Anzuelo

by Emma Ríos, 28

"A sweeping magical-realist coming-of-age story set after the apocalypse." — The New York Times

A gorgeous and brutal story that revolts against the notion of violence as the only response to a life without hope.

The Sea, secretly more complex than anyone imagined, rises one day. The horizon folds as the Sea absorbs the world and transforms everything that's been pulled inside it. Three kids find themselves unmoored and lost, but brought together by the physical and mental changes wrought by the tides and a desire to avoid harming any living creature.

Anzuelo is the new hand-watercolored graphic novel by the Eisner award-winning cartoonist Emma Ríos (Pretty Deadly, Mirror, I.D.), presented in a deluxe hardcover with archival quality 120gsm paper.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fantasy, Graphic Novels Comics, Science Fiction, Comic Book, Young Adult

312 pages, Hardcover

First published November 19, 2024

About the author

Emma Ríos Maneiro is a Spanish cartoonist and illustrator.
Rios was born in Vilagarcía de Arousa, Spain in 1976 and early in her life developed an interest in drawing. She graduated in Architecture from the University of A Coruña.
Ríos worked as an architect for some years, while being active in the Spanish independent comics and fanzine scene. In particular, she self-publishing her comic book APB (A Prueba de Balas) (meaning: 'bulletproof') through the collective Polaqia.
In 2007 Ríos left her job as an architect to become a full-time comic book artist. Since then she has worked for various mainstream American publishers, such as Boom! Studios, Marvel, DC and Image Comics. At Image she co-created the series Mirror with Hwei Lim and Pretty Deadly with writer Kelly Sue DeConnick. The latter comic book earned her an Eisner award for Best cover in 2020.

Reviews

[Ben Donovan]

Entirely unsure how to rate this book bc the watercolors were so beautiful that I read it front to back twice, but even after reading twice, I have no idea who’s who or what happened. Idk I would hang pages of this on my wall in a HEARTBEAT

[Sarah AK · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is BEAUTIFUL. There is no denying that. It has 5-star level art. Breathtaking, ethereal, otherworldly art that makes you keep turning the page. It even has what I think would be a great story... if only any of it made sense! I honestly question whether there were ANY editors involved because I can't believe that so many people could let this slide. Who is talking? Who is this sudden character? Am I supposed to know this person? Who ate who? Why is Nubero old now? Who is this dolphin? Now we're underwater? Are we jumping timelines? Wait, is this page not a continuation of the last page? What in the actual fuck is happening?!!!! MAKE IT MAKE SENSE! I can't believe I even finished this book, because it was so frustratingly confusing and incoherent that I wanted to throw it across the room at least ten times. But it sure was pretty to look at!

[Magrat Ajostiernos · Rating 4 out of 5]

La historia es onírica y única, pero es que el apartado artístico es completamente insuperable. Me tiene obsesionada.

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m leaving a tentative 4 Star on this because I do think Anzuelo is such a beautiful book of weird, graphic fiction. I really so much of the ideas, creative visuals, and the themes being explored here.

But I’m still having a bit of conflicted feeling on just how well it all really comes together. Part of me feels like this book could’ve used at least 50 more pages, but I’m not sure.

Maybe I just wanted a little more explanation into what happens? Not even really on the how, but really on the “what,” especially because, although it’s seriously gorgeous, a drawback of the watercolor style is the occasional lack of clarity in some panels. Maybe I just wanted the story to slow down a bit and spend more time lingering with the characters.

I will say, and I’m sure this will induce some eye rolls, but I would love to see a film or series adaptation of this book that keeps the art style. Seeing the gruesome, yet mesmerizing watercolor world in motion I think would just be really captivating, and could maybe facilitate some of that lingering I’m wanting.

All that to say though, I do think I need to re-read this book to develop a more solid opinion on it because I think the world and the characters Emma Ríos has crafted deserve that. It’s endlessly interesting.

I would definitely recommend this for fans of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach books and the animated series Scavenger’s Reign.

