I’m not a particular fan of the horror genre. Much of this is due to Hollywood’s one-dimensional approach to horror that may have started with The Exorcist and Night of the Living Dead and proceeded to spiral downward into a multitude of unimaginative violent sequels that work under the belief that copious quantities of blood and violence is scary. This disillusionment with horror movies bled into the literary horror genre as well, with the exception of the surreal supernatural horror of H.P. Lovecraft and his imitators, and even then it’s often hit-or-miss.

I suspect one reason for my enjoyment of Lovecraftian horror is that it is psychological in nature. The horrors are hinted at as often as not, and it is the reactions of the protagonists to the insanity they glimpse that drives the story more than the rending of flesh and bone. It should be no surprise then that the Lovecraftian mythos has attracted the attention of more than one webcartoonist. (Indeed, the first Lovecraftian webcomic I encountered was The Call of Whatever, though TCOW took a humorous glimpse into the Cthulhu mythos.)

When I first came across Shadowgirls, the last thing that crossed my mind was Lovecraftian horror. With an artstyle reminiscent of a number of Image Comics strips and shapely heroines that would end up in various states of partial undress, I blithely lumped it into the same category as Witchblade (with which I felt it bore a fair resemblance), and considered it more of a superhero comic with horrific elements added. It would not be until I was a fair way into the archives and learned that the webbed monstrosities that were tracking Charon McKay and her daughter Becka were called “Deep Ones” and that it took place in Innsmouth that it I realized we were looking at an adaptation of Lovecraftian horror… even if it had the usual blood-and-gore found in far too many comic books and movies.

The thing is, it works. Part of this lies with Charon and her daughter (and with Becka’s best friend Lindsey, who (according to the creators’ notes) started out a plot device for the writer and artist, and ended up growing into a much fuller character with an important part to play in the story and with tremendous courage in the face of something that drove more than one person insane) and the dynamic between these characters. What threatened to be just another superhero comic with the heroines facing down dread fish folk from the deep evolved into a more nuanced story that didn’t rely on the characters transforming into the Shadowchild (which seems to be a black-skinned super-strong entity with the ability to toss around “dark energy blasts” or somesuch nonsense) to destroy the monster of the week.

Unfortunately, there are flaws with the comic as well. Mind you, I don’t have anything against creators David A. Rodriguez and Dave Reynolds dividing up the comic into chapters or for the filler comics that happen between chapters. The “Shadowbabies” minicomics are amusing enough, and the secondary story concerning Rodriguez’s other comic, Starkweather, seems interesting enough. My issue with this is that the filler comics, wallpaper cheesecake drawings, and Starkwater segments drag the reader out of the comic. The first chapter ends with bloody fish monsters staring through a bar window, having identified Charon as their prey, and the very next update has chibi mini-characters in preschool in semi-amusing situations. It kind of kills the mood of the story there.

If there was an easy method of skipping the non-core storyline and filler art, the darker tone of Shadowgirls would be retained. Readers could read those extraneous parts if they wanted (perhaps in their own section on the website) but wouldn’t have to go through filler comics if they were only interested in the main storyline. And it’s this primary story and the stories of not just the McKays but even those of the antagonists that make Shadowgirls worth reading. Time was spent to flesh out not just the protagonists and their close friends, but even the antagonists. Watching one antagonist struggle between choosing what is right and what is easy resulted in my cheering on one of the Deep Ones, even though this monstrosity had our heroines at its mercy. Likewise, watching another antagonist drive a knife through a cultist because of what they had done to her daughter had me cheering on a character who initially seemed a simple two-dimensional foil for Charon, and who turned out to have a fairly tragic story.

While the first season of Shadowgirls is wrapping up, there is potential for other stories with the McKays and their friends and allies. Part of this lies with these allies, some of whom appeared quite recently and haven’t been filled out much at all. What seemed initially to be rushed storytelling now hints to be one of the hooks meant to be described more fully in Season 2 of the comic. Some of the filler comics likewise hint at other story-hooks for the story to follow (more specifically the beginnings of a “crossover” comic between Rodriguez’s Starkwater and Shadowgirls, though my initial reaction to it was recoiling at the stereotypical “superhero accidental brawl” that happens in that segment, and the fact that the McKays appear quite willing to stop fighting at the say-so of an absolute stranger, despite the fact they were attacked first and without provocation). These flaws aside, Shadowgirls appears well worth reading and a good, if bloody, addition to the Lovecraftian horror genre.