Customer Reviews

Water Baby (Minx Graphic Novels)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Like the other Minx comics, "Water Baby" features an unconventional and fairly strong heroine, whose unique experiences (in this case, being partially eaten b a shark) and takes on life create a singular world. Unlike the others I've read (though I haven't read all of them), "Water Baby"'s story is meandering and seems to lack some basic storytelling elements, like a climax or a solid resolution. The characters are basic at best, and lack much backstory. This wasn't always a problem, although I personally wondered why someone as fiery as Brody was ever attracted to someone as slimy as Jake in the first place.


The main issue I took with this book was actually the artwork. While Campbell has a firm grasp on female anatomy--sometimes too firm a grasp--his male characters are poorly drawn. The character of Jake, for instance, is blocky and flat, with stiff and poorly executed positioning. The female characters, on the other hand, are much more natural seeming and far less awkward. That being said, it seems as though Campbell is far less interested in creating male characters than he is with creating female characters. The females, Brody, Louisa and Chrissie, are rendered with utmost care, with shading and many a detail, while Jake's bod is mostly delineated with flat straight lines, and his shading is minimal. Whiel Jake's characterization could also be called "flat," the difference in his stylization only serves to undermine the comic's artistic integrity.

Even though they are tough, dirty and decidedly unfeminine in the conventional sense, Campbell still manages to focus what is in my opinion far too much attention on their bodies, featuring most of them in skimpy clothing, and zooming in on their breasts, leaving them bra-less and unnaturally perky. In the car scenes, for example, the characters of Brody and Louisa are both shown with their seatbelts neatly bisecting their breasts, causing them to bulge outwards. Reading it, it seemed to me to be more of a statement about the type of woman Campbell finds sexually attractive than a testament to the personalities of his characters. Even their sexualities seem to be created for a voyeuristic and male gaze.

Writing-wise, the story starts out strong, but somewhere along the way it gets lost and eventually sort of peters out. The story of Brody's attack by the shark, the loss of her leg and her physical and emotional recovery is far more interesting than the plotline involving ex-boyfriend Jake. She has several inventive and nicely disturbing dreams involving shark-human hybrids and such. It would have been nice to have seen the shark dreams and the recover process figure in more prominently, but it seems to get lost in the end.

It's not a bad book, just not the most well-thought-out one I've read. Of the Minx comics, I preferred the Plain Janes and Kimmie66, mainly because of their more solid storylines. That being said, "Water Baby" is an entertaining read, if a flawed one. To me, it was an attempt at something without the knowledge of how to become that something, and written without the patience or care to figure it out.

I'm a big fan of Campbell's distubing zombie story, Abandoned, and his mysteriously haunting Wet Moon. Water Baby left me quite bored. Campbell's artwork is great. His figure work has a presence and weight to it. His gray tones add dimension. However, the story seemed to meander and finally go nowhere. The Minx line of graphic novels seem to be aimed at teens and twenty-somethings. I guess I may be too old to fully appreciate the complexities of this story.

This is a great time in the comics world. Indy publishers, like Minx, are exploring stories and characters far beyond the Bam-Pow of the Marvel/DC world. "Water Baby" represents one worthy direction for these experiments to try out. This isn't real drama in the traditional sense. Instead, it's more 'a day in the life' of Brody, the surfer-girl protagonist, drawn more from the soap operas than from Buck Rogers or from Conan the Barbarian. In tracing the characters' ups and downs, including their dawning and defunct loves, this reaches out to readers more interested in the players' feelings than in their exploits. It very consciously addresses the interests of a female readership.

I like the artwork and story well enough, but this just isn't my style. It doesn't have to be. That's what's great about these experiments, they can appeal to tastes that have been under-served for a long time. So, when I say that "Water Baby" doesn't address my tastes, I mean it with honest respect. This is my first experience of Minx titles. The craftsmanship in art and story will bring me back to try more of their titles - but the kind of story they choose might not bring me back often. Especially not if other Minx characters hold onto dirtbag boyfriends as long as Brody did before dumping him.

-- wiredweird

Ross Campbell, Water Baby (Minx, 2008)

Campbell (The Abandoned) temporarily shelves his goth-rock staple Wet Moon and digs into a quick study of post-traumatic stress disorder, dysfunctional relationships, and larceny on the road in Water Baby. Facile? Absolutely, but that doesn't make it any elss worth reading.

