Watersnakes has to be one of the most unique graphic novels I’ve read in quite some time. It’s beautifully rendered, has a fascinating and enthralling plot, and is deeply unsettling in ways I hadn’t anticipated. In retrospect I wish I had saved this for one of my Halloween reads, but what can you do?
What originally caught my attention was the striking cover for Watersnakes. I could tell just by looking at it that I was going to enjoy whatever concept was being covered here. And it was just as obvious that I was going to enjoy looking at it as much as reading it.
The title is also a unique one. I was curious that it was titled Watersnakes when it had a cover image full of women dressed for war. I knew I was going to have to read it in order to understand the full context of the story.
Warnings first: There are depictions of teeth falling out in this graphic novel. I know that the fear of losing teeth isn’t an uncommon phobia, so I wanted to warn about this first and foremost. The scenes aren’t graphic like a torture scene would be, but they are kind of painful to see (possibly more so than any other injury could have been).
I love the way the story being told unfolded. When I first started reading, I had no idea how we were going to get from the first few pages to the scene depicted on the cover. But as the story went on, I was able to see it more and more.
This graphic novel read very much like a fairy tale, in many ways. I’m not talking about the happily ever after type either, I mean the type with evil fae and witches and the like. It felt enchanting, but also had that dark and disturbing undertone that so many of us love in the Grimm tales.
It’s impossible not to adore the characters, even in the beginning when we didn’t know them that well. They’re just so charming and full of life. In many ways they’re just like any other kid would be – happy, innocent, and loving nothing more than making up their stories and playing their games. But there’s so much more to what is actually going on. I think it was the grounding in reality – how real the characters felt, that really added to the impact of the story itself.
The conclusion of Watersnakes was not one I expected, but I actually really enjoyed it. I loved that I had no idea what was going to happen next. It was unpredictable, but it also fit with the rules of the world we’ve been introduced to. In short, it was perfect.
I already mentioned above that I really enjoyed the artwork, but I just want to mention it again. The artist is exceptionally talented. It seemed like even the happier moments where nothing was really happening had an infusion of foreshadowing in them. That was likely due to the color palette and tone the artist chose, but it was still brilliantly done. The scene with the teeth is highly disturbing, and I think that’s partially because the artist did too good of a job making it look realistic. There’s more to it than that, of course, but I don’t want to give it all away.
I’m seeing other graphic novels by the same artist, but unfortunately I’m not sure how many of them have been translated to English. I hope this one sells well enough to warrant more of them getting translated – I want to read them all.

Watersnakes is about this girl, Mila, that meets Agnes on the lake one day and gets inexplicably obssessed with her teeth. At the same time, she starts having these crazy dreams about some creatures from the sea, the watersnakes, which are somehow connected to her new friend.

Honestly, the art saved this graphic novel for me. It's so pretty and it creates this eerie atmosphere as the story goes on, which I really liked, although I wasn't expecting this book to get so dark. The plot, however, is pretty confusing. It only starts to make some sense in the end and, even then, some things you have got to take at face value. I also didn't really like something that happens in the ending.

Overall, it's a good graphic novel if you like creepy fantasy stories that are beautifully drawn. (Trust me, the art is seriously amazing!)

Enamoured by this book's cover, I picked it up knowing absolutely nothing about it.

The art is absolutely enthralling, it really helped in getting your jive and in progressing throughout the story. The colours are wonderful and vivid as well, although, in a later part, I transferred in a black ink e-reader so I couldn't say much in its totality.

The story is a little bit weird, slow-paced, but it definitely picks up. Focus is a requisite when reading this story because it can definitely get confusing.

The fantasy element of the book is absolutely wonderful. It really inspires the reader into traversing the world and finding mysteries. Basking into an epic adventure and learn secrets of the universe. Moreover, the protagonist — Mila — is extremely relatable. Her curiosity. Her sense of adventure.

Overall, this book is an amazing dark fantasy with a very mood setting atmosphere and stunning illustrations.

My this is one of the most magical graphic novels I’ve read perhaps ever. Watersnakes is a dark fantasy about a lonely girl that meets and falls for a mysterious girl named Agnes. The two share in mischief and it isn’t long before Mila finds out that there is something strange about Agnes. She finds herself embroiled in a battle between the Earth and the sea.

