker, illustrated by Jim Mahfood. The cover shows a vertical collage of characters within coloured borders.

Words & visual funk

The creators

Maurice Broaddus

A writer, community organizer and teacher whose books include Buffalo Soldier, Pimp My Airship and The Knights of Breton Court trilogy.

Otis Whitaker

The pseudonym for the NeoText writers room.

Jim Mahfood

Also known as Food One, Mahfood brings his distinctive Visual Funk to comics, illustration, animation and live art. His credits include Clerks, Everybody Loves Tank Girl and Ziggy Marley’s Marijuanaman.

Illustrations © 2020 Jim Mahfood