“How can someone be so sure of the sunny days that will come again when shadows endure?”
Sam Fonseca’s graphic novel Shadowplay: Midnight School is a nightmarish fever dream of students trapped in a hellish high school for days that never end. You may think your high school experience was unpleasant, but this is next level.
The story’s unnamed protagonist is a sensitive, shy young man, filled with self doubt, who is easy prey for the school’s abusive teachers and cruel classmates. Students are constantly reminded that their work is inadequate and their hopes for the future are limited. A fellow student is harshly beaten by the school’s principal and encased in a conical metal muzzle mask that covers his entire head. Recess provides no respite as fellow students to mete out violence playing sports or pommel each other for no apparent reason.
To his fellow students, all this seems somehow normal. Those who are disciplined deserve their punishment, even though no one can remember exactly what they did. If you study hard and follow the rules, there is nothing to worry about.
But there is.
When the bell sounds to mark the end of the school day, the students begin to head home. The bell then rings again and they turn and head back inside, unaware that this isn’t a new day. It is, rather, an infinite night where their time in school never ends.
The story’s protagonist follows this dreary ritual, yet senses something is not right. Wasn’t there a classmate next to him in what is now an empty chair? Why does the keyboard of an old piano look strangely familiar?
When the stress mounts, he hums a half-remembered tune. Fragmented memories return. Was he once living a different life? Is there a way to get back there?
Fonseca’s darkly expressionist illustrations underscore the tale’s horror and dreamlike surreality in noirish blacks and grays. Later, sepia tones and color break through in key sequences.
Befitting a story where music plays an important role, there is a “Mysterious CD” soundtrack recorded by Fonseca available online to accompany your experience of the graphic novel.
While Midnight School is a complete story arc, Fonseca’s website implies the work is the first episode of a trilogy of tales from the “Midnight World.”
Shadowplay: Midnight School is a powerful tale of oppression and the hope of liberation.
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