The story starts slow and I had some difficulty getting into the rhythm at first but it is absolutely worth the patience of getting through the first chapter. The creatures in the novel are dark but beautiful at the same time. Mila is a character that I could find relatable, she’s curious and a little bit of a coward but she is a believable character.

To say that this graphic novel is gorgeous is an understatement, the art is incredible and eye catching. Sandoval has created a world that feels like that dreamy place between fantasy and reality. It’s a dark fairy tale that is frightening but intriguing all the same, I could not get enough of how magical the world was. I loved this graphic novel and feel so fortunate that I had the opportunity to get a review copy. The graphic novel is released today and I highly recommend it for lovers of dark fantasy!

This cover and description was very compelling but I think that the story was a bit confusing.

This graphic novel follows Mila, who happens to meet another girl, Agnes. They become close because Mila is intrigued by Agnes' teeth. Which was the first odd point. Mila and Agnes form a friendship and Mila finds out the Agnes is actually a ghost and from here things get even more weird.

Where the story fell a bit flat, the illustration throughout was beautifully done. There was only color when there really needed to be color and the images portrayed the magic of the world really well. I really loved the images and that is why I kept reading.

After the first chapter I was confused, and honestly when I got into chapter 2 I thought that this was a book of short stories versus one full length graphic novel, because things seemed to change - the story wan't there for a few panels and it was confusing.

This one really wasn't for me as far as the story building went but as a book of art, it was gorgeous.

My Review: Upon seeing this cover art, I was getting Viking Valkyrie vibes and really wanted to read it. The artwork throughout this book is absolutely stunning, a soft watercolor look with wispy style, it really added to otherworldly tone of the story. It starts off with a familiar setting, lonely girl discovers a friend, but no-one else can see the friend. Then things really take a turn for the weird and not much makes sense until the end. Even then things are a still left unexplained. I also don't understand the weird obsession with and the roll teeth played in the story. This one really needed to be a multiple volume story to allow for more development. Luckily, the artwork does save the ratings.



My Rating: As much as I wanted to love this one, and I certainly did love the art, it just fell short for me. It was just too abstract of a story to really fit into this short format. I give it a rating of Two Paws.

This graphic novel is hard to describe. A sort of dark and twisted gothic fairytale with a dash of lesbian romance?
I adored the art style! The colors and lines used by the artist perfected the mood.
I did have a few issues though.

At times it jumped to the next scene and then I was confused and thrown off as to what exactly happened.
I wasn't a big fan of the dialogue and I don't know if the author intended to only suggest the lesbian relationship or not. Saying, it could've been done in a better way.
Watersnakes as a whole felt incomplete to me and I longed for more depth and even more detail. I would have loved to explore this as a series.
As stand-alone it felt too short and as if parts were missing.
I'd recommend it for people who like short and dark graphic novels, but beware. You sometimes need to fill in the gaps in between.

This is more a book for looking at, than for reading. An odd tale of a girl, Mila, who meets another girl, Agnes, who seems to be a ghost, who died when she was five, yet, still continues to grow older, and who’s younger brother can hear her, but not see her.

She swallowed an octopus like creature, that apparently killed her.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4678" src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Screen-Shot-2018-10-29-at-9.27.20-AM.png" alt="Watersnakes 1" />

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4679" src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Screen-Shot-2018-10-28-at-10.40.54-PM.png" alt="Watersnake" />

And yet, it still lives inside her.

Agnes is very odd, as I guess one would be as a ghost, and tells tales of her teeth leaving her to fight in wars.

Which is what ends up happening.

The pictures are lovely to look at. There are some bits that don’t make sense in the story, but still, a fairly good ghost story.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

In Agnes, Mila discovers a strange new friend, and an even stranger fascination with another person’s teeth. Free-spirited and mischievous, Agnes draws Mila into animal masks, picnic hunts and creepy stories. Sandoval’s rendering of his young female voices and interactions is really well done and its simplest description, Watersnakes is a friendship story.

It isn’t until we meet Agnes’ younger brother Julien that it is confirmed that something weird and magical is also occurring.

It isn’t just that Julien tells us Agnes is a ghost. There is this black octopus. Dreams, protective circles, cloaks, and crypts. And Agnes’ teeth may have enchanted Mila for a reason other than a tooth-fetish. (I love how Mila asks her dad if he liked teeth and that’s why he was a Dentist.)