Brody is a Florida surfer. Or she was, until she became the first victim in a string of shark attacks along the coast, leaving her with an artificial leg, a bitter outlook on life, and nightmares about sharks that sometimes bleed over into her waking hours. She doesn't like how overly dependent she is on ex-girlfriend Louisa, and the picture becomes even muddier when ex-boyfriend Jake, recently living in New York, shows up. Louisa's already living there, and Jake ends up crashing on the couch for an unspecified amount of time (weeks, at least). Eventually, Brody snaps, steals her mother's car ("well, you only need one leg to drive, anyway"), and forces Jake into it, vowing to take him home to Rochester. This turns out to be slightly more trouble than it's worth, especially when they pick up a hitchhiker who got ditched in Florida by her boyfriend with nothing but the clothes on her back.

Many other reviewers have called the book flat and/or plotless. I don't think either of these things is true, though to be fair the plot does get started well into the book (we're over halfway through by the time we actually get to a plot) and Campbell's characters, while entirely different from anyone else's, are starting to seem kind of stock if you happen to read a lot of Ross Campbell. (There is sometimes a fine line between fetish and laziness, and I admit I did find myself questioning more than once which side of that line Campbell was on where Brody was concerned.) The other possibility I spent some time entertaining both while I was reading the book and afterwards is that Campbell was going for a kind of mashup of the literary novel (also often described as plotless) and noir. Which is entirely possible, though if that was the intention it didn't quite work as well as it should have (Chrissie, the hitchhiker, is far too bubbly for noir, and no one in the novel is quite existential enough for litfic. Okay, I'm being facile myself now, but you know what I mean.) In any case, while I can't see it as a complete success, it's certainly an interesting enough experiment. ***

When Brody is attacked by a shark and loses a leg, she knows that life must go on. A year later she's living with her best friend and starting to have shark infested nightmares. Then, her ex-boyfriend rolls back into town. He crashes with them for awhile, but when disaster strikes, Brody decides it's time for him to go home. So she takes her mom's car and sets out on a road trip with her ex and her best friend.

Firstly, might I say that this is the most adult of the MINX comics. There is a lot of crudeness and artistic appreciation of the female body. It was great. Brody's character was all over the place moody, she seemed to care little about losing her leg, which is nice, but little things seemed to set her over the edge. She was an intense character and might be a bit much for some readers. I liked how spunky she was and I loved the illustrations of her and Louisa. They were so realistic. Jake was a little flat, but meh he's a guy ;) I also enjoyed the subtle product placement of his other graphic novel Wet Moon (you'll have to read the book to find it yourself). This was an interesting story of a fairly self-absorbed girl. I am not sure what age range these characters are. They act like they are fresh out of high school, but little things made me feel like they were supposed to still be in school. Chrissie seemed altogether far too young to be hanging out with them. This was a tough chick book and if that's your style definitely check this one out. I really wish there was more to the story, because it was really interesting and the art was beautiful. Alas, however that is all, I feel so much was unresolved, maybe it was intentional. Life doesn't always give you all the answers and sometimes all it gives you is someone just walking away.

First Line:
"I always have to pee right in the middle of a wave."

Favorite Line:
"You're jus'...appendagely impaired, that's all."

The short-lived MINX graphic novel line was supposed to feature stories about strong women and girls and be quality graphic novels for young women. I plan on keeping most of the series set aside for my daughters for when they are older, but this is one book I will not be keeping. I found very little that is redeeming about this graphic novel. The main character has lost her leg in a shark attack; we don't know if her sour view of life and the way she treats everyone poorly was habitual before or after the attack. She seems to just be a skank, with nothing to teach and there is no growth or change. The story feels incomplete and poorly planned compared to the rest in the MINX line. It does not really go anywhere but downhill. I was truly disappointed in this book, and with it being the last in the series I read, it is a good thing as I may not have read some of the others if I had read this earlier.

Loved it. Ross Campbell pencils a sour yet savory slice of american pie. See inside the world of a couple of hot surfer chicks after one of them loses a leg in a shark attack! Imaginative yet rooted in the mundane world of monetary monotony. The art is dope. The girls are cute, and I found it to be a perfect read sitting outside my local coffee shop today eating a cheesy tomato sandwhich and sipping some oolong tea. Great cover too. Fans of Local,American Virgin or Brian Wood should dig. Like my cheesy tomato..... Mmm Mmm Good!