Shadowland
By Kim Deitch
Fantagraphics
No one layers a story quite like Kim Deitch. Even with the highly fashionable tendency of the past decade, or so of centering plot lines around the intersecting existences of a half-dozen protagonists, Deitch’s consistent parade of new characters, levels, and twists would almost certainly translate into a jumbled, if entertaining mess. The artist’s work is suited to his native genre like no other, giving rise to a suitably controlled pacing, which, more often than not, plays out like some fractured and forgotten serial from the early days of film.

Shadowland proves, not surprisingly, that the circus is the perfect setting for Deitch’s talents and obsessions, vintage imagery, bizarre character sketches, and nostalgia for an unrealized past, all converging beneath the big top. The book is Deitch at his literary best, playing out like an Altman adaptation of Geek Love, the cast of carnies and their co-conspirators leading lives every bit as alternately romantically fantastic and gothically sinister as an outsider might expect from their ilk.

Settings range from the magically-realist pastoral, to a borderline gothic covenant, to a wild western-styled town hanging, to a space station floating 30,000 miles outside of the earth’s atmosphere. And of course, being Deitch, the silent movie industry, and the author himself both factor into the proceedings before the story draws to a close. In the end, however, Shadowland must ultimate return to the circus setting at its center, Deitch closing the proceedings with a bang, in the tunnels beneath Coney Island.

Deitch’s artwork is every bit as complex as the story it portrays. Shadowland opens gracefully as circus posters come to life, full page panels, with ornate borders that eventually break down into standard sequential layouts. One wonders over the course of the first 30-odd pages whether Deitch can keep up the poster theme for the entire book. The answer is a firm ‘no,’ that, to create a story with this depth in that format, surely would have take a book four five times the size, and certainly neither Deitch nor his readers possess the stamina to make it through that in one piece.

The book’s sub-200-page length seems just about right. Deitch doesn’t make a point to bring things full-circle or tie up all of his loose ends. That’s not really the point. Time, the past, present, and future, family, and generations, and memories keep marching on.

–Brian Heater