Spotlight: Shadows never kicked butt like these Girls

Today’s spotlight revolves around one of my favourite webcomics with the dual forces of David Rodriguez & Dave Reynolds they bring to life the world that is Shadowgirls. So for the readers of Shadowgirls both new and old, enjoy this spotlight.

The story of Shadowgirls actually hits quite close to home in the sense of the main character Charon McKay is a single mother, raising a child in the best place she can, the wrong side of the tracks, located in the sleepy town on Innsmouth, and she does the best she can.

Charon mysteriously vanishes for a while only to come back pregnant and sprouting gibberish. Thus gave birth to her daughter Rebecca “Becka” McKay. Through the hardships of losing her only support in the death of her grandmother, her determination to raise her daughter, is really the only thing that drives her on.

Well that and a thorn in her side since high school of Christmas “Chrissy” Snow-Banks (<— irony thyne name is).

But within sleepy towns like Innsmouth, there’s always a secret or two just waiting to come out, at least when the sun sets and the shadows come out to play.

While all that is just a glimpse into the actual story and even just the first ten pages, this webcomic will grab hold of you and not let go. Between the amazing writing of David and the artistry of Dave you cannot help but continue to read on.

If I didn’t know any better I would say that they are two sides of the same person.

This is both a heavily plot driven story between the dynamics of the main characters family dynamic as well as dealing with their supernatural secret; Can they defend the ancient threat that is just now surfacing after hundreds of years?

The art is what draws you in. It’s clean, beautiful, haunting in many cases and yet you can’t tear yourself away from watching the facial expressions, the action sequences and the detailed foreground and backgrounds in every panel.

While it appears that Book 1 is drawing to a close, there are still more questions left unanswered and I’m not going to spoil it for the rest of you that want to read it.

Here’s another great thing about this webcomic. It’s consistent in not only the story lines, the art and the website design (done by Phil Hofer from Webcomic Planet); It’s also consistent with updates and has kept the M-W-F schedule since it started back in 2007.

Now, I know you must be thinking, “But Kurt, what don’t you like about it or can be improved upon?”

Of course nothing is perfect and aspects can be improved upon. For instance, while the storylines flow extremely well together I find that in some cases it can get a bit long winded, but I see that only as a plot device to lay down the coming book / pages.

I would like to see more back story with how Charon ended up the way she did, that’s still a complete mystery to me. I will have to carefully read through this archive once more.

I really don’t want to spoil anything else for you the reader, but seriously if you haven’t read this webcomic before, go ahead now and see what I’ve been saying. If you agree, great! Tell David and Dave about it through their website.