Thank you to NetGalley and Oni Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is my first time experiencing Nick Cagnetti's work and it is superb. Everything from the art to the style, to the coloring was perfect. As far as the story was concerned, it did become a bit confusing at times for me because there is just so much going on, but I still enjoyed the ride. An element I wasn't really expecting but did end up enjoying quite a bit was the heartfelt romantic vibe it had going on. There was also plenty of cosmic horror which I can never get enough of.

Overall, this is a solid comic, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys sci-fi and cosmic horror with a bit of gothic romance. It's a comic that definitely has a lot of heart.

I went into Spirit of the Shadows expecting a stylish, retro horror romp, but I didn't expect it to hit me right in the chest the way it did.

Beneath all the eerie atmosphere, killer panel design, and pulpy underworld weirdness, this is really a story about what happens to love when everything else gets stripped away. Erik’s journey through a fractured, surreal afterlife isn't driven by empty revenge—it's driven by the desperate ache to hold onto the memory of the person who made him feel whole. The relationship at the center feels genuinely lived-in and tender, which makes the tragic beats land with real weight.

Nick Cagnetti’s art is an absolute fever dream in the best way possible. It captures that gritty indie energy while still leaving plenty of room for quiet, devastating moments of grief and warmth.

If you love supernatural stories that care more about human heart and closure than mindless gore, don't sleep on this one. It stayed with me long after closing the last page.

Thank you to Oni Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I thought I knew what kind of afterlife comic I was getting when Spirit of the Shadows opened with Erik Leroux already dead and waiting to be judged. I was wrong.

The Spirit Realm is not dark, gray, or particularly hellish in the way we usually picture these places. It is bright, loud, full of impossible creatures and colors that look like somebody turned a blacklight on inside a nightmare. It almost looks fun until you understand what happens to the people who get stuck there.

And Erik is very much in danger of getting stuck there.

Erik was a musician in life and wakes in the afterlife desperate to reunite with Katrina, the woman he loved. She is already waiting for him in the peaceful Sacred Realm, but before Erik can stay there, he has to be judged.

For that, he needs the book of his life, basically the record of everything he did while alive. Easy!

Then a monster rips it apart. Oops.

Erik ends up searching the Spirit Realm for the missing pages with Elizabeth, another dead soul whose own book is gone. She has already been trapped there long enough that she is slowly transforming into one of the strange creatures roaming the realm. If they cannot complete their judgment, that is eventually Erik’s future too.

So finding those pages suddenly feels a little more urgent.

THIS AFTERLIFE LOOKS INCREDIBLE

Nick Cagnetti makes this book look unlike almost anything else I have read recently. The Spirit Realm is intense and almost neon, while the Sacred Realm feels softer and dreamlike. The real world is more subdued, and the flashbacks have their own flatter palette.

There is so much happening inside some panels. Creatures in the background, strange architecture, spirits moving around, shapes that probably should not exist. Normally that much visual information could get exhausting, but here I kept wanting to stop and look around.

The colors also do a lot of work keeping the story readable because Spirit of the Shadows jumps constantly between places and time periods. Before you even fully process what is happening, the palette helps tell you whether you are in the living world, a memory, the Spirit Realm, or somewhere much nicer.

If you liked the way Yuletide wrapped darker supernatural ideas in gorgeous art, this gives you a much stranger and more psychedelic version of that.

ERIK’S PAST CHANGES THE WHOLE STORY

The smartest part of the missing-page idea is that Erik is basically rebuilding his own history at the same time we are.

At first, he is easy to understand. He loved Katrina, he died, and now he wants to get back to her. Very romantic. Very tragic.

Then those pages start filling in some fairly important details.

Erik has actually died before. After his first death, Dr. Hyde Perkins resurrected him through experiments that leave Erik changed and give him the abilities that eventually turn him into the Spirit of the Shadows. Perkins was working for Katrina’s father, Lord Laemmle, whose own grief had pushed him toward finding a way to bring the dead back.

That already complicates things, but the biggest shift comes when Erik’s history connects directly to Elizabeth. After Katrina later dies, Erik becomes so desperate to restore her that other people end up paying the price, including the woman now helping him navigate the afterlife.

Suddenly Elizabeth is not just his new friend. She is part of the reason Erik may not deserve the happy reunion he is fighting so hard to reach.

I liked that a lot because it changes how we look at him without turning the whole book into “surprise, our hero was evil.” Erik did horrible things, but they came from grief, obsession, and his inability to accept what he had lost. That does not excuse them, obviously, but it makes his judgment much more interesting.

EVERYONE HERE IS GRIEVING BADLY

This is where the book became much more interesting to me than the supernatural setup alone. Almost everyone is doing something because they cannot accept losing someone.