[Amanda K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anzuleo is a beautifully painted post apocalyptic story which centers on radical pacifism. Three kids thrown together by circumstance are changed in the wake of the destruction of the world as they know it. They have to cope with trying to survive, deal with their respective changes and the fact that the constants of life are no longer those they're familiar with.

I love the watercolors in this graphic novel! Stunning no matter what Rios is depicting, but I thought they were best for the numerous aquatic environs and seascapes.

Thanks to Edelweiss and Image for the DRC, all opinions are my own.

[Abdalla · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have always loved the sea. There's something innately mysterious about it that keeps it ebbing in my mind. Even in the stories I consume, I love when the sea is featured prominently, almost as if it were a living, breathing creature. This can be seen in my favourite manga, Children of the Sea by Daisuke Igarashi, a series that, while difficult to understand, explores the mystery of the ocean in a beautiful and evocative manner.

So when I saw the trailer for Emma Ríos' Anzuelo (the trailer is amazing by the way, I’ve never seen promotion for a comic quite like this), a book that looked like it was heavily inspired by Children of the Sea in both its visual style and story content, I knew I had to pick it up. It looked like everything I wanted in a comic for so long. So I preordered the book and waited for it to arrive, rewatching that trailer every so often to renew my excitement. When it finally came, I wasted no time in reading it.

And I didn't like it.

It's difficult for me to understand why I felt this way. So many of my complaints have also been thrown at Children of the Sea. Too abstract, hard to follow, underdeveloped characters, and a lack of resolution are terms used to describe both these series. However, where Anzuelo aimlessly splashes around, hoping its disparate threads will eventually combine to make a satisfying whole, Children of the Sea gracefully dives in, with all of its elements coalescing into a perfect whole. Its lack of resolution was used to enhance a core theme of the story, that we as humans are insignificant when compared to the rest of the world, and we can never truly understand all there is to know about that. Although Anzuelo imitates it well in some respects, it fails to properly understand the process Children of the Sea used to make its enigmatic atmosphere so effective.

The art is beautiful (seriously, check it out), but it is also confusing, with whatever is happening on any given page being somewhat unclear. Some of this is due to the art style, but some of it is due to the stilted sense of flow between panels.

The characters have little connection to each other, with more characters consistently getting introduced throughout all 300 pages, making for a large cast that feels one note.

The pacing is rushed, with random scenarios stitched together without any driving narrative momentum to connect them. It felt like it existed solely as a vehicle to share a bunch of philosophical musings rather than an actual story. While the story starts with a big mystery, it feels like focus is quickly lost and replaced with, well... nothing.

And that's the thing. This book felt like nothing. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that this book made me feel nothing. I don't know if it was a problem with the page count, but it didn't feel like Anzuelo could successfully get across any of the ideas or themes it so desperately wanted to.

Maybe that is my fault. Maybe I walked into this book expecting it to be a different series, hoping for it to become something that it wasn’t. Maybe if I ignore all the similarities with its inspiration, I might be able to enjoy this book more.

But I can't ignore it. I can’t deny how frustrated this book made me in comparison to its inspiration, no matter how subjective my thoughts may be. Does this mean that I’m unfit to review this? Maybe so, but I can’t help feeling like this book wasted its potential. Instead of exploring the same themes in a different way or even doing its own thing, it decided to stay as a pale imitation. For me, this will always be a shadow of something greater.

[Mario Ruz · Rating 2 out of 5]

El arte es de una belleza increible, la historia...la historia es un galimatías que no se entiende ni quién habla ni de qué hablan

[Tabby · Rating 2 out of 5]

BEAUTIFUL book, the art is amazing, but like I kind of had no clue what was happening the whole time and I still only have a foggy idea of what the storyline was

[haispeace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una historia súper conmovedora sobre la amistad y el amor (tanto propio como a los demás y a la naturaleza). Expresa muy bien todos esos sentimientos de soledad, anhelos de pertenencia y esas pequeñas ocasiones en las que nos sentimos que todo va en nuestra contra y que únicamente empeoramos todo con nuestra existencia.

