Today, Drew and Michael are discussing Shade, the Changing Girl 1, originally released October 5th, 2016. As always, this article containers SPOILERS.

Drew: Last week, I saw a program of animated shorts at a local film festival. I’ve always loved shorts, but seeing a dozen back-to-back highlighted just how effectively vastly different worlds could be established in just a few short minutes. This is especially true of animation, where the “rules” of the world — from its physics to the question of whether animals can talk — can often take unexpected turns. Indeed, I think discovering those rules is one of the joys of cartooning; examples from the shorts I saw include “oh, this is a world where a crow in a shirt and tie might become a young boy’s step-father” and “oh, this is a world where someone’s bomb shelter might be at the top of an impossibly tall tower“. That’s a joy that’s just as true of comics, and creators that take full advantage of just how weird their worlds can be often come up with something magical and unexpected. Cecil Castellucci and Marley Zarcone are clearly willing to go weird in Shade, the Changing Girl, and issue 1 suggests that they might be on to something very special. Continue reading →