shadow of the sea
Cartoonist: Kathy Markasian
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Publication date: November 2025
Kathy Markasian’s Shadows of the Sea tells an intimate story of grief and healing set in a fantastical world that follows its own logic but remains intriguingly strange.
It turns out that Stanwyck, a small but good-looking terrier named “Landmine Detection Dog #336” in his company’s termination letter, lost his leg in an accident and was recently unemployed. While wandering a deserted mountain road, he witnesses a disturbing landscape. A ferocious, curly-haired woman defends herself from three thugs who run away in fear after being thoroughly beaten. Stanwyck approaches a woman named Doris and tells her that she is on a journey to find a new pocket watch for her husband.
With nothing else to do, Stanwyck accompanies Doris through forested hillsides, across fantastical abandoned cities carved into the mountains, and down to hidden coves. The sea waiting there brings back unpleasant memories that he has struggled to ignore.
Doris had been lying to herself about the watch she wanted to buy her husband. Although her love for the man who gave her a home and purpose is real and good, Doris has a history of repressing bad memories due to her difficult childhood, and the stories she tells herself of her past are more fiction than reality.
Stanwyck has his own painful memories of being denied a livelihood and purpose by an evil corporation that casually punished him for doing his job. To make matters worse, he is still in shock from the accident that took away his leg and is unable to speak.
Before Stanwyck and Doris can reach the other side of their grief, they must first confront the source of their trauma, but their path is far from easy. Despite Doris’ infectious energy and Stanwyck’s quiet ability, Shadow of the Sea takes a while to reach its resolution. The atmosphere of sadness lingers in this story, like the long empty road that Doris and Stanwyck take on their way to the sea.
Kathy Markasian’s unique stylized artwork invites readers into the emotional weight of the journey. Visual distortions reflect the characters’ inner turmoil, and disturbing landscapes emphasize the harshness of their past experiences. The limited color palette creates an atmosphere in which the characters’ inner and outer worlds come together in a surreal way in a powerful climactic scene. But after Doris and Stanwyck return from their ordeal, the blues and browns of their world are replaced by the crisp colors of the sky after a storm.
In his review for The Beat, John Seven calls Markasian’s 2017 graphic novel Ursa one of Markassian’s signature “dark, apocalyptic fables that don’t make you feel all that great about humanity.” It’s hard for Ursa to agree because he has a lot of anxiety. “Shadows of the Sea,” by contrast, feels like a gentler spin on the same thematic wheels, presenting a story smaller in scope but richer in emotional immediacy.
Stanwyck’s quiet fortitude and Doris’ unruly vitality form a fascinating combination, and their friendship serves as a steady thread that guides the story away from devastation and toward rebirth. Markasian’s fantasy world is certainly cruel and strange, but it also has the potential for healing. Shadow of the Sea remains not because of its darkness, but because of the hope that emerges after a brave confrontation with bitter truths.
Shadows of the Sea is available from Fantagraphics.
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