As we bash our heads trying to figure out what actually happens when we die, countless books, films, comics, etc. have long since perfected the afterlife. Some are cool (the Dark Desert from Discworld seems packed with potential and personal peace galore), and others seem a touch more harsh (see the psychic onslaught of The Warp from Warhammer: 40k). But of all the many ways you can spend eternity, few seem as scary but also beguiling as the Spirit World in the forthcoming Spirit of the Shadows.
Created by writer Daniel Ziegler (Elodie) and artist Nick Cagnetti (XINO), we get to see the Spirit World as the hero within Spirit of the Shadows, musician Erik Leroux, finds himself wandering this strange metaphysical carnival in search of his lost love, Katrina. Finding himself “reborn as a phantom with fleeting memories,” Erik is “cursed to bear the arcane costume his corpse wore to the grave.” With otherworldly magics, memories and torments coalescing, and a strange dress code indeed, the Spirit World stands out as something novel but eerily familiar.
It is the perfect setting for the weird and wonderful magic that is Spirit of the Shadows. Tackling ideas of grief, regret, vengeance, and even identity itself (among other equally compelling themes), Spirit of the Shadows isn’t just about death and dying. It’s also very much about an obsession and fear of death, and how it can obfuscate the act of living. Mostly, though, it’s about this mad, mad journey, and how we decide what it all really means.
Spirit of the Shadows #1 is due out January 28, 2026 from Oni Press. (The FOC is Monday, January 5, 2026.) Ahead of all that, we busted out the ouija board to commune with both Ziegler and Cagnetti via email. There, we discussed the pair’s long-time friendship (and how that informed the book’s development); the book’s references and connections to other stories; a breakdown of Cagnetti’s approach to art/layout; some teases for the story proper; and how the pair might spend their own afterlives.
AIPT: I’d heard y’all are long-time friends. How does that relationship inform making a book together – is it then harder or easier to collaborate?
Daniel Ziegler: When we first met back in middle school, Nick and I bonded right away over our shared passion for creativity. We’ve been working on projects together pretty much nonstop since then, so collaborating on this comic came very easily thanks to the common influences and experiences we’ve shared over the years. Any time of day, often in the middle of the night, we could connect to throw some ideas around without any fear or judgment.
Nick Cagnetti: We’ve been close friends for many years now and share a lot of the same creative sensibilities, so we know we work well together. We really could casually bat things around at any stage and keep fine-tuning till we got it as perfect as we could get it, which makes the collaboration so cohesive and really a perfect blend of both of us. We also had not only worked together many times over the years on various projects, but we also did an earlier, much different iteration of Spirit of the Shadows in 2015 as a comic as well!
AIPT: I feel like this story is The Crow meets Monkeybone. Do you have other, more specific influences or inspirations you’ve culled from?
DZ: There’s certainly elements of those stories, and many more, but the spark of the idea came from the Universal Classic Monster films of the 1930s. I wanted to fill what I saw as a void in the modern horror landscape by making a character that could exist stylistically alongside Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, Phantom of the Opera, etc. That was over a decade ago when it was being written as a film screenplay first, and even back then Nick brought it to life by designing the timeless look of the character which combines elements from many of those great icons of classic horror.
NC: Oh yeah, I think beyond the classic monster influence in general there was stuff like Jack Kirby’s The Demon which we kept passing back and forth to each other as like a guiding light for us. That blend of the super-heroic visual language with the arcane and macabre is such an underrated sweet spot to be in and that’s what we were striving for. Also, a bit of Scooby-Doo and Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for good measure.
Courtesy of Oni Press.
AIPT: I also feel like this story is about the stories we tell about ourselves – that we often don’t know what we’ve done morally, ethically, et.c until long after the fact (and after we’ve assumed we’re the hero). How close am I to the book’s larger message?
