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Shadowland
Over a hundred years ago, a scout ship from a mysterious alien vessel crash-landed on Earth. It was discovered by a seven-year-old boy named Al Ledicker, and the story that followed is one that veteran underground cartoonist Kim Deitch (Boulevard) has chronicled for the last 20 years in a series of interrelated stories that have appeared in a variety of magazines. Collected for the first time, Shadowland offers a narrative which ranges from the late 19th century to (more or less) the present day. Delineated in Deitch's charming, uniquely retro style, Shadowland is a tumble down the rabbit hole of sexy Hollywood starlets, little green (actually, gray) aliens, flying pigs and performing elephants, incest, murder, and eternal youth.
176 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 2006
2 people are currently reading
121 people want to read
About the author
Kim Deitch
75 books48 followersKim Deitch has a reserved place at the first table of underground cartoonists. The son of UPA and Terrytoons animator Gene Deitch, Kim was born in 1944 and grew up around the animation business. He began doing comic strips for the East Village Other in 1967, introducing two of his more famous characters, Waldo the Cat and Uncle Ed, the India Rubber Man. In 1969 he succeeded Vaughn Bodé as editor of Gothic Blimp Works, the Other’s underground comics tabloid. During this period he married fellow cartoonist Trina Robbins and had a daughter, Casey. “The Mishkin Saga” was named one of the Top 30 best English-language comics of the 20th Century by The Comics Journal, and the first issue of The Stuff of Dreams received the Eisner Award for Best Single Issue in 2003. Deitch's recent acclaimed graphic novels include The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Shadowland, Alias the Cat and Deitch's Pictorama, done in collaboration with his brothers Simon and Seth. Deitch remains a true cartoonists’ cartoonist, adored by his peers as much as anyone in the history of the medium.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
July 14, 2012
Kim Deitch takes the reader on another zany trip through his mind in "Shadowland", a series of shorts featuring carnies, silent movie actresses, aliens, pygmies, and lots more.
The book seems to take as the central character, Al Ledicker Jnr, a man who painted his face to look like a vicious clown and who became a carnival leader. The story jumps about Ledicker's life, with his father also taking a main role as a huckster who took in anyone he could with his flamboyant showmanship and flair for storytelling.
Deitch's own fascination with the silent movie era comes into play here also with lots of chapters devoted to a silent movie actress called Molly O'Dare. Deitch has devoted a lot of his books to this era of movie-making from the more recent "Alias the Cat" and "The Search for Smilin' Ed" to earlier books like "Boulevard of Broken Dreams". His knowledge of the time is well used here and the stories and drawings have an authentic feel to them.
The story, as with all of Deitch's stories, doesn't seem to have any barriers to it - reality doesn't stop it and when Deitch gets going he goes far. The story goes from place to place, such as a medieval orphanage to a wild west cathouse to a sci-fi spaceship to tropical islands to underground mystical dwellings to... well you get the idea.
Which isn't to say it always works. Because a lot of the stories overlap, there is a tendency to repetitiveness which can get a bit tiring. The wonderful thing to note with any Kim Deitch book is the artwork which in this book, like his others, is stellar. The layout, the texture, the level of detail, it's all utterly incredible and of such a high standard. Couple that with his inventiveness and storytelling verve and you have one underrated and highly achieving comics artist. "Shadowland" might not be my favourite of his books but it certainly is an accomplished one and certainly one to read for fans of indie comics.
The book seems to take as the central character, Al Ledicker Jnr, a man who painted his face to look like a vicious clown and who became a carnival leader. The story jumps about Ledicker's life, with his father also taking a main role as a huckster who took in anyone he could with his flamboyant showmanship and flair for storytelling.
Deitch's own fascination with the silent movie era comes into play here also with lots of chapters devoted to a silent movie actress called Molly O'Dare. Deitch has devoted a lot of his books to this era of movie-making from the more recent "Alias the Cat" and "The Search for Smilin' Ed" to earlier books like "Boulevard of Broken Dreams". His knowledge of the time is well used here and the stories and drawings have an authentic feel to them.
The story, as with all of Deitch's stories, doesn't seem to have any barriers to it - reality doesn't stop it and when Deitch gets going he goes far. The story goes from place to place, such as a medieval orphanage to a wild west cathouse to a sci-fi spaceship to tropical islands to underground mystical dwellings to... well you get the idea.
Which isn't to say it always works. Because a lot of the stories overlap, there is a tendency to repetitiveness which can get a bit tiring. The wonderful thing to note with any Kim Deitch book is the artwork which in this book, like his others, is stellar. The layout, the texture, the level of detail, it's all utterly incredible and of such a high standard. Couple that with his inventiveness and storytelling verve and you have one underrated and highly achieving comics artist. "Shadowland" might not be my favourite of his books but it certainly is an accomplished one and certainly one to read for fans of indie comics.