Have a look at what hovers above the warriors on the book cover. Yeah, so when Agnes becomes deathly ill and loses all her baby teeth in one night—these are the teeth that moved in. It makes a beautiful sense when you learn more about the octopus and where it’s been living.

I googled for any folklore regarding water snakes. I found a Russian story about a girl who is swimming with other girls, all in their underwear, when a water snake lays on her clothing and makes her promise to marry it before allowing her to retrieve her clothes. Agnes calls Mila a “water snake” when they meet, Mila swimming solo in her underwear in a pond. I don’t know if this is a tale that may have inspired Sandoval’s own fairy-like tale, but it foregrounds ideas of transformation, other realms, and the unsuspecting heroine.

Sandoval’s artwork is stunning. The appeal isn’t only aesthetic, delicate and dark, solid and ethereal, but the composition with a panel and of the panels themselves on a page. The visual story is entrancing—and violent. I may have actually flinched with the loss of that limb; and I was definitely taken by the way it is returned.

I was least taken with that opening voice over. That cinematic opening makes sense by the end of the novel when the text is revisited. It could be a translation-thing, or I’m put out that I had to think so hard about it. My mind kept catching on “conscience” and wondered if “conscious” was what was meant there. And “defragmenting” is so stark in its modern and scientific feel in my mouth. I dunno, but when you read it, I’d love to revisit that set-up. That said, likening their projection to that of a dead of star has appeal.

If you love a beautifully crafted graphic novel, Watersnakes is a must. It suits those of us who love the fairytale that is a bit gruesome, strange, and haunted by a bit of coming-of-age eroticism. And if you like bad-ass female warriors who can draw a substantial amount of blood from a skeletal dog army? Tony Sandoval’s Watersnakes is one to pursue.

Noted: Shaun Tan came to mind as I read Watersnakes, as did Dave McKean, Neil Gaiman, and Guillermo del Toro.

This is my first introduction to Antonio Sandoval and I need MORE. 

Watersnakes could very well fall into the Weird Fiction genre. It’s hard to say much more about it without spoiling anything, but everything in this story is intentionally calibrated to make it as dreamlike, surreal, and mildly unsettling as possible.  

As summer is ending, Mila, the main character, meets Agatha, a zany pale-haired girl with unbearably attractive teeth. Her teeth are important objects in the story, which makes the whole package all the more oneiric. As summer ominously shifts into autumn, Mila falls into a number of nightmareish supernatural events. 

Just let yourself fall into this story like you would into a nap. Take the unusual things the characters say at face value, and feel free to glean your own meanings from there. (I haven’t checked if the author picked specific dream dictionary symbols but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.) 

The art keeps it gothy with a limited color palette of stark blacks and whites and highly desaturated neutrals accented with turquoise skies and shadows, plus the occasional spatter of bright red or dark orange blood. (On that note, there are a handful of gory scenes at the end but I found them easy to stomach and I usually can’t handle that sort of thing.)

Agatha reminded me of the many paled-haired girls in dark gothicy settings such as: The Girl from the Other Side, Moorchild, Kigeki, and The Water Mirror. If you enjoyed any of those, chances are you’ll enjoy this too. 

I would recommend this to: fans of the gothic genre, someone looking for a trippy comic, and people who like dark artwork.

Watersnakes is a beautifully written and a spectacular graphic novel that is filled with magic and mystery. As you turn each page you’ll find that this book is filled with action, captivating words and images that will have you wanting more.

I received this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

"Weird Is The New Normal, Mila."

I've read Sandoval's "Doomboy" and "A Glance Backward", so I had an idea of what I was getting into with this latest offering. That said, this book is creepier, darker, and more melancholy than Sandoval's other books, but it also follows a crisper narrative line and delivers even more than it promises.

As to the story, this may be the first book I've read where the two sentence publisher's blurb is essential reading. Here it is (MAJOR TOTAL SPOILER) -- "Mila is a quiet, solitary teenager ready to put another boring summer vacation behind her until she meets Agnes, an intriguing adventurous girl who turns out to be a ghost. And not just a regular ghost, but one carrying the essence of a fallen king, and a mouth full of teeth that used to be guardian warriors." That's the book. If you don't read those two sentences you will spend a lot of time going in circles around your own navel trying to find the meaning and sense in the narrative. And I only want to ask myself questions like "what does the octopus represent?" so many times before I move on.

