Young Shadow & The Watchdogs
Cartoonist: Ben Sears
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Publication Date: April 2026
I really loved the first Young Shadow book when it came out in 2021. But after reading this sequel, I think I might have misread its primary interest. Young Shadow is essentially a middle grade superhero comic, in which the titular hero takes on corporate malfeasance, pollution, trust fund kids, and abusive cops.
It’s got a striking monochromatic aesthetic, courtesy of the great cartoonist Ben Sears, who is one of those artists whose work will only ever been taken for his own, which is to say its been so finely honed, that nobody draws quite like Sears does. And so I took the interest of the first book to be around justice and the difference a socially conscious young person could make if they applied themselves and took action.
And while I still think that is the main concern of the first book, upon reading Young Shadow & The Watchdogs, I think as a series the unifying interest of the Young Shadow books now becomes having some fun with the pliability of classic comics concepts. In the first book, we get Sears exploring the comics trope of the masked and caped child character, one we’ve seen in everything from Calvin and Hobbes on down to the creation and persistence of Robin.
In this second book, Sears sets out to play with the notion of a high stakes game of baseball. Casts of comics characters hitting the diamond for nine innings is a beloved concept, one that’s lovingly been done in everything from Peanuts to X-Men. But I think what Sears is evoking specifically in Young Shadow & The Watchdogs is the classic manga, Shigeru Mizuki’s Kitaro.
Both stories feature characters playing baseball against horror tropes. In this book, it’s a ghostly skeleton team, whereas Kitaro brings a team of monsters out to play. It’s all good fun, and it’s a blast to see Sears take all these inspirations and traditions, and reflect them through his idiosyncratic aesthetic and his own character.
All of that is to say that while I was a bit caught off guard that Young Shadow & The Watchdogs was not a second childhood superhero story concerned with being socially conscious, I found the book to be an utter delight. In fact, I can’t say for certain obviously, but I think I enjoyed pushing Young Shadow toward a different one of the character’s interest, more than I would have seeing another story that rehashed the thematic material in the first book.
It’s all very fun and effective, like a pitcher moving from their fastball to an off-speed pitch.
Young Shadow and the Watchdogs is out this month via Fantagraphics
Read more great reviews from The Beat!