June 16, 2020
A collection of short, interrelated stories about a showman/conman from the turn of the twentieth century, his clown-faced son, and his crew of assorted show-people. Visually, this book combines an underground sensibility with "old timey" carnival posters and early-twentieth-century wordless novels (Lynd Ward, et al). Narratively, it blends medieval dream visions, fairy stories, oddball lewdness, and pop-culture. Lots of fun.
July 18, 2010
i admit it- I absolutely love Kim Deitch's work. No one else in comics has developed such a very peculiar and particular style and then maintained it consistently for over 40 years. He is absolutely his own thing- and I would not expect everyone to like it, but anyone interested in comics should have some of this work.
June 13, 2012
I was browsing graphic novels at the downtown library, and I came across this book. I'd never heard of Kim Deitch, but the art looked cool, the stories seemed weird, and it's published by Fantagraphics, who publishes most of the comics I love.
Shadowland is a psychedelic circus of grifters, space aliens, movie stars, pygmies with supernatural powers, carnival midgets, and a man who dresses like a clown for most of his life. And all of these things tie in together. That's about the only way to describe the plot of any of the stories in this book.
Shadowland was everything I love in comics - outlandish plots with dark themes, insane characters, and the author's obvious love for the strange world of their creation. It's the love of the author that keeps the story from going off the rails, and that keeps the characters, no matter how crazy, sympathetic in the mind of the reader.
Deitch's illustrations perfectly capture every scene, and the background details tell as much of the story as the characters themselves.
This was one of those great reading experiences, the kind that changes you and sticks with you for a long time. I'll be sad to return this one to the library. But I look forward to reading Deitch's other work.
Shadowland is a psychedelic circus of grifters, space aliens, movie stars, pygmies with supernatural powers, carnival midgets, and a man who dresses like a clown for most of his life. And all of these things tie in together. That's about the only way to describe the plot of any of the stories in this book.
Shadowland was everything I love in comics - outlandish plots with dark themes, insane characters, and the author's obvious love for the strange world of their creation. It's the love of the author that keeps the story from going off the rails, and that keeps the characters, no matter how crazy, sympathetic in the mind of the reader.
Deitch's illustrations perfectly capture every scene, and the background details tell as much of the story as the characters themselves.
This was one of those great reading experiences, the kind that changes you and sticks with you for a long time. I'll be sad to return this one to the library. But I look forward to reading Deitch's other work.
February 9, 2008
This collection of work by Kim Dietch is exceptional. The many stories within weave together to create a strange history of the people surrounding an old medicine show/carnival owner. There are flying pigs, miniature aliens, strange subterranean midgets, and a chain smoking clown. The art is wonderful to look at--really rich in detail...you can keep going back to panels and pick out more detail.
May 8, 2009
Delightfully insane romp through history and/or delusion! With a fetish for bizarre better-left-forgotten nostalgia and a controlled "R.Crumbish" approach to slightly psychedelic recollections, past and present intertwine in a meandering trip down memory insane! Part of a series, I loved them all! I recommend them all!
This is a writer/artist of the highest (heh heh) caliber! I think I would like to meet Kim Deitch, though the notion is a little scary too.
This is a writer/artist of the highest (heh heh) caliber! I think I would like to meet Kim Deitch, though the notion is a little scary too.
March 23, 2018
Deitch is an old indie guy, having contributed to RAW magazine and various anthologies edited by folks like R. Crumb, Aline Cominsky-Crumb and more, plus several books of his own. Shadowland is a collection of short stories from various anthologies, plus a few stand-alone comics and some original material. It does all fit together, with all the stories being about a set of characters, and a very clear timeline holds everything together when you read it all.
Shadowland is the story of the Ledicker family, old "Doc" and his son Al, who run a traveling carnival in the late 19th/early 20th century. It gets extremely surreal, with aliens, bizarre tiny pygmy men, pseudo-time travel, and Kim Deitch himself becoming a character in the narrative.
Ultimately, it's really just an experience for the reader to see all of Deitch's worlds and the overlapping narratives - background characters from one story become leads in the next, and other characters drop out entirely. It's hard to describe, but it's got a sense of adventurous, silly fun; a little freaky terror; and plenty of detailed, overloaded, carnival-style backgrounds.
It's definitely recommended, for the experience of seeing how surreal and strange comics can truly be, although I can't guarantee that anybody else will like it.
Shadowland is the story of the Ledicker family, old "Doc" and his son Al, who run a traveling carnival in the late 19th/early 20th century. It gets extremely surreal, with aliens, bizarre tiny pygmy men, pseudo-time travel, and Kim Deitch himself becoming a character in the narrative.