Fue un poco duro leer algunas partes por su gran carga emocional; la historia está súper bien narrada y te obliga a pensar en que a veces estamos tan centrados en nuestra forma de ver las cosas que nos olvidamos que eso simplemente no es más que una percepción del mundo y que no tiene por qué ser la única, ni la más veraz ni la que se corresponda a la verdad o realidad.

Muy bonita historia.

[Drululu · Rating 1 out of 5]

El dibujo es bonito pero cuesta distinguir a los personajes. No me he enterado de nada. A veces no se sabe quién habla, surgen personajes de la nada (quién es el delfín?), no se sabe qué está pasando y he tenido una desconexión total con los personajes y la historia.

[Blue · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t know what to rate this because I’m so confused about what I just read.

Art? Beautiful.
Dialogue? Meaningful. But… on its own or in little spurts. As a whole work I don’t understand what happened.
Plot? ????
Characters and their relationships? Idk how a story can be so confusing but still convey certain characters really well. I’m SO confused.

[Fiore]

Got about halfway through, the art is absolutely stunning and I'd love to have any number of pages decorating my wall. But I have to stop reading since I hardly know what is happening aside from bodies changing in stunning ways and pseudo-cannibalism. Somehow those elements aren't enough to keep my reading!

[Audet Maxime · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the amazing journey of three kids who are thrown together after a tsunami destroys the world. They grapple with what their humanity means in this new world order and what they must do to survive. The gorgeous watercolour art style was a nice choice to match the themes of the sea that shape the story from beginning to end. It is one of the most stunning graphic novels I've ever read.

[Misère Pourpre · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,7/5 pour la BEAUTÉ des illustrations
Mais je crois que j’ai pas compris grand chose lol

[Marilou CHV · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5
J'ai eu un mal de chien à comprendre ce qui se passait, et les dessins n'aident pas par moment. Ils peuvent être beaux, en soit, mais tellement onirique que ça met un peu trop de flou.

[Daria Orlowska · Rating 3 out of 5]

A beautifully illustrated book, but it wasn't always clear what exactly was going on in the illustrations. An interesting premise, but I only understood about half of it.

There were many characters who were introduced but not all of them were named, and some of them looked very similar to each other, which made telling them apart difficult. There were several time skips as well, with some characters aging up and some not at all, which didn't help. There was no narration, the only way the reader could follow the story was through dialog, occasional thoughts, and watery images. This made understanding the character's motives somewhat difficult, and reading it felt like a wave had tousled my around and I was left on the shore confused at that had happened.

Here is my best attempt at summarizing the plot:
The story follows three main characters, Izzy (the huntress cormorant), Nubero (the wind), and Lucio (the merman), children who are washed up on an island that they cannot leave and who gain special powers with their arrival. It is unclear exactly why they were washed up-- we see later that the world has ended, but we never exactly find out how. The children decide they will not kill anything to survive, and struggle with starvation and depression during their time on the island. Izzy becomes their "savior", because she hunts fish in her cormorant form and then when she sheds her bird body, they eat that as well. More children arrive on the island, a whole slew of characters including Amil, but not all of them receive names or special powers, it seems. There is some exposition about the "coral kid" who doesn't want to exist anymore and becomes the coral that eats the bodies of the children who have died. There is also a side story about Lucio suddenly not wanting to live after a beached whale appears? The whale gives off a dark web that seems to infect Lucio-- Izzy separates this dark web off of Lucio, and separates his two halves from each other, which results in Lucio jumping off a cliff. This triggers Izzy changing into her bird form and leaving the group for 30 years, leading the children to starve. Eventually we find out that no one dies(?), and Lucio is living in a bubble under the sea with other children creatures, including the coral kid, but it is unclear why this is and how people get there. A desire to die, maybe? Nubero is sailing the seas trying to find Lucio, and is able to reunite with him, but it is still unclear to me exactly what happens at the end.

