A very well written novel that I had a hard time putting down. I cant wait to read the next novel by these authors.

I thought I would love this book because it is dark, gritty, violent, and has a little bit of humor peppered in like a lot of my favorite graphic novels but I just couldn't get into it enough to even finish it. I don't think I could connect enough with any of the characters. I like the story and the art enough to want to try finishing it at another time when I am in a more receptive mindset.

This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review.
Before I could finish reading this book it got archived and there's no way I can review a book I didn't finish reading.

I had a great time reading this graphic novel. A new person has taken on this mantle, and it comes with some strings attached. This person ain’t a fan of them, but the arrangement works good for a while. When a powerful organization does something unthinkable, this makes them hunger for revenge. They decide to take on this organization and they won’t be doing it alone. As this graphic novel comes to a close things end up working out better than they expected them to.

***Very minor story spoiler warning*** In case anyone is in anyway offended by minor story spoilers at all to.

Shadowman is basically an undead man brought back to life through some shady deals involving Voodoo magic. He’s got pretty cool powers, after coming back from the dead.
Something is not right though and he has a feeling his head is being messed with. He goes about finding out what happened to him and how he ended up like he is now. And thus starts our Protagonist’s adventure through the underground Voodoo scene.

This was a tough read. Usually I can read through comic and graphic novels like nothing. If anything I always feel like I want more and not wanting the end to come. And to be fair Shadowman does have its moments and charm. The artwork and dynamic movement is very cool to read and look at. Especially the Voodoo magic art. Not to mention it’s not every day you get to read comics about Voodoo, so it definitely sets itself apart from a lot of other comics about undead dudes with powers. The colors are angsty and the contrast is great. Unfortunately that's where my compliments for this comic will end.

With everything else though, like the story, characters and dialogue, I just couldn’t get enthralled in it.
For one, I can't really root for someone who has an abuser character (there’s a part where we find out his Fiancé left him after he smacked her. You know what they say about guys who hit women, it’s usually not going to be an isolated incident). As someone who’s been in a toxic relationship, this just didn’t vibe with me at all.
There’s another part where he agrees to a deal that will use his new, and very short lived love interest’s body to summon a monster to help himself rid of Nettie. But wait, it was just a ploy so Nettie can take over her body for herself. Poor love interest girl gets turned into a cat but ends up arbitrarily killed off later anyway.
Another thing that really stuck out as gross and weird was all that coerced sex with Nettie. I wanna feel bad for the guy cause he kind of has to, to stay undead. Nettie owns him and she needs regular sex to stay young… I’m just not into stories where there’s nonconsensual sex/coerced sex that then blurs the line between characters abhorring it and liking it (either way it’s abuse).

Also the beginning just wasn’t very strong, and if I hadn’t gotten this through an ARC I probably would have given up on it. Thankfully it does get going and finds its groove after part 9 for a bit and then slogs itself all the way to the underwhelming end.
Overall, I find it's a bit hard to get super into the stories when you just don’t really like anyone in it. Like at all...
Maybe I'm just not the targeted audience for this one.
In the end, Shadowman’s not a hero, he’s not even an anti-hero in his own story. He’s just some sad sod of a guy who got pulled into some bad sh*t, and now he’s stuck in this undead life of his own doing, shady deals, and bad choices.

I read this immediately after finishing the Garth Ennis <i>Shadowman</i> collection and I must say I was not impressed with the direction Delano went with the title. Ennis's story was a bit of a mess, but the world-building was interesting and opened up the possibility to create a rich mythology with complex characters; Delano turned most of the characters into backstabbing assholes and did little to develop the world.

Received via NetGalley.

I normally try to steer clear of non-comedy Valiant books, but Delano and Adlard on a horror comic? How could I resist that? We open with the lead mysteriously returned from the dead – but still damaged to the extent he shouldn't be moving, at least in certain lights, and unsure of who exactly he is. Soon he's up to his neck in every cliché of New Orleans spookiness, and I'm sure to some modern tastes having that story told by two pasty Brits won't go down terribly well. For myself: I'm a white Brit of an age to have been raised on Vertigo, and in particular, the immediately pre-Vertigo comics in which superhero companies were tentatively feeling their way back into the horror territory that had been off-limits since that mendacious prude Wertham imposed his own issues on a whole medium. And if this really isn't on a par with the best of that stuff, it's certainly far from the worst, even if the set-up offers ample opportunity for Delano's occasional tendency towards the purple: "Fear. Guilt. Shame. A timeless blackness of suffocation. Shapeless, uneasy horror wrapping him... Squeezing his mind into a tight-clenched hibernation. An eternity of clammy, whimpering dreams." So yeah, Deadside sounds a lot like the past couple of years. Although come to think of it, "where us dead folk sleep while our lives and memories rot away"? Perhaps not, if they can at least get a decent kip there, rather than being awake through the whole horrible business. Anyway. Sometimes the choices are outright baffling – I don't care if you don't like the forename Persephone, but you're not going to go by the initial P. instead if your surname is Defilo. And as curses to befall a supporting character go, I think a lot of people I know would be quite happy to be turned into a cat. Co-writer Dick Foreman, who played similar makeweight roles on various DC titles of the era, comes along for the finale, which feels a little more generic and action-heavy, a little lighter on personality, than the build-up. But it's still perfectly acceptable, and I'm sure the whole spine-ripping bit was invaluable practice for Adlard's later work on The Walking Dead.

