Shadecraft is a new series by Image Comics, written by Joe Henderson and drawn by Lee Garbett, the creative team behind the Eisner-nominated Skyward.
The book centres on Zadie Lu, a high-school student who seems to be dealing with a lot of issues. At the start of the book Zadie makes allusions to things having 'gotten back to normal' when her friend, Josh, is walking her home one night. Zadie insists he doesn't have to, as she's not scared of the dark, but he tells her he has an ulterior motive for doing so.
Queue some teen misunderstanding drama and Zadie assumes Josh is hitting on her and kisses him; which to be fair seemed reasonable the way he was talking. But no, he in fact wanted to walk her home to pick up his Switch. Alas, Zadie feels that she has made a fool of herself and this just adds to the pressure she's under.
Over the course of the comic things just seem to get worse for poor Zadie. After a weird incident where a shadow seems to come to life and attack her she becomes the focus of mock and ridicule. And all this is on top of her brother being in a coma for the last year. Overall, things aren't the best for Zadie.
After an argument with her mother Zadie runs out of the house one night and flees into the forest. However, she soon comes under attack from this strange shadow entity once again. But this time someone comes to her aid, another shadow being that Zadie at first thinks is her own shadow come to life. Zadie's wrong though, it's not her shadow, it's her brother Ricky who's somehow in a shadow form.
As far as first issues go it certainly manages to pack a lot into it. It's able to establish a handful of central characters that seem like they're going to be important parts of the story, as well as giving enough insight into Zadie's life to make her a compelling and engaging protagonist. The book also manages to pace out the mystery of the weird shadows well, and although we don't get any kind of answers at to what's going on in this issue it manages to tease out tiny hints at a great pace.
One of the things that really stood out about the book, however, was the gorgeous artwork by Lee Garbett. There's an Afterword at the back of the issue where writer Joe Henderson talks about the amount of time it took to produce the book, and how part of that was because of the effort Lee put into it; especially in regards to creating the shadow entities. And this is something that really shows in the book. The panels with the shadow creatures are some of the most interesting, as they look so different to everything else. They feel alive, like if this was film they'd be in constant motion. Garbett really manages to make darkness look like a living, moving thing in completely static images, and that's something that you don't often see.
There's a lot to enjoy in Shadecraft issue one, and it seems like there's a lot of mystery and strangeness to be explored as the series continues. I'm definitely interested in seeing where this leads.
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