NC: You’re close! There’s a lot of moral grey areas surrounding all the characters and it’s the sort of thing where you have to stop and try and put yourself in everybody’s shoes to see where they’re all coming from and how complicated those emotions can be when there are no clean answers. Emotions are messy to navigate sometimes and judgment can take you to places where it’s pure tunnel vision and the ripple effects are huge.
DZ: To push it even further, I think our decisions are often driven by those intense emotions, and as a result, they can be completely inappropriate yet fully understandable. As such, this story is full of emotional characters making terrible choices who all believe they are in the right, and I think that makes for both good drama and a fascinating mirror we can hold up to judge ourselves accordingly.
AIPT: Nick, almost every page you do here is so breathtaking in its scope and execution. However briefly, could you walk us through a single page (of your choosing) so we get an idea about how you tackle the design, layout, etc.?
NC: Page four is one I think works slyly. It’s the first page you see the Spirit standing there fully formed in the whole book and I thought it’d be striking, instead of having this badass splash shot of our hero in all his glory, to have him just standing there looking totally vulnerable. He’s learning he’s dead and he’s just reacting to that news in a void all by himself, and the rest of that page is framed around his full figure and grappling with that information. The stakes are laid out for him and the weight of it all looms heavy (quite literally in the form of the Realmkeepers). I think things like that go a long way in conveying the right things but in engaging ways.
AIPT: As a follow-up of sorts to that last question: Daniel, what’s it like to work with Nick – somebody who is so wild and inventive? Do you really try to help push what he can do on the page?
DZ: Nick has such a strong mastery of visual storytelling, it’s always a thrill to get a page back from him and see how he chose to lay it out. In the scripts, I tried to write enough direction to get him going but not so much that it put him in a box, because I know he can make a simple moment dazzling. One of my favorite things about this story is how it takes place across various moments in time and planes of existence, so giving them each their own visual flair was something that excited us both. I always encouraged Nick to push it further and make it weirder, because I think this story demands that.
Courtesy of Oni Press.
AIPT: The story does a darn good job of disguising who are the real heroes and villains in this tale. Why is that an important theme, and what are you ultimately trying to say about life right now in 2025/2026?
DZ: It was important for us to present these characters as people first, not caricatures. Good people can do bad things, and bad people can do good things – and what even makes someone a good person or a bad person? Without giving away too much, I hope some takeaways from the series are that humans are complicated, that it’s best to afford people the grace to be flawed, and that it’s never too late to do the right thing.
NC: This story is all about trying to ask yourself, “What would I do if I were in their shoes?,” and trying to understand where people are coming from and what they’re struggling with. It’s the cycles of violence and revenge that perpetuate on and on. The same things keep happening, and the hopeful first step at some point is from someone recognizing that and trying to reckon with what it all means, even if it’s a hard realization to come to.
AIPT: Do you have a favorite moment, page, or panel from issue #1? Something that speaks to the tone and feel of the story maybe?
NC: I really like the first scene in the real world, the living world. It’s a mostly silent scene where we see our main character being buried and we really linger on the moments to try and hopefully let people soak it all in, and you’ve got a big moody castle on the next page to put a cap on things, which is nice. But there’s so many little visual touches throughout that are put there for reasons and I think that’s another thing I’m proud; everything was pretty meticulously planned out so it should all make re-reading rewarding.
DZ: I can’t say much because it’s a big spoiler, but I’m very proud of the last page of the first issue. In one moment, it recontextualizes everything you’ve been reading before in a way that I hope is both surprising and satisfying, and should make anyone eager to see how things continue in the following issue. It’s a good representation of how things will be re-examined throughout the series, with new revelations and insights perhaps challenging your assumptions or changing your opinions.
Courtesy of Oni Press.
AIPT: Press for the book compares it to both Spawn and Madman. How do you think Spirit of the Shadows compares to those kinds of creator-owned, totally non-traditional superheroes?
