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A review by bbpettry
Deep Roots Vol. 1 by Dan Watters
4.0
The Sentinel awakens in the Otherworld, a reflection of Earth where creatures of myth live. Humanity’s pollution has affected the land and roused him from slumber.
On Earth there is a heist, a violent one, perpetrated by anthropomorphic brussel sprouts. This kind of thing isn’t a surprise to people like Abigail Hester, but just another in a long line of increasingly improbable plant-related events. Hester runs the 000 Department that deals with “inaccessible phenomena.” In 000 facility, all manner violent vegetables are kept and researched. In there among them is anarchist Kaye Soni.
Soni is the last of a crew that attempted to weaponize psychotropics, but was captured when the projectile backfired on her. She’s been in a coma for weeks, lost in consciousness, attempting to “read a history of the world in the trunk of a great oak.” When she wakes up, she has a more direct plan than to shroom the public. She must go to the Otherworld.
Watters fakes the reader out a few times in a way I endlessly appreciate, and tells parallel stories that intertwine and come together like, well, roots.
FOR FANS OF: The Wilds by Vita Ayala, Dune, Paolo Bacigalupi, Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, Pan’s Labyrinth.
ART: Intricate linework and paint textured colors. Seems to aim for and successfully maintains the look of, at the magical parts especially, being painted on the inside of a great tree trunk.
SELL IT: To the Tolkien nut that’s wandered into the comics section.
On Earth there is a heist, a violent one, perpetrated by anthropomorphic brussel sprouts. This kind of thing isn’t a surprise to people like Abigail Hester, but just another in a long line of increasingly improbable plant-related events. Hester runs the 000 Department that deals with “inaccessible phenomena.” In 000 facility, all manner violent vegetables are kept and researched. In there among them is anarchist Kaye Soni.
Soni is the last of a crew that attempted to weaponize psychotropics, but was captured when the projectile backfired on her. She’s been in a coma for weeks, lost in consciousness, attempting to “read a history of the world in the trunk of a great oak.” When she wakes up, she has a more direct plan than to shroom the public. She must go to the Otherworld.
Watters fakes the reader out a few times in a way I endlessly appreciate, and tells parallel stories that intertwine and come together like, well, roots.
FOR FANS OF: The Wilds by Vita Ayala, Dune, Paolo Bacigalupi, Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, Pan’s Labyrinth.
ART: Intricate linework and paint textured colors. Seems to aim for and successfully maintains the look of, at the magical parts especially, being painted on the inside of a great tree trunk.
SELL IT: To the Tolkien nut that’s wandered into the comics section.