Three Shadows
"Three Shadows" is a graphic novel by French artist Cyril Pedrosa that explores profound themes of mortality, love, and the corrupting forces of society. Set in a premodern era, the story follows a rural family comprised of Louis, Lise, and their son Joachim, who live a blissful life until three ominous horse riders—symbolizing death—begin to haunt them. The narrative unfolds as Louis desperately attempts to protect Joachim from the shadows, leading to a harrowing journey filled with encounters that reveal the darker aspects of humanity, including slavery and violence.
Pedrosa's artwork is notable for its fluid, dynamic line work and high-contrast black-and-white compositions, drawing influences from various artistic traditions, including Japanese woodcuts and European caricature. The graphic novel serves as an allegorical meditation on the fleeting nature of life, emphasizing that despite the instinctual drive to shield loved ones from death, acceptance of mortality is an integral part of existence. Despite its critical acclaim, "Three Shadows" has had a limited audience in the United States, yet remains a significant example of contemporary European graphic storytelling.
Three Shadows
AUTHOR: Pedrosa, Cyril
ARTIST: Cyril Pedrosa (illustrator)
PUBLISHER: Delcourt (French); First Second Books (English)
FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION:Trois Ombres, 2007 (English translation, 2008)
Publication History
Though French artist and writer Cyril Pedrosa established his career in European comics through his collaborations with writer David Chauvel and his solo debut, Les Coeurs solitaires (2006), Three Shadows became his first graphic novel to be exported to the United States. Originally published in 2007 as Trois Ombres, Three Shadows was partially inspired by an event in Pedrosa’s life. After watching friends endure the death of their child, Pedrosa sought to explore the unpredictable dynamics of mortality. In all, it took six months for Pedrosa to compose the tale and one year to complete the art. The graphic novel was translated from French to English by Edward Gauvin.
Plot
In an unspecified location in a premodern era, Louis and Lise enjoy a “simple and sweet” life of pastoral bliss with their son, Joachim. They spend their time working the rolling fields of their farm, relaxing in the shade, and swimming in the river. It is a peaceful existence. Joachim awakens one evening and tells his parents about three unmoving, ominous horse riders he saw on the distant hill overlooking the house. During a hunting excursion, the family dog, Diego, goes missing. Later that night, the shadowy figures appear again. Louis seizes an ax and pursues the three shadows, but they disappear. Louis advises Joachim never to go outside alone.
The next night, Joachim hears a mysterious scratching noise. Thinking it is Diego, he opens the door and faces the three shadows. Louis frightens them away. Lise goes to town to consult the mystical, elderly Suzette Pike, who warns Lise not to resist the shadows. Lise also learns that Pike has been protected from the shadows her entire life, but the old woman now accepts her own mortality. When Lise shares this information with her husband, Louis refuses to allow the shadows to take his son. Louis and Joachim flee the farm with the shadows seemingly in pursuit. The shadows locate Pike, and she gives herself to them.
Louis and Joachim go to a crowded port to catch a ferry to the west, where they may be safe from the shadows. Once Louis and Joachim enter the port, they witness the worst of humanity, such as slave traders and thieves who profit from others’ pain. After obtaining a ticket through a bribe, Louis and Joachim board a ship that holds the weak and the elderly. In an attempt to help a sick old man, Louis tries to locate medical supplies. He meets the kind, helpful bosun of the ship, who prides himself on his civility. Louis also discovers a slave who is being held in the captain’s cabin.
Louis next meets a boisterous yet repugnant slave trader, Manfred. After Manfred violently attacks a woman selling charms, he is murdered by the woman’s colleagues. The next morning, Louis is accused of being the killer. During a storm, the slave kills the captain, and the boat sinks. Louis and Joachim are rescued by an old man who lives in a hut on the beach. Blaming the shadows for all the deaths, Louis realizes his mistake in fleeing and decides to return home to cherish his remaining moments with his son.
The old man strikes a deal with Louis: If Louis gives the man his “good heart,” then the man will give Louis the strength and power to protect Joachim. When he agrees, Louis is transformed into a massive, black golem without a heart. He flees through the countryside, carrying Joachim in his fist. After months, Joachim pleads for his monstrous father to release him. Louis collapses and allows the shadows to take Joachim. The shadows are revealed to be three women, who note that they have an appointment with the “one who cheats.”
After obtaining Louis’s good heart, the old man has transformed into a young and powerful baron. One of the three women, Aurore, requests a seat at the baron’s table and makes a bet with him. If the baron wins the bet, he will receive a kiss; if Aurore wins, she can have any object owned by the baron. Aurore changes places with her fellow “shadow” Fate, and the bet is won. The baron discovers the ruse, but the women demand his prized necklace. In the pendant on the necklace resides the essence of Louis’s good heart. The baron refuses and flees. He is struck down by a carriage, and the women take the pendant and give it to Joachim.
The women and boy find Louis lying on a mountaintop. Joachim pours the elixir containing Louis’s good heart from the pendant into his father’s nose. His father is revived, and Joachim leaves with the shadows. Years later, Louis and Lise have two daughters and recognize the tenuous nature of life. The story concludes with an image of petals fluttering off a cherry blossom tree.
Characters
•Louis is the hulking, bearded patriarch of a rural family. His dedication to the survival of his son, Joachim, leads the two on a grueling physical and spiritual journey. He eventually makes an ill-advised exchange and is transformed into a golem. At the end of the journey, he learns to accept the transitory nature of life and existence.
•Joachim is the young son of Louis and Lise.
•Lise is the wife of Louis and the mother of Joachim. Haunted by the appearance of the three shadows, she visits the mysterious Suzette Pike for guidance. After speaking with Pike, she realizes that she and Louis should value the time they have remaining with Joachim before he is taken by the shadows.
