Shadows

(Image, 2003)
™ and © Image Comics, Inc.

There’s certainly a lot of paranormal investigator books being published today, which would certainly seem like a good time to put out another one, but unfortunately Shadows doesn’t have much going for it except a couple of touches of genuine originality.

For one, it’s group of mismatched “types” aren’t some sort of empowered fighters of supernatural evil, they just investigate the paranormal. And for another, they’re after Big Foot, and while Matt Camp draws an impressively fierce Big Foot, he’s not exactly at the top of the monster hierarchy, nor would actually finding one do much to raise the bar of human understanding.

So, from the onset, it’s hard to sympathize with our troop of monster hunters when they’d all be better off staying home in their cool castle headquarters and not annoying the huge protohumanoid creature which as far as we know hasn’t done anyone any harm. Otherwise, the results are rather bland, the characters don’t do much to make themselves memorable and on a technical level, while the coloring is impressive, it constantly threatens to overwhelm the art. And maybe it’s just my old eyes, but the lettering sure seems awfully small and unappealing.

— S.A. Bennett

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