So, if we already know the entire story, what's left? Well, everything. The story is always the least interesting part of a Sandoval project, and this is no exception. It's the journey, not the destination, and so on. Actually, I used that old canard for a reason. This book is Sandoval's neatest and tightest journey, and its structure is fascinating. This time I won't spoil anything, but merely say this -- the tale starts slowly as we follow Mila, meet Agnes, toy with girlish sexual attraction, and dance around the repulsion/attraction that binds the two girls.

The story gets creepier and creepier, although nothing explicitly horrible happens. It's all threat and imminence, and the tension keeps winding up even though nothing explicitly bad is happening. Then we have an alarming development, a pause, more alarms, longer pauses, some monologuing to clean up the debris after the metaphorical storm, and then, amazingly, at about the halfway mark, the rest of the book, (the fairy tale magical adventure part), finally starts. Wow.

Lots of bizarro, postmodern, and experimental writers play around with this stuff, and I consume a steady diet of it with gusto. But almost no one can pull that off in a graphic novel. Sure, you have the occasional "Sandman" and the like, but most of the time you get pompous incomprehensibility. And bad penciling and inking. Not so here. Sandoval's gorgeous watercolors are innocent and poisonous. It's all pastels and button noses and awkward girlishness. But underneath that the effect is similar to those old experimental German stop action short films that turned innocent everyday objects, (pins, kitchenware, doll heads, scissors), into fearful animated creatures.

So, how do you fully describe a book that is both whimsical and horrible, gentle and grotesque, playful and deadly serious? I guess you just say - that's Sandoval.

(Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

This is some of the most unique and quietly disturbing art I've ever seen in a graphic novel, and it works SO WELL for Watersnakes. The story starts off with Mila, a young woman who meets another girl and is immediately captivated by her presence, her looks, her... teeth? She begins to form a seemingly unhealthy obsession over the other girl, but meanwhile, strange dreams begin to plague her about a deep underwater cave full of spirits. There's nothing else I can say without spoiling the entire odd little plot, but let me just say that the artwork and story make this one well worth your time if you enjoy strange fantasy/horror crossover work.

The art is gorgeous, but the story hovers somewhere in the realm of a dream that doesn't make any sense. There's some body horror and teeth falling out here, so would not recommend to people for whom those would be issues.

Watersnakes is a love story, a war story and a fairy tale all in one. It is sweet and innocent but also dark and menacing. There’s a rather creepy tone so that even when the two girls are humorously stealing picnic baskets there’s something indefinable underlying everything that gives this story bite. And when the bite comes, it is a killer. The fight scenes are bloody, brutal and heartbreaking. It is Game of Thrones style violence and death and there’s no pulling of punches in this fight!

The artwork is incredibly beautiful. The girls/women are slightly alien looking with their large foreheads, wide set eyes, tiny noses and small pointy chins. They are delicate yet fierce. I was completely absorbed in the story and wanted very much for Agnes and Mila to have a happy ending together and for the octopus to get back to the ocean. Although the story has many bizarre elements and much of the action in the latter half occurs during a dream sequence with effects felt in the real, waking world, I found the story easy to follow and understand. This one is going to haunt me for a long, long time. I sincerely hope that someday I’m part of an adventure that starts with “Take the sacred octopus and follow me.”

Thank you to Diamond Book Distributors and Lion Forge for providing an Electronic Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley for review.

I loved this graphic novel. The art is beautiful and haunting. The story is original and engaging. I'll definitely recommend this one.

Going in, I wasn't sure what to expect. The artwork on the cover seemed very bad-ass, so after reading through the lines of the synopsis, I knew I was in. The book pulls you right in the story, with hints of the past, and a very smooth transition to our main character, Mila, a pale Morticia-like figure of a teenager who is bathing in the sea, who is startled by Agnes, a girl we soon learn to be a ghost - it's no spoiler, it's right there in the synopsis, though for me it was a surprise since I've forgotten about that by the time I actually read the ARC.

