The Comic: Water Baby
By: Ross Campbell
Type: Graphic Novella (Like a graphic novel, but on the shorter side)
Content Rating: PG-13, for language, innuendo/sexual discussion, and some scenes of freaky shark-attack violence.
Plot: Water Baby focuses mainly on a few days in the lives of best friends Brody and Louisa, two surfer girls living in Florida. Brody’s surfing days are tragically cut short when a huge shark makes a snack out of one of her legs. Louisa takes it upon herself to help take care of Brody while she gets used to her nifty new prosthetic leg, which would be a lot easier if Brody’s jerk ex-boyfriend Jake hadn’t decided to visit right then (and if she didn’t keep having loads of freaky shark-related nightmares and hallucinations). Jake invites himself in and mooches off the girls’ hospitality for a few days before finally driving Brody nuts and leading to an impromptu road trip to drive him back to his home in New York.
Personal thoughts: Yeah, yeah, I did two Ross Campbell comics in a row. So what? If you’re a fan of Campbell’s ongoing series Wet Moon (covered in the last Sunday Comics) you’ll find a lot to like here…Brody and Louisa are sort of like what would happen if you roomed that series’ Trilby and Audrey together, and throwing Jake in is like adding a Slicer analogue to the mix (in fact, until I realized that Water Baby was produced after Wet Moon was well into its run, I thought Jake might have been some sort of design/personality predecessor for Slicer). There’s also a fair number of references back to Wet Moon, including an indirect mention of Natalie. (Brody herself made a cameo in Volume 3 as one of Fall’s friends.)
For those who aren’t as familiar with Ross’ other work, I’d recommend a volume or two of Wet Moon first…Water Baby seems to work best as sort of supplementary material to it even though it has only faint ties to it. I liked it for sure, but it’s not quite as good as that series. It’s not bad—it’s just a little lighter than I was expecting, especially after WM’s so far slow and sprawling plot. However, I think the few days, including the awkward road trip, were captured well and there even seems to be hints of “based on some real experiences” about them. Brody’s shark hallucinations are definitely meant to be symbolic, but, as seems to be usual with Ross and symbols, what they symbolize is open mostly to the reader’s interpretation. If you like that, great, if you don’t, you might see the segments as unnecessary or just odd. Either way, Water Baby’s worth a quick interested browse-through at the least, especially if you’re hooked on the adventures of Cleo and Co. already.
Holden Out.
For those who aren’t as familiar with Ross’ other work, I’d recommend a volume or two of Wet Moon first…Water Baby seems to work best as sort of supplementary material to it even though it has only faint ties to it. I liked it for sure, but it’s not quite as good as that series. It’s not bad—it’s just a little lighter than I was expecting, especially after WM’s so far slow and sprawling plot. However, I think the few days, including the awkward road trip, were captured well and there even seems to be hints of “based on some real experiences” about them. Brody’s shark hallucinations are definitely meant to be symbolic, but, as seems to be usual with Ross and symbols, what they symbolize is open mostly to the reader’s interpretation. If you like that, great, if you don’t, you might see the segments as unnecessary or just odd. Either way, Water Baby’s worth a quick interested browse-through at the least, especially if you’re hooked on the adventures of Cleo and Co. already.
Holden Out.
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