2.5 stars, rounded up to 3 for the art.

[antang · Rating 3 out of 5]

tl;dr some ppl create graphic novels to flex their graphics but forget the novel part

——————
this book is absolutely gorgeous like watercolor fill and i can feel someones soul and some sort of theme and message in the colors, but thats it. something something grief, something something humans dont cherish life etc. like but what is going on. no editor….

[Nereis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gorgeous but I did not understand shit

[Nevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A perplexing book. Ríos' watercolor art is beautiful and evocative. The hardback edition feels luxurious to the touch. The story is dreamlike. On the other hand, it's really hard to follow. It's not always clear whether a swirl of watercolor is a flourish or an important event. The story sometimes jumps unexpectedly in time or skips over important events. I frequently didn't understand what had happened until characters talked about it later. Other times they never talk about something so I don't understand it, or they talk about something to fill in a gap that hadn't been covered back when it happened, etc. Also the small cursive writing is hard to read, characters aren't always clearly identifiable, and word balloons may not point clearly to the speaker.
But... it's interesting and dreamlike. Even when I was most annoyed by the book, I felt like there was an interesting story hidden in there. If I had to be stuck on a deserted island for a month with only this book, I suspect that I'd find a lot of depth in there after multiple reads. I'm equal parts frustrated, intrigued, and mesmerized.

[Lamadia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was unexpected, touching, gorgeous, and emotional. While the watercolor artwork was amazing, it also made it difficult to always tell what was going on. I'm one of those old fashioned comics readers who want my storytelling panels to be done in an easy to read style and save the artier parts for splash pages. I need to reread because I'm still confused about a lot. Still, it was beautiful.

[reallee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Très très très onirique mais très très beau. Ça mériterait une deuxième lecture pour pouvoir saisir toutes les subtilités du récit mais j'ai beaucoup aimé !!

[Ana Cuco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cada página es una obra de arte, es una historia onírica para dejarse llevar.

[Sergio Olivares · Rating 4 out of 5]

As confusing as is deeply beautiful.

[Snowdrop · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magique, onirique, poétique.

Je pense que j’ai été énormément réceptive à cette BD de par mon fort attachement aux Enfants de la Mer de Daisuke Igarashi dont Emma Rios s’est clairement inspiré pour cette œuvre

Dans ce bijou, on suit trois enfants qui se retrouvent dans un monde complètement changé à la suite d’un tsunami. Un monde sans adultes, sans technologie, sans nourriture, sans habitations, plus rien ne reste du monde tel que nous le connaissons. Ils doivent alors réapprendre à vivre tout en dépendant de la mer et ses aléas

Ils en viennent alors à questionner leur humanité, leurs valeurs, leurs fondements et leur liberté. Il y a tant d’émotions transmises au travers des pages, avec ces superbes aquarelles ♡

Vraiment un coup de cœur pour cette BD, j’ai savouré chaque page, chaque évolution de personnage mais aussi cet amour qu’ils se portent entre eux.

[Daniel Ros Montes · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5.

Me encanta el arte (solo hay que ver la portada), pero me parece tremendamente confuso en cuanto a la narrativa. Se confunden personajes, situaciones...y otras cosas que afectan a la historia. Al guión le pasa un poco lo mismo, es muy confuso, demasiado onírico.

[Román Sanz Mouta · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://elyunquedehefesto.com/anzuelo...

¿Cómo empezar a hablar de esta maravilla que mis ojos todavía asimilan, que mis sentidos descifran poco a poco? La comunión entre historia y dibujo es simplemente sensacional. Además, contiene una crítica social, una defensa a ultranza de la vida y la naturaleza, una oda a la mar, madre, pasado y futuro; purificadora. Los personajes son piezas en manos de las olas y los deseos de esa marea que anega a la humanidad para curarla de la infección de sí misma. Todo con una belleza desgarradora, sumada a la sensibilidad que nos introduce en el argumento, en esas existencias mutadas que evolucionan como pueden y saben, con defectos de antaño, con aprendizaje. A la no deriva.