DZ: I had the chance to intern with Todd McFarlane through college and even our brief conversations taught me so much about how to carry yourself as a creator. What makes those characters great is that they weren’t trying to fit into any pre-established molds, and the creators took a gamble that others were hungry for the same things they were, historical trends and market research be damned. Not to say that we’re in the same league, but I do think Nick and I see a gap in the comics being made right now, and we’re betting that it’s not just us who want to see it filled. This book will do that.
NC: I think there’s a certain level of passion and enthusiasm for creator-owned comics like those because the creators put their passion and enthusiasm into them and people can tell. We feel so excited about the characters and the world we’ve crafted here, and like Daniel said, I also believe this type of comic is one people are missing out there even if they don’t realize it at the moment. I mentioned previously we had done that earlier iteration of Spirit of the Shadows as a comic (this was when we were in college). We actually got to show Todd McFarlane some of that back then because we thought it’d be up his alley, [and] he gave me some good art advice. That old book is an entirely different beast.
AIPT: You ultimately know what Erik will have done with his life. That said, can you still have apathy, sympathy, or even a certain fondness for him?
NC: All these characters you spend so much time with when you’re working on the books, it’s strange because it feels like they’re oddly real and they’re like my pals because I’ve drawn them so much. I mean to say I miss Erik already like I miss Pink Lemonade! I’m sure my relationship is probably completely different from how readers will take the characters, though.
DZ: I expect no two people will have exactly the same opinion of Erik and his actions, and to me, that makes for a really fun character. One of the overarching questions I wanted to pose with this story is not whether a person who has done terrible things ever deserves forgiveness, but rather, do they ever deserve happiness? And I think there will be some debate about that once the series is over.
Courtesy of Oni Press.
AIPT: Here’s a fun but dumb question: If you had to look/dress a certain way during your own time in the afterlife, what would that look like and why that choice?
NC: I’d want to be permanently clean-shaven because shaving facial hair every couple days is a pain in the butt. I’d probably dress how I normally do, too, with my shirt tucked in and everything. If it’s cold there, I’d wear a scarf. I’m not sure if I’d even be worrying about temperatures in the afterlife but who knows?
DZ: I’ve basically developed my own uniform that I wear nearly every day, and that is a pair of dark jeans and a tucked in button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up — usually with some kind of floral print or pattern. Maybe not the most comfortable, but certainly the most likely for me.
AIPT: Can you tease anything from the rest of the story? Perhaps some highlights or something to look forward to?
DZ: There’s a witch character who plays a minor role in the first issue called Helena Hextress who becomes a major part of the story going forward. She’s definitely one of my favorite characters I’ve ever had the pleasure of co-creating, so I’m very excited for readers to get to see her more and I hope they love her as much as Nick and I do.
NC: It just gets crazier and goes to different places and deeper dilemmas. I think not a page is wasted, everything bleeds into the next crucial bit of information, and it always should stay fresh. Daniel and I are both really excited for people to meet the witch character proper as the story goes on. She’s almost like the other half of the whole package; from our earliest discussions about what this book would be, she was there and she just got cooler and cooler as we kept developing it. We’re really hoping people think she’s cool, too.
Check Out AIPT’s Exclusive Preview of Spirit of the Shadows #2!
AIPT: Is there anything else we should know about Spirit of the Shadows, comics, death, ghosts, etc.?
NC: This book also has a ghost guy blasting monsters to smithereens with musical notes from his ghost violin, which I think is an important consideration for readers. This book is bombastic fun but also a deep journey. It’s my best work visually yet; people haven’t really seen my work since Pink Lemonade, probably, and I think this is such an evolution in many ways. Beyond that, it’s a comic made by two lifelong friends that have been playing with the characters in this story for over a decade in the background and we’re finally getting to bring these characters to the masses!
DZ: This is a story and a character that has been haunting us since high school, so getting to finally let it out into the world is both terrifying and exhilarating. Nick and I have truly poured our hearts and souls into this book, so please give it a chance if it’s something that even mildly interests you. I promise there’s no other book like it.
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