Animation director and cartoonist Cathy Malkasian's powerfully poignant Shadows of the Sea brings together two gentle, suffering strangers who create a healing community of found family. Stanwick, aka Landmine Sniffer Dog #336, has been dismissed with a mere letter and wad of cash. While paused in his aimless wandering to adjust his prosthetic leg, he smells serious trouble: three sore losers viciously attacking a woman for prizes not theirs. Stanwick strategically intervenes, intertwining his future with hers.
Their journey commences, through forests, rivers, and winding paths, and lands the pair in an abandoned town. Along the way, Doris chatters--about a mother who cursed her, working as a "vermin hunter" then "in puhtatuhs," recalling her "fella Ralph." Stanwick's silence doesn't mean he's incommunicative; he saves Doris from poisonous berries, laughs at her bad jokes, assuages her hunger. But both carry debilitating grief from their pasts, literally manifested into burdensome shadows ready to subsume them. But "tuh mudder sea... wash dere shadduhs clean," allowing woman and dog to bear witness to their respective tragedies and finally let (enough of) the sadness go. Finding themselves in an abandoned seaside village, the duo is ready to chance renewed beginnings.
Malkasian creates warmly inviting panels in earthy watercolor shades of browns and blues. Her characters--particularly the kind ones--are gorgeously expressive, a head tilt, raised eyebrow, faraway gaze affectingly capturing every emotion. The left-behind empty town is an architectural marvel, seemingly carved into mountainous stone, magically landscaped, ready for new life. Doris envisions "good peoples will come from near an' far"; good readers will surely appreciate and remember their visits. --Terry Hong