No se aplican los códigos habituales a esta novela gráfica, y pienso que la sinopsis cuenta cuanto debe contar, porque el desbrozo, la pesca entre sus secretos, te pertenece solo a ti, lectora, lector. Baste decir que la mar lo ha tomado todo, por la fuerza que llevaba tiempo avisando, y permitiendo unos pocos y pocas supervivientes escogidos. La misma mar decidió ejercer al fin su papel como esa madre comentada, que reprende, que castiga, que enseña por las malas y con una dulzura soberbia. Esa mar entra dentro de los personajes, que no infecta, los cambia, los dota en regalo de las profundidades y recovecos de los que ahora mismo carece la humanidad, acomodada, cruel, simplista, adoctrinada, con culto al dinero y al poder, sin piedad para los menos favorecidos o simplemente inferiores al yo. Una cultura de extinción. Pues la extinción llega, sin categorizaciones, ya que nos exculpa a su vez.

La frase “Una historia colosal que reivindica la no violencia como respuesta a una vida sin esperanza” es mejor definición que cualquiera de mis parcas palabras.

Pero contaré un poco más acerca de sensaciones. Lo primero, como me impulsé atraído por la obra en confluencia de factores, inicialmente a modo visual, imposible que no cautiven tu atención premisa y arte. Después, por la artista, desconocida para mí (ya no más), pero vecina en nuestra común y querida Ría de Arousa natal (Vilanova), tan ligada a sus orillas, a sus devaneos, al capricho de la marea, sus frutos y sus inclemencias. Eso fue más que suficiente, pero si ya lees referencias, premios allende el océano, nunca mejor dicho, y alabanzas de grandes referentes de la literatura gráfica, te decides, ya decidido o decidida.

Volvamos al volumen en sí. La acuarela. Esos rasgos, trazos, pinceles, colores, enamoran y se temen. Cada viñeta te introduce en ella. Puedes perderte en algunas de sus páginas sin adivinar nunca todos los detalles o inventando nuevos que resultan válidos, tal supone el nivel. Los personajes, que se comunican por sus rostros, en sufrir, en disfrutar, en adaptarse, en las transformaciones, para comprender su nuevo entorno, dependiente de la mar, sin dejar atrás del todo sus virtudes y defectos más humanos. Ya no existen ciudades, civilizaciones, empleos, gobiernos. Solo mar, supervivientes (redivivos) y criaturas que emergen para contemplarnos o ser contempladas de la mano de Emma Ríos, talento puro, destacado, desatado, impecable.

Parezca que recorro vueltas alrededor de nada, pero te hago un favor por medio de empatía. Poesía visual, arte narrativo. La mar, el niño y niña que fuimos y deberíamos volver a ser. El apocalipsis en cambio total. Otredad y sentimientos. Todo ello aquí, en Anzuelo, editado con el máximo cuidado por Astiberri.

Se aleja de toda moda, de lo conocido, en formas y fondo, y esa es otra parte de su inmenso mérito. Te seducirá, te secuestrará. Echa un ojo avizor, dale una oportunidad. Emma Ríos, enhorabuena, y gracias por compartir esta obra.

Pd: continúo sobrecogido…

[Cody Wilson]

Anzuelo is Emma Rios's masterpiece. Fully watercolored, the artwork is beautiful. Rios perfectly captures moods with her evocative pallettes. When artists paint or watercolor interior art, they often tend to simplify their pages to minimize the already heavy time burden, as compared to pen and ink rendering. But Rios doesn't skimp on storytelling with pages frequently containing over ten panels. Depictions of nature are core to this story and Rios effectively uses insert panels to highlight aspects of the setting while the plot otherwise continues to unfold.

