Shadowplay (Book 1): Midnight School

by Sam Fonseca

Overview

Jaw-dropping artwork illuminates a mind-bending work of psychological horror about creative souls struggling against oppression and depression.

This class is a nightmare. Violent teachers, barbed wire fences, torture devices, and gruesome suspensions... How did these students get trapped here? Why can’t they remember? And once they realize the truth, are they strong enough together to escape?

In his astonishing debut, Brazilian graphic novelist Sam Fonseca presents a mind-bending work of psychological horror about creativity, self-doubt, and the battles we all face to endure a world where shadows only grow stronger.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781603095488
Publisher:	IDW Publishing
Publication date:	02/11/2025
Pages:	424
Product dimensions:	6.88(w) x 9.69(h) x 1.25(d)

About the Author

Sam Fonseca has been drawing comics since he discovered that the anime he watched on TV as a child came from manga—and that it was possible to create all that stuff by himself using paper and pencil (still his tools of choice). Nowadays, he alternates duties between art direction, storyboard art, script writing for animation and TV projects, and creating comics. His comic project Age of Rust was nominated three times for the HQMix Prize, and his other title, Dynamite & Laser Beam, won in the “best webcomic” category. Sam also has the strange hobby of creating soundtracks for his comics.

Editorial Reviews

"Shadowplay is a raging fever dream that burrows down into the fears that haunt all of us. Sam Fonseca hits the ground running and never lets up." — Patrick Horvath (Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees)

"As surreal as it is nightmarish. A definite must-read for fans of things that go bump in the night." — Dave Baker (Mary Tyler MooreHawk)

From the Publisher

02/03/2025

Brazilian artist Fonesca debuts with a grandiose lament for the ways society can undermine and crush independent thinkers. At a hellish “midnight school,” sleepwalking students are belittled by devilish authority figures. A terrified, doe-eyed youth with musical ambitions, known only as “the boy,” tries to navigate this prison littered with anxiety-dream tropes (being naked and chased, teeth falling out). Even as he’s excoriated for his supposed disobedience by his captors, he tries to hang on to his musical ambitions. Eventually, a “girl” shows up, and the two bond while trying to escape the school’s demonic baddies. Fonesca’s drawing is delectably dark, with glowing pools of light cutting through inky-black cross-hatching. Unfortunately, the story—an overwrought individualist allegory in which every criticism is rendered as a soul-crushing assault on the boy’s fragile spirit—does not have anything close to the art’s density or texture. Despite the narrative’s earnest belief in the triumph of creativity, its eye-rolling adolescent excesses make it hard to take seriously. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly