Shadows of the Sea Review: Cathy Malkasian’s Vision of Mass Delusion

• The Plot: A redundant landmine-sniffing dog and a veteran fish gutter team up to navigate a world abandoned by the “fancy folk” who fled the planet.
• The Theme: A biting allegory of late-stage capitalism that explores the dignity of labor, the absurdity of corporate restructuring, and the value of staying grounded in reality.
• Visual Style: Malkasian utilizes soft pencils and lush watercolors to create a “biomorphic” and atmospheric world reminiscent of Shaun Tan and Raymond Briggs.

Cathy Malkasian combines whimsical elements with themes of profound sadness in her graphic novels. With her latest release, Shadows of the Sea, published by Fantagraphics, Malkasian delivers a stunningly painted allegory that feels both timeless and sharply relevant to our current moment.

Set against a backdrop of misty coastlines and abandoned architectural marvels, Shadows of the Sea is a story about those left behind by a society obsessed with “higher” pursuits. It is a tale of unlikely friendship, the dignity of labor, and the quiet beauty of the earth that remains when the ambitious have fled.

The story opens by introducing our protagonist, a schnauzer wearing a suit, who has just been made redundant. He is “Landmine Sniffer Dog #336” for the “All Mines Corporation.”

In a biting satire of corporate restructuring, the dog receives a “Dismissal with Honors Notice.” The corporation is pivoting from landmine detection to a more lucrative “Drug Sniffing Division,” and the dog is cast out with a cash severance and a binding NDA. This cynical start sets the tone: utility is valued over loyalty, and profit dictates survival.

The Surreal Silence of Trolberg: Malkasian’s use of watercolor and biomorphic structures amplifies the thematic weight of societal collapse.

Wandering the coast, the dog encounters Doris, a “fish gutter”, specifically, a county-wide gutting champion for ten years running. She is physically sturdy, rough-spoken, and deeply connected to the sea, referring to it affectionately as “Mother Sea.”

Their paths cross when Doris is robbed by a trio of bullies, Tom, Roy, and Eddie, who steal her prize medals and, most crucially, her sharpening stone, a wedding gift to her husband, Ralph.

As the duo pursues the recovery of Doris’s stolen items, they reach a “fancy town” left eerily silent, its architecture displaying biomorphic and surreal forms. Its former wealthy inhabitants, the “fancy folk,” believed the world was ending on the Solstice. In a bizarre twist of mass delusion and elitism, they divined the planet’s “hurl point” and collectively left. They intended to dwell with the stars, literally looking down upon those they deemed lesser, calling the world they left behind a “dung heap.”

While the elite fled, they left behind vast stores of food, beautiful architecture, and natural hot springs. Malkasian brilliantly contrasts the absurdity of their exodus with the pragmatism of the dog and Doris. While the rich looked up to the stars, Doris and the dog looked around, realizing that the world is still beautiful, functional, and now, theirs to reclaim.

Malkasian uses soft pencils and lush watercolors, creating a world that feels damp, heavy, and textured. You can almost feel the cold mist of the sea and the roughness of the ancient stone steps.

The character designs are expressive and often exaggerate physical traits to reflect personality;  the dog’s weary, soulful eyes contrast sharply with the grotesque, exaggerated features of the bullies or the stoic, solid presence of Doris. 

Shadows of the Sea questions the value of “escaping” reality versus the bravery of inhabiting it. For readers who appreciate the works of Shaun Tan or Raymond Briggs, Malkasian’s latest offers a rich, immersive experience that lingers long after the final page is turned.

As Doris suggests near the end, perhaps the “fools” are the ones who left, leaving behind a world with “such good bread in it.” 

Cathy Malkasian is an artist whose background in animation has influenced her approach to sequential storytelling. She worked as an animation director on productions such as The Wild Thornberrys Movie, which earned a British Academy Award nomination, and the Curious George series for PBS. Over the past two decades, she has published several graphic novels, including Percy Gloom (2007), Temperance (2010), Eartha (2017), and The Heavy Bright (2023). Her narratives often feature allegorical structures in which gentle-hearted protagonists confront opaque bureaucratic systems.

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