•Suzette Pike is a shrunken old woman whom Lise visits for advice regarding the shadows. Outside her home is a plaque that reads “Midwife, Exorcist, Sympathetic Ear.” She advises Lise not to fight the shadows and to value every moment that remains with Joachim. She has kept the shadows in waiting for many years, but after her session with Lise, she willingly faces her fate and goes with the shadows.
•Manfred is an intelligent, yet prideful and violent, slave trader that Louis encounters on the voyage to the west. After violently attacking a woman, he is murdered during the night. Louis is blamed for the murder.
•The Bosun is a massive man with a kind heart who prides himself on his sensitivity and his sophisticated dress. During the dehumanizing boat ride across the expansive river, he is one of the few people to help Louis and the other degraded travelers. During the storm, he releases Louis and Joachim from their cage, attempts to save people, and refuses to abandon the sinking ship.
•The Slave is a woman being transported by Manfred. She serves as a cook for the ship’s captain. Her testimony implicates Louis in the murder of Manfred. She eventually exacts revenge upon the captain by stabbing him during the storm.
•The Three Shadows are initially ominous, foreboding figures on horseback that hold vigil on the hill near the family’s home. Despite Louis’s efforts to evade them, they eventually seize Joachim and are revealed to be three kind women representing the three fates. After the old man deceives Louis, they locate and restore Louis’s “good heart” before returning him to human form.
•The Old Man, a.k.a. the Baron, is first introduced as a withered hermit living on the beach. He rescues Louis and Joachim after the destruction of the ship. Once the old man obtains Louis’s good heart, he is transformed into a wealthy baron. The three shadows eventually reclaim the good heart and return it to Louis, while the baron’s spirit is dragged off to be punished for eternity.
Artistic Style
Three Shadows falls into a European tradition of emotionally sophisticated, yet accessible, literary works that utilize allegory to ruminate on an existential concern. Pedrosa’s black-and-white art is characterized by fluid, swirling lines that display the frenetic, consuming nature of the father and son’s journey as well their increasing anxiety as the shadows pursue them. Pedrosa uses brush, pen, and charcoal and effectively balances both joy and grief while alternating between bold, broad strokes and fine line work.
The phantasmagoric nature of the father and son’s epic journey becomes evident as Pedrosa employs dynamic inking, stark shadowy scenes with high contrast, and unorthodox comics techniques such as drybrushing to create a psychological portrait of desperation. The atmosphere achieved through the line work and swooping, kinetic landscapes is highly effective. Black spaces seem to consume the characters as the graphic novel progresses. Pedrosa’s caricature, or cartoon, style places emphasis on certain traits that indicate the essence of each character. The disgusting and disturbing visages of corrupted individuals stand in contrast to the kindly faces of the innocent Louis and Joachim.
Pedrosa’s artwork is influenced by Japanese woodcuts, European caricature and cartooning traditions, and the animation of Disney and Studio Ghibli. In addition, Three Shadows displays aesthetic links to the grotesques of Francisco de Goya, the elongated bodies and use of blacks by El Greco, and the circular, kinetic movements of Vincent Van Gogh’s canvases. The literary aspects of Three Shadows can be traced to a number of influences, including European folktales, medieval morality plays, Voltaire’s Candide (1759), John O’Hara’s novel Appointment in Samarra (1934), and the Magical Realism of Gabriel García Márquez.
Themes
Three Shadows concerns the corrupting forces of society, the love of parents, and the inescapability of mortality. The most prominent theme of Three Shadows is the transitory and fleeting nature of life. At the beginning of the tale, the family leads an idyllic life separate from larger society. During their flight from the shadows, Louis and Joachim encounter the most repugnant elements of humanity.
Three Shadows also serves as a meditation on the extreme measures loving parents will take to protect their children from death. It is only through Louis’s transformation into a monstrous golem that the desperate father learns of the inescapability of death. Once Louis realizes that his son deserves freedom from the literal grip of the golem, he accepts that a life of flight and fear is less desirable than a peaceful death. These trials teach Louis both to value the remaining time he has with his son and to embrace life by accepting death as an inevitable component of existence. With that knowledge, Louis recognizes the true nature of life.
Impact
Beyond a smattering of titles (such as René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo’s Asterix series, 1961-1979, and Hergé’s The Adventures ofTintin, 1929-1976) and a few celebrity artists (such as Moebius or Jacques Tardi), French comics and their creators have yet to achieve popular recognition in the United States. Lauded at 2008’s Angoulême International Comics Festival and revered by the European comic literati, Three Shadows received strong reviews in the United States. Despite this critical acclaim, the work reached only a limited audience in the country. A sophisticated pastiche of literary genres and artistic styles, Three Shadows serves as a unique example of European comics art and graphic storytelling in the twenty-first century.
Further Reading
Kelly, Joe, and J. M. Ken Niimura. I Kill Giants (2009).
Tan, Shaun. The Arrival (2006).
TenNapel, Doug. Ghostopolis (2010).
Bibliography
Croonenborghs, Bart. “The Three Shadows of Cyril Pedrosa.” Broken Frontier, May 28, 2008. http://www.brokenfrontier.com/lowdown/p/detail/the-three-shadows-of-cyril-pedrosa.
Pedrosa, Cyril. “There’s No Such Thing as a Graphic Novel.” First Second Books: Doodles and Dailies, April 14, 2008. http://firstsecondbooks.typepad.com/mainblog/cyril‗pedrosa‗guest‗blogger.
Wheeler, Andrew. “Review: Three Shadows by Cyril Pedrosa.” Comic Mix, April 2, 2008. http://www.comicmix.com/news/2008/04/02/review-three-shadows-by-cyril-pedrosa.