Rios also writes the story herself, instead of working with her usual writing collaborator, Kelly Sue DeConnick. Rios's writing style is abstract and philosophical, suiting a thematically deep and complex story about survival and the morality of violence. The story is altogether unique and unpredictable, especially in its the second half. Rios doesn't pull punches and some scenes are genuinely disturbing.

Rios uses disorientation as a storytelling device, although there are a few places that the story could have used more clarity. I suspect this confusion may come from translating the story from Spanish to English, but it's also often difficult to tell which character is saying a speech balloon. I get the impression Anzuelo could have benefitted from a dedicated letterer or at least sharper editing. By the story's end, I was ultimately able to piece together all that was happening, but I also reread many passages.

One look inside Anzuelo should be enough to convince you to pick up the book. This may be the best looking graphic novel to hit comic stands since Barry Windsor-Smith's Monsters. This is a comic to savor with its rich, contemplative storytelling. I hope Anzuelo receives the attention it deserves because Rios clearly put a lot of work into it.

[Rick Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three children scrap for themselves amidst a desolate world, destroyed by a recent apocalypse. Anzuelo serves as a coming-of-age story where three kids - Izma, Lucio and Nubero - are connected by chance and must figure out how to survive in this new world. Rendered in an appealing set of muted water colors and abstract designs, Emma Ríos constructs an equal parts bleak and quaint setting for the story. In the absence of captions, the story is told primarily through the images and the select lines of dialogue, making for some naturalistic storytelling.

Unfortunately, the story itself is fairly challenging to follow as many of the lines of dialogue seem to float in the panel space with no ascribed owner. It thus makes it difficult to interrogate which character is speaking, and ultimately cause the three leads to sort of blend together. Additionally, Ríos injects a hefty dose of magical realism that at times feels out of place, and lacking proper explanation, creates a frustrating sheen of obscurity towards what is actually going on.

It's a fine graphic novel, primarily driven by the gorgeous artwork and melancholic tone, but the story itself is remarkably forgettable.

[Alex Sarll]

Everything I've read by Emma Rios has had a dreamlike feel, but this time it's very much an anxiety dream, opening with one of the leads envying a worm, even as it's impaled on a hook: "At least worms don't hate themselves. That's for us alone." Nor does the mood improve much as the seas rise and a few young survivors find themselves starting over without grown-ups in an altered world. Initially, Anzuelo spends a lot of time on the inconveniences that survivalist fantasies tend to overlook, the difficulties and unpleasantness of staying warm and fed once civilisation goes away. But even once the strange transmogrifications begin, offering solutions to the practical problems, they only seem to offer new reasons for people to beat themselves up and fall out with their fellows. It looks absolutely beautiful, watercolour seas and skies woven through with a Freudian vision of boundaries breaking down and forms in constant flux. But the more harmonious existence this remaking seems to promise always remains just out of reach, and between hand-lettering that took a few too many pains to read, and the endless angst of it all, on the whole I found Anzuelo an alienating experience.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

4 stars for the stunning organic art
It starts with Nubero, jealous of the worms.
Then there is a massive (Earth-wide as it turns out) tsunami, a great wave, that destroys human civilization, everywhere.
Nubero is found by Izma and Lucio on the barren shore.
All three have been transformed - Nubero can disappear/disintegrate and reform, Izma can turn into a cormorant, a hunter, whilst Lucio grows gills so that he can live in the sea and on land.
Massive creatures stalk the Earth, named 'Criers', enigmatically interacting with the last human stragglers, even bringing more survivors to join the first three...
To be honest I could write more about what happens in this book, but it's beautiful seaborne nebulousness would run between my descriptive fingers like the sand on the moving shoreline of this ecologically minded tome, which will take time to soak into my consciousness, where it will be absorbed, but move around like a tide that will remain at times like a tidal pool, but will evaporate in the heat of the watercolour-wash sun and generate shifting reflections from the sea-washed foam...
Bizarre and at times infuriatingly obtuse I am glad I had a chance to read it.