Saturday, July 30, 2011

Water Baby: A Hardcore Review

Written and drawn by Ross Campbell the same guy who does the amazing book, Wet Moon, for Minx. Minx was DC's attempt at attracting more female readers by tapping some of the industries best independent creators for a handful of really fucking awesome digest sized books.
Water Baby is the story of a young surfer who during a set gets attacked by a shark and loses her leg as a result. The story jumps forward several months where Brody is refusing to wear her prosthetic leg and now has a roommate in her best friend Louisa who has been tapped with the job of watching after Brody during this difficult time in her life. Brody is a tattooed, pierced tomboy hottie. Louisa is a little more laid back and feminine. Brody has dreams about shark attacks that become reminiscent of a Salvidor Dahli painting is it's obscurity and abstractness.
Brody's ex, Jake shows up one day saying her mom said he could stay with the duo. Brody's been trying to get over Jake, who never even wrote or stopped by during Brody's rehab or hospital stay. The next several weeks, that was only supposed to last a few days, Jake spends on the couch vegging out and not getting a job, eating all the ice cream sandwiches. This reminded me of my mom's second husband, who got fired from his job shortly after the wedding and then refused to get another, eating all the ice cream sandwiches and throwing away my stuffed animals. He was a 'Nam vet who had a drug habit. Mom didn't let that last too long tho. Brody on the other hand let's Jake just loaf and not do shit. The tool even brings some piece of jail bate to the house and almost gets laid before being caught by Brody and Louisa. Jake gets wasted one night, throwing up all over the couch and living room. To which Brody calls enough, steals her mom's car and her, Louisa and Jake are off the New York to drop Jake off at his folks'.
The road trip yields some unplanned results, including the car being stolen and Jake picking up on some other piece of jail bate at a diner. The girl ends up riding with the trio. Finally reaching their destination, Jake is dropped off and Louisa and Brody begin their long journey back to Florida where it all began.
This book had a lot of the great qualities that made me like Wet Moon, Campbell's other solo book series. But there was some stuff I didn't care for. Ross does an amazing job with facial expressions. However his lack of diversity when rendering males or seriously butch chicks is a bit frustrating. However both Brody and Louisa were wholly original in their appearances. Especially with all the ink Brody sports. Water Baby is an awesome ride, with some unforgettable characters, with the exception of Jake. But there's always got to be in order to make you love the other characters even more than you would if all the characters were equally cool.
The book fires on seven of eight cylinders. And for sheer purposes of this review, as it pertains to hardcore moments in wrestling history, I take you back to 2001. Shortly after both ECW and WCW had gone out of business. One night on Raw, during a WWF vs. WCW match Kane and Jericho took on the Awesome Mike Awesome and Lance Storm. During the match two guys jump the railing and with Storm and Awesome take out Jericho and Kane. The two are revealed to be Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer. To the rescue of the WWF superstars runs out the B team of the WWF. They face off with Kane and Y2J against the four invaders. However you realize something is off. And then it hits you. The remaining six guys are the Dudley Boys, Rhino, Raven, Taz and Justin Credible. All ECW guys. The brawl starts as the group of ten begins destroying Jericho and Kane. All topped by Paul Heyman on color saying, "I want you to remember this moment." Takes off his headset and climbs into the ring proclaiming the ECW is invading.

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