Erik wants Katrina back. Elizabeth’s sister Helena wants revenge for what happened to her. Lord Laemmle pushes resurrection experiments because he cannot accept his wife’s death. Again and again, someone sees a tiny possibility of reversing loss and decides they have to take it, no matter what it costs. And honestly, that made me think. If someone told me there was actually a way to bring back somebody I loved, how far would I go before admitting I was making things worse?

It is easy to say, “Obviously do not resurrect the corpse.” Very reasonable advice. Grief is not exactly famous for making people reasonable. Under all the ghosts, monsters, witches, and superhero stuff, Spirit of the Shadows is really about people refusing to let go and the damage that can come from confusing love with the need to keep someone.

For another comic where very messy feelings become something supernatural, Orla! goes somewhere completely different, but that emotional chaos is definitely familiar.

SOMETIMES THERE IS JUST TOO MUCH HAPPENING

My biggest issue with Spirit of the Shadows is that I wish it gave itself more room. Five issues have to cover the Spirit Realm, Erik and Elizabeth collecting the pages, Erik’s first resurrection, Katrina, Helena, Dr. Perkins, Lord Laemmle, multiple timelines, and everything happening back on Earth. It is a lot.

Most of those pieces are interesting, but sometimes a major reveal would land and I barely had time to process it before the story had already moved somewhere else. I definitely had moments where I stopped and reread a page, not because the story was badly explained, but because so many pieces were moving at once.

MAYBE LET THE DEAD STAY DEAD

By the end, Spirit of the Shadows becomes much less about whether Erik can physically reach Katrina and much more about whether he has learned anything from everything that happened while trying to hold onto her. That is what made the story work for me. The trade paperback of Spirit of the Shadows collects all five issues and will be released by Oni Press on November 17, 2026.

It is colorful, strange, romantic, occasionally overwhelming, and much more thoughtful about grief than I expected from the neon afterlife and superhero setup. Also, if comics have taught me anything lately, maybe we should all just agree to stop resurrecting people. It never goes well.

My thanks to NetGalley and Oni Press for an advance copy of this graphic novel about a man who won't let anything, dark magic, ghosts, phantoms, lost books and even death itself from finding the person he loves dearly, one he has done terrible things for.

Love might be a many-splendored thing, but it does make people act in ways that medical professionals might call, bonkers. Moving across country based on a connection, giving up friends and family for a bad case of L'amour fou. Committing foul acts against the living, and ignoring every call from the dead, even returning back to life, for a chance to make it right. This graphic novel looks at all of the mad things fools do for love, with art that will make even the most jaded of comic readers swoon with emotion. Spirit of the Shadows is written and illustrated by Nick Cagnetti abetted by Daniel Ziegler, and tells of a young man, a few lost souls, dark acts, a witch full of vengeance, and what awaits us all on the other side.

Erik Leroux was a musician, a gifted violinist playing what he thought would be a simple gig. However it was at this performance that he met his true heart, the love of his life Katrina. Katrina was the daughter of wealth, and not a kind benevolent wealth, but one of darkness and evil, and one willing to do anything to keep Erik and Katrina apart. Even murder. This however made Erik even more determined, coming back from the dead with vengeance on his mind. But vengeance sometimes takes its own course, and Erik found himself alone again. Full of hatred and not of himself. And soon dead again. Can even Erik, known as the Spirt of Shadows escape the cold grasp of death again, find his love and live happily ever after? Or will the darkness that Erik found himself doing catch up with him, and destroy him for all time.

A big sprawling story that goes to a lot of places, but never seems to lose its place. This is a rollercoaster of a book, going here, going there, making one root for one character, and suddenly rooting for another. While the story might sound a little Crow like, the art is what makes this story. Big, bold beautiful pages, loaded with detail, color, and spectral images and visions. LIke Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Fletcher Hanks went Deadman style on the artist, taking over his soul, doing their thing and getting out for the next artist to add some stuff. There are pages that are just glorious, that need to be blown-up just to take in everything. I have not been that visually impressed by a comic in a while. This book will be hard to beat. I can't speak enough about the colors, even on a tablet. Even now while writing this I missed a few minutes reopening the file, and just admiring the pictures.

The story might be familiar, the execution and the art really sell it. I can't reiterate enough about the art. Just so bold, so different than what is out there. I really enjoyed the look of this comic, and will have to investigate more by this team. A fun story, especially with Halloween coming up, with art that one will die for. And return to life to look at again.

Spirit of the Shadows is wonderful cross between Kirby-style aesthetics and 1960s/70s horror comics. The artwork was the major selling point for me in the beginning, but I was won over by the nostalgic, playful tone of the story as things rolled along. This is a must-read for anyone who is a fan of 1960s/1970s DC and Charlton horror series, with their mystic and marvelous imagery and creepy adventures.