And of course, it may help that on its original nineties release, this was technically an Acclaim comic rather than a Valiant one, so I can claim my rule of thumb remains intact.

(Netgalley ARC)

Shadowman is for all intents, a zombie. Not the undead, eat your brains, kind of zombie. He’s the Voodoo kind. Killed with his entire family then raised from the dead to be an assassin.

There are some wild things going on in this Graphic novel, but then what do you expect in a novel about a Voodoo zombie in New Orleans?

The art is excellent, even if some of the characters kind of look alike. Not the main characters, but some of the peripheral
characters are hard to tell apart. Or it’s just me.

I believe this is a sequel to the original Shadowman, a new killer created to replace the one from the late 90s’. Not being familiar with the original story left me lost at some points in my reading.

But overall it was interesting, had a good storyline, and very graphic. A warning if sex and violence offend you.

Thanks to @netgalley, Diamond Book Distributors, Jamie Delano, and Charlie Adlard for the opportunity to read this eArc in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

When the first writer of the Hellblazer series (Jamie Delano) and one of the major artists of The Walking Dead series (Charlie Adlard) team up together, readers know that something exciting is going to happen. Taking Valiant’s character Shadowman, these two artists were able to create a solid graphic novel of voodoo and horror in New Orleans that is sure to entertain any horror aficionado.

Shadowman focuses on the character Michael LeRoi, who is suffering visions and hallucinations, or so he thinks. He’s a killer for hire, but he’s being pursued by a haunting dead man named Jack Bonaface, as well as an Irishman who can turn into a giant snake and a woman named Mama Nettie who lives in the swamp. His bartender friend, Josie, is doing what he can to keep Michael alive, but only until Michael realizes what his actual relationship is with Josie and how caught up he is in this chaos. Every page drips with the intrigue and double-crosses of noir literature, all against a background of New Orleans, voodoo, and death.

Delano’s writing and clever plot twists make for an exciting read. On top of that, Adlard’s artistic style seems almost cinematic, so that readers are constantly entertained and rarely bored. While Shadowman isn’t an original invention of either of them, what they do with the character and how they reinvent the story of Shadowman and Mama Nettie is enough to keep any fan of horror graphic novels entertained. This is as strong as could be expected from such industry greats, and readers will certainly enjoy Shadowman by Jamie Delano & Charlie Adlard.

My thanks to NetGalley and to both publishers Diamond Book Distributors and Valiant for an advanced copy of this horror graphic novel.

Comics and horror are two tastes that really taste great together. A writer and/ or artist need not worry about the cost of special effects and Karo syrup, nor have people comment on how CGI effects ruin everything. The creator has a vision, the creator either puts down or collaborates with others to put down their vision and hopefully the only complaint will be "Dang, that creator has got problems".

Shadowman by writer Jamie Delano and artist Charlie Adlard features the duo's take on the long running character from the Valiant Universe. This series features a new iteration of Shadowman in the form of Michael LeRoi, also known as Zero. Strange events from the first five issues, not included here have taken LeRoi's memory away leaving him the husk of a man, a hitman now called Zero. Redemption comes in the form of Mama Nettie who infuses LeRoi with a voodoo artifact the Mask of Shadows, which helps LeRoi remember his past, and try to give him purpose, as something is coming after him, and bad things are going to happen.

The story is a tad rough to follow in the beginning. Familiarity with the whole character and the first five issues would be helpful. As the reader progresses things get a little easier, but in the beginning the reader is both sinking and swimming, as is the title character when we first meet him. The art is really good. Charlie Adlard is a great artist comfortable in many styles but horror I think is his best medium. I believe this was just after his run on Topps comics The X-Files which was really outstanding art, even when the stories were TV bad. A lot of atmosphere and dread come from his art, which really sets the mood for the story.

A very swampy, as in location, and dark story familiar to those who read a lot of horror comics in the 1990's, which as Jamie Delano was writing Hellblazer makes sense. The story might be tough to get into, but the art more than makes up for this, and the story does settle in rather quickly.

Unfortunately I couldn’t open this file on my phone, tablet, or laptop. I was looking forward to reading it, I’ll have to wait until it comes out and buy it.

I'm a huge horror buff, so this was a pretty fun read. The imagery was good which is very important to me when reading graphic novels.
Obviously, having a horror element, I can see how this story wouldn't be for everyone.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Shadowman by Jamie Delano & Charlie Adlard is a collection of issues from the creators behind Hellblazer and The Walking Dead. The story revolves around the former Shadowman, Jack Boniface, hunting the streets, looking to kill the new Shadowman, Zero. According to the description, Zero is a "hitman, killer, a guy with a past and the power of the dead."

Overall, Shadowman is a horror collection that will appeal to fans of 90's comics. When I originally decided to read this book, I had thought that it was a new series. When I read the description a bit closer, I discovered that this book is actually a reprint of issues from the middle of a 1997 series, starting with issue #5. I havenothing against comics from the 90's, so I went in with an open mind. However, I just could not get into the story, and I did not enjoy the art. If you're intrigued by the description, or if you're a fan of horror, you can check out this book when it comes out in April!

Visually stunning, even though I’m not a fan of the horror genre. A perfect read for thrill seekers and comics fans.

Unfortunately I couldn’t read this to the end because the file was corrupted and some of the words merged together. What I could manage to read was interesting.