Ultimately, it's really just an experience for the reader to see all of Deitch's worlds and the overlapping narratives - background characters from one story become leads in the next, and other characters drop out entirely. It's hard to describe, but it's got a sense of adventurous, silly fun; a little freaky terror; and plenty of detailed, overloaded, carnival-style backgrounds.
It's definitely recommended, for the experience of seeing how surreal and strange comics can truly be, although I can't guarantee that anybody else will like it.
November 15, 2022
Enjoyed the themes, artwork and writing but the racist drawings were just too much. Felt very jarring with no context or explanation or purpose as to why the non-white characters were either not present but still ridiculed (blackface), or present but depicted in brute, ugly caricatures. Overall, if the cartoon depictions were trying to be satirical or whatever, it didn't seem the author really got this message through to the audience if that was the goal. Might be a sign of the times but still... I'd rather spend time reading stories and looking at artwork from those who value different cultures instead of using them as jokes, props, or insults...
March 5, 2021
#1 This comic has a very large amount of racist imagery- so much that it is unclear if it's self-aware/meant to be obscene or if it's just flat out offensive. This is very hard to overlook. Unfortunately, the storyline and characters are quite gripping and I did enjoy reading the comic and viewing the art/illustrations. Visually it is kind of straining on the eyes- there's just so much going on on every page and while that's impressive it could be kind of overwhelming- which might have been the intention but usually gave me a headache.
December 28, 2019
One big narrative broken down into 10 short stories. Just like anything by Deitch, the concepts are crazy and the stories are really fun. I felt like it ran out of steam during those last few stories, but it's still excellent.
March 27, 2021
Frantic and unusual but good.
June 29, 2015
Even by Kim Deitch's standards, this comics collection is graphic, bizarre, self-referential...and compelling. It's tough to even describe the plot. On the surface, "Shadowland" is a generation-spanning tale centering on a group of performers in early 1900s traveling shows, circuses and films. But as the story later reveals, they're actually linked by
But that overarching plot only makes up a portion of what Deitch puts on the page in his painstaking, black-and-white, early-animation style. There are daredevil pigs and tunneling pygmies, clown-faced killers and screaming incest. This being Deitch, there's also copious full-frontal nudity, which comes off as a bit gratuitious and intentionally troubling in at least one context with a kid. If you don't want to see cartoon lust, don't pick up this volume.
But the lust isn't what it's all about, even if that's a major component. Instead, "Shadowland" explores how these old, weird things--America's back alleys and forgotten attics--once sufficed to entertain us, to tell us stories. That's an interest expressed through all of Deitch's work, and it continues to be compelling here, even as he inserts himself into the story as an unreliable collaborator.
Still, the volume has some issues. Beyond the nudity, which comes down to taste, there's also Shadowland's treatment of its minority characters. One is a drunken circus freak--a sloppy embodiment of animal desire--whose filmed execution is negotiated with the KKK. Others include the pygmies, who are portrayed as mischevious, child-like elves who never have their own voice. Both examples are problematic and uncomfortable.
To be fair, nearly every character in Deitch's story is problematic and uncomfortable, given over to cruelty, murder and total selfishness. The racist caricatures also seem intended to be a commentary on the mindsets of the era in which the story was set, but that excuse doesn't seem entirely earned, and it probably will be less palatable to non-white readers.
Still, Deitch's work isn't intended to be simplistic or tidy. Even given its issues, I enjoyed this strange tale, although I couldn't commit to it as easily as I had some of his other work.
But that overarching plot only makes up a portion of what Deitch puts on the page in his painstaking, black-and-white, early-animation style. There are daredevil pigs and tunneling pygmies, clown-faced killers and screaming incest. This being Deitch, there's also copious full-frontal nudity, which comes off as a bit gratuitious and intentionally troubling in at least one context with a kid. If you don't want to see cartoon lust, don't pick up this volume.
But the lust isn't what it's all about, even if that's a major component. Instead, "Shadowland" explores how these old, weird things--America's back alleys and forgotten attics--once sufficed to entertain us, to tell us stories. That's an interest expressed through all of Deitch's work, and it continues to be compelling here, even as he inserts himself into the story as an unreliable collaborator.
Still, the volume has some issues. Beyond the nudity, which comes down to taste, there's also Shadowland's treatment of its minority characters. One is a drunken circus freak--a sloppy embodiment of animal desire--whose filmed execution is negotiated with the KKK. Others include the pygmies, who are portrayed as mischevious, child-like elves who never have their own voice. Both examples are problematic and uncomfortable.
To be fair, nearly every character in Deitch's story is problematic and uncomfortable, given over to cruelty, murder and total selfishness. The racist caricatures also seem intended to be a commentary on the mindsets of the era in which the story was set, but that excuse doesn't seem entirely earned, and it probably will be less palatable to non-white readers.
