Review by Frank Plowright

Shadowplay isn’t a graphic novel for the faint-hearted or easily upset, being a relentless barrage of oppression, personal persecution and targeted fear in in a sinister higher education establishment where attendees are routinely belittled and brutalised. No matter, you might think, the school day ends at some point. Indeed it does, but the next day immediately begins with no rest between.

Sam Fonseca’s bleak and claustrophobic atmosphere is established from the first page, and in the tradition of oppressive literature the protagonists are never named, just seen as fearful attendees. One is introduced at the start knowing he needs to re-sit a year, but gradually becomes the first to question the system and the routine violence. The first person to talk to him wants to be a good student, obey the rules and not stick out, as only the best of the best have a chance at the job he wants. Then there’s the girl, at first an unknowable presence. They’re all told they’d better work hard as the outside world is even worse.

There is eventually colour, but sparingly used, and for the most part Fonseca employs a system of grey on black to instil darkness only occasionally illuminated. The main character is constantly alarmed, his expressions never approaching happiness, while the other two leads are more neutral. Fonseca eventually supplies the backgrounds of all three characters prior to the point we met them, and it’s where colour is most likely to be used, although don’t expect that to lift the mood any more than briefly.

Punishment collars are applied in three tightly fitted sections in staged punishments. The first is a weight, the second prevents speech and the third is a cone cutting off external access. You don’t want to reach that point.

Ultimately Shadowplay proves a meditation on the expectation to conform, how individuality is crushed and how depression results. It’s seems Fonseca’s personal response to a school system where one size has to fit all only valuing a limited set of criteria, and as such he triumphs, the art becoming ever more expressionistic as that occurs. Is there a moral to be passed on? In a way. It’s not the common exhortation of having to stand up for yourself, but about not wasting time with people who put you down and want to change you and instead seek out those who value you for who you are.

This is tough going, but evocatively drawn and ultimately rewarding.