It seems to be a normal encounter between two adolescent girls who may be attracted to each other - Mila is strangely attracted to Agnes' teeth for some reason and this is the least strange thing about the pair. Soon enough, it all turns into a creepy adventure none of them asked for. Agnes carries the essence of an ancient king by a childhood accident that resulted in her death. Also, her teeth are actually the former guardians of the king - I know, I told you it gets stranger and stranger.

Positive aspects
the artwork, as I had predicted from the cover
everything has a sort of cool, washed out tone
it is grotesque at times, and weird, in the good kind of way
the character design

Negative aspects
some scenes transition to others with no explanation whatsoever, and all of a sudden
not enough information about the past and who the "bad guys" are
parents are absent: we don't get to see Agnes' parents at all and Mila's are completely unaware and uninvolved
vague information thrown in
the lesbian romance was underdeveloped
the story feels underdeveloped as well

All in all, the graphic novel had a very high potential, but it failed to deliver. I felt really sad to see such an interesting plot idea and such unique art style go to waste.

Watersnakes is a dark and mysterious story about a teenage girl, Mila, who befriends a very strange girl that turns out to be a ghost. This special friend tells weird stories with several supernatural details – but are there only stories? Together these girls will endure several dangerous adventures, overcoming their fears and deepening their friendship.
The way the girls are depicted is both cute and obscure, projecting a foggy and nostalgic presence, specially Agnes, the ghost, even before we know she is a ghost. The cuteness of the teenage girls contrasts with the nightmare monsters. They face them and choose to participate in dangerous adventures (or the adventures choose them), cutting the rope towards the preconceived idea that girls don’t get to be adventurous.
It’s an awesome and melancholic story!

Watersnakes by Tony Sandoval is a Graphic Novel in the Sci-Fi & Fantasy genre. He is both the writer and illustrator. The story begins with an introduction to the 'dead' who can see and feel. My left eyebrow quickly went up in bewilderment. Dead who feel? Ah, no.
Without giving it all away: girl meets girl, girl likes girl, girl licks girl's teeth and then she vomits an octopus. If that doesn't get you to read this, then I am not sure what will.
The illustrations in this graphic novel are fresh and contemporary. The cover, which illustrates the Warrior Teeth, is what initially got my attention. Like every other graphic novel, you occasionally receive full page illustrations throughout the novel. These are beautifully done.
The storyline was awkward and often difficult to follow. As a female who reads graphics novels on a regular basis, I am not sure I would recommend this to young girls or women. The relationship between Mila and Agnes immediately took off, leaving me yearning for more character and relationship development. However, the artwork was brilliant.

I received this graphic novel as an e-ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Beautiful artwork, especially the cover, drew me in. I enjoyed many of the individual panels, and I'll probably flip through it again for specific artistic inspiration where things were done well. I came into "Watersnakes" with every expectation that I'd love it.

My disappointments, though, outweighed the dark, vengeful beauty promised by the cover and the blurb.

Even allowing for the heaviness of the storyline and the surreal dream nature intended for the bulk of the story, at least a third of the panels are overly dark and difficult to visually parse (in Adobe Digital Editions on my iPad). There's also a very limited, repetitive set of comic visualizations throughout that feel like a novice photographer who's only comfortable with a few basic layouts without stretching into possibilities that a more cinematic approach could have made much more powerful.

Art challenges aside, most of my complaints, though, are in the storytelling. I'll be the first to agree that real life dreams don't often make sense, but in a story, randomness is a lame substitution for true surreality. The story elements should all hang together (at least in retrospect). While the major plot elements certainly do, there are too many distractions in the details which are never resolved and connected together in any way. (A few examples: Why skeletal wolves? Why an octopus? Why teeth?) The apparent randomness might appeal to many, but I'm not stoned enough at the moment to give them all a pass.

A fair amount of the writing, especially arbitrary monologue by the opposition and the inexplicably awkward dialog between major characters, feels sophomoric and stiff. Humans, especially less-aged humans, often talk in nonsequitor and incomplete thoughts, and where the author does so, it's good. My problems are with the heavy-handed (even for a graphic novel) "As you know, Bob..." monologue and the too-convenient dialog just for the sake of moving on to the next panel...

As this is my first introduction to the author/artist, I'll definitely give Tony's other works a chance based on the promises that "Watersnakes" made (and sort of delivered on).