Still, Deitch's work isn't intended to be simplistic or tidy. Even given its issues, I enjoyed this strange tale, although I couldn't commit to it as easily as I had some of his other work.
May 12, 2012
What drew me to this graphic novel was the amazing pictures that had such fantastic details and were so skillfully drawn. Of course, I can also never resist a book on the circus/carnival. At first glance, the crowded and overwhelming number of pictures seemed perfect for the circus atmosphere that often time has multiple acts all running simultaneously. However, I felt that the plot and characters in this graphic novel left a lot to be desired.
Shadlowland includes ten different stories that are all set in either the circus or a carnival with the characters that are larger than life such as clowns, midgets, bearded ladies, voodoo witches the size of one's thumb and many more true "characters". The first story is about a sideshow high diving pig that has past his prime and must watch as he is replaced by a younger pig. Another story is told by the circus owner's wife, who is a midget, and the sketchy dealings that her husband (a clown who is always in makeup) makes in order to keep the circus afloat.
Deitch gives the reader an interesting cast of characters and tells each of their stories in vignettes. Still, this was not enough to keep my attention. Some of the story lines turned extremely sexually graphic which deterred me from reading them while others felt as if they had been done before. While the illustrations are what first won me over, I soon found myself overwhelmed by what was going on in the illustrations. The more time I spent hunched over the graphics, the more I forget what the plot was and had to go back to the beginning. Though each page truly embodied the atmosphere of a circus/carnival is also left the reader feeling as if there is not enough time in the world to absorb all of the pictures and their meanings. While this is not in my top list of graphic novels, I still think that it is worth the time to flip through and at least look at the illustrations.
www.iamliteraryaddicted.blogspot.com
Shadlowland includes ten different stories that are all set in either the circus or a carnival with the characters that are larger than life such as clowns, midgets, bearded ladies, voodoo witches the size of one's thumb and many more true "characters". The first story is about a sideshow high diving pig that has past his prime and must watch as he is replaced by a younger pig. Another story is told by the circus owner's wife, who is a midget, and the sketchy dealings that her husband (a clown who is always in makeup) makes in order to keep the circus afloat.
Deitch gives the reader an interesting cast of characters and tells each of their stories in vignettes. Still, this was not enough to keep my attention. Some of the story lines turned extremely sexually graphic which deterred me from reading them while others felt as if they had been done before. While the illustrations are what first won me over, I soon found myself overwhelmed by what was going on in the illustrations. The more time I spent hunched over the graphics, the more I forget what the plot was and had to go back to the beginning. Though each page truly embodied the atmosphere of a circus/carnival is also left the reader feeling as if there is not enough time in the world to absorb all of the pictures and their meanings. While this is not in my top list of graphic novels, I still think that it is worth the time to flip through and at least look at the illustrations.
www.iamliteraryaddicted.blogspot.com
December 19, 2010
More Kim Deitch turn of the century dementia about a carnival run by a Wild Bill Hickok lookin' guy (Doc Leidicker) who has ties with pygmies from outer space bent on preserving every form of American early 20th Century trash culture. I thought the Japanese were already doing that! Get "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" first and then get this. They're both brilliant.
July 11, 2010
I think Kim Deitch is the cartoonist I most wish I could draw like (worst sentence ever!). I love getting lost in his weird plots and lush drawings. You can read his books more than once and find something new in the story and in the drawings each time.
January 17, 2015
An "underground" comic, though nothing in it would be out of place now in the Vertigo line. Great fun with an oddball story involving a sideshow, ETs,a murderous bawd, a silent film stare and a tropical island,among other bits and pieces.
April 2, 2008
I'd missed out on this, the only part of it I had was the 3D comic that forms the first 30+ pages. More great stuff. Get it all!
January 30, 2009
Extremely, wonderfully, wierd.
November 11, 2008
Everything I love in life....carnivals, dime museums, murderous clowns and aliens. This work is such a labor of love, and the details in the illustrations are like the curves on a fine cougar.
December 14, 2008
This book is just breath-taking. Alarming, mischievous, deviant, unexpected, & visually complex & gorgeous.
January 22, 2010
The less accessible of the Deitch books I read. A lot of the same themes and characters as some of his other stuff. So, so wacky. Downright bizarre at times.
September 15, 2010
interesting and I liked the drawing a lot. not always comfortable with how sordid, sour and misanthropic the tone of "underground" style comics can be.
February 2, 2012
I was not a fan of this. It felt too disconnected. Things didn't flow properly.
The animations were interesting and I enjoyed the writing and drawing style.
The animations were interesting and I enjoyed the writing and drawing style.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews