We Shadows vol. 1

I was all set to play some FFXI when PlayOnline hits me with a big honkin upgrade. Since I've got some time to kill, lemme tell you about a graphic novel I picked up last week...



While reading up on different cons and listening to various interviews, it became obvious that Sonny Strait (voice actor, director, writer, and artist extraordinaire) had an agenda at this year's con circuit. Sonny recently signed a deal with Tokyopop for a new series. The first volume came out just a few weeks ago and he's been pushing it like crazy. But it wasn't the fact that Sonny Strait is an awesome voice actor that got me to buy this book. The final proverbial nail in the coffin was when Publisher's Weekly described the art style, saying "Strait's art is eye-catching: more anarchic than pure manga; it's influenced as much by Tex Avery as by CLAMP." Did they just say Tex frickin Avery? Old cartoons being my one true weakness, that's when I knew I would soon be out $10.



The cover, description, and foreword all assured me that this comic was about faeries. Yet the first page opens up with a man visiting his shrink, describing his most recent "lost time" episode. Once he leave, the shrink turns to the audience and introduces himself as the narrator, who then proceeds to somehow lose track of the audience. Cut to the queen of faeries who wakes up naked inside a venus fly trap. Cut to a part-faerie mercenary and his drunken donkey-faced friend. Somewhere in there we're introduced to Goat, the main character, who laments that her only friend is a mushroom and she hopes that doesn't make her insane. She thinks she's a faerie princess in training but she's actually.. well, I shouldn't give anymore of it away. It's much more fun when every new page turn brings a new "wtf?!" moment (not that anything I could say could prevent that).



As far as comics go, I'm pretty tired of crappy shojo, invincible heroes, and cliche enemies. I like bizzare things that mess with my expectations. Even so, I almost feel like I've bitten off more than I can chew with We Shadows. I'm tightly gripped by it's story, but I expect this will be an abusive relationship. As Wendy Pini says in her foreword, "You may end up wishing We Shadows were merely surreal, like Alice in Wonderland. No such luck. Sonny really is messing with your mind."



The volume ends with a few things tied up, but several questions left dangling. The most pressing of which is: When does volume 2 come out?