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Deep Roots #1-5
Deep Roots
Roots, once suffocating under cement, tear through the streets of London to throttle buildings. Vegetable homunculi hold up banks with automatic weapons. There is a green and blooming world beyond our own, fighting back against the human pollutant. We will launch a rescue mission to this Otherworld. But it is cruel and unknowable, and should we become tangled in its vines, more than cities will fall. From Dan Watters (Limbo, The Shadow, Assassin’s Creed) and Val Rodrigues comes a story of two worlds, of myth and man, of science and fiction, and the roots they share.
144 pages, Paperback
Published February 12, 2019
6 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
About the author
Dan Watters
419 books142 followersDan Watters is a UK based comic book writer. His first book, LIMBO, was released through Image Comics in 2016. He has since written THE SHADOW at Dynamite Comics, and ASSASSIN’S CREED and WOLFENSTEIN for Titan Comics.
Currently he is writing the relaunch of LUCIFER for Vertigo’s Sandman Universe, as well as DEEP ROOTS for Vault Comics. Deeply rooted in London Town, and firmly of the Devil's party.
Currently he is writing the relaunch of LUCIFER for Vertigo’s Sandman Universe, as well as DEEP ROOTS for Vault Comics. Deeply rooted in London Town, and firmly of the Devil's party.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
March 31, 2019
This has a cool Vertigo feeling to it. Plants are fed up with us and have started to fight back. Just not in a dumb The Happening kind of way. There's some really cool elements here, especially the scene at the bank with vegetable homunculi murdering people. The art is fantastic. Where the book falls apart some is the storytelling is very obtuse. It's not always clear how the scenes fit together or what exactly is happening. Still there's a lot of unrealized potential here.
Received a review copy from Vault Comics and NetGalley. All thoughts are my own and in no way influenced by the aforementioned.
Received a review copy from Vault Comics and NetGalley. All thoughts are my own and in no way influenced by the aforementioned.
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March 28, 2019You know that sense, in the heart of woodland, that you're at once in the most natural of spaces, and somewhere on the brink of the supernatural? This powerfully creepy horror-fantasy sees that super/natural world revolting against humanity, our separation from and our pollution of the whole. It's not the newest idea – Aldiss' Hothouse made a future from Marvell's "Annihilating all that’s made to a green thought in a green shade", and in comics this has been a recurring plot in Swamp Thing (a character referenced in one of the alternate covers here). But visually, it's seldom been quite so convincingly...vegetal. From the first, blackly comic manifestations (a bank robbed by killer sprouts) to crumbling buildings and parks devouring picnickers and a breakdown in the very borders of the human, this captures and then amplifies the hum of a certain sort of oppressive English summer day, that haze of sap running through everything. In particular, Val Rodrigues and Triona Farrell make their otherworld look at once like a van Gogh homage, and as if everything there has the grain of heartwood running through it; it's the closest I've ever seen on the page to how the world looked on my one experiment with hallucinogens, when for a little while I knew I could very nearly read trees. Dan Watters' script has tricks familiar from his sometime collaborator Si Spurrier, in particular the way that you can't trust the narratorial voice as far as a ventriloquist could throw it, and the foul-mouthed agency director at the heart of the crisis would be right at home in a Warren Ellis comic (indeed, the whole project has definite family resemblances to Injection). But for all those points of comparison, this feels at once new and fresh, and old in the sense of being primal. Very, very impressive. Not least in having such a strong environmental agenda, but never once feeling awkwardly polemical. Maybe if we're lucky, this apocalypse really will replace the scheduled one.
(Netgalley ARC)
(Netgalley ARC)
February 4, 2019
I have a little bit of a problem on how to start with the review. I usually do not like comic books that are filled with criticism on any kind of topic (abortions, pollution, climate change, gays, blah blah other things), it starts to bore me very quickly and then I get a huge aversion to similar things. This was exactly the criticism on how people destroy our planet but you could barely feel it. So, what happened? Flora finally said "not anymore this shit" and people are attacked. Believe me, you want to see how the vegetable creatures kill employees of the bank. Fungi absorb countries, humanoid plants are killing people in London. The secret organization 000 covering the whole situation up... a lot is happening.
What's important to say is that the story is set in modern times, modern city, just imagine the present time; then there is some kind of fantasy world filled with amazing creatures. Different characters, a different time in the story, different places. I think this story is not a one-time read, you definitely need to read it one or two more times because it's a mishmash, hard to read and understand what's exactly going on at first, but not in a bad way. A complex, interesting narrative with stunning artwork. I didn't think I would give 5 stars to anything Dan Watters wrote after I have read Limbo.
What's important to say is that the story is set in modern times, modern city, just imagine the present time; then there is some kind of fantasy world filled with amazing creatures. Different characters, a different time in the story, different places. I think this story is not a one-time read, you definitely need to read it one or two more times because it's a mishmash, hard to read and understand what's exactly going on at first, but not in a bad way. A complex, interesting narrative with stunning artwork. I didn't think I would give 5 stars to anything Dan Watters wrote after I have read Limbo.
April 7, 2022
I can't believe I wasted as much time on this as I did. When I first realized I wasn't enjoying this I should have DNFed it. Characters that had no background or meaning and the story was all over the place literally. I get it that it was a moral story about the environment, but it could have been told much better.
February 7, 2019
Wow! This was something! Original, weird story, mixed of two illustrations style and an unique world. This is a great discovery and I’m really glad to pick this one up. If you like strange and original comic book you should definitely try this one!!
September 7, 2024
While reading “Deep Roots,” I alternated between thinking “That’s cool art” and “What the heck is even happening?” I think that’s a fairly accurate review of the book as a whole: really interesting art but a flawed narrative.
The art reminds me of a lot of the old school Vertigo stuff (I just recently read Moore’s “Swamp Thing” run and I’m currently reading “Lucifer”). But despite the eye-catching art, I didn’t know what the heck was going on for most of the book. There’s something about there being a parallel world of plants that are sick and tired of us humans destroying the planet, so now they’ve come for revenge and a takeover. I’m not really sure how the characters fit into that plot.
I did appreciate some of the dark humor. Early on there is an audience misdirect that made me chuckle a bit (wait, he’s not the main character?!). Some of the sentient vegetables only repeat the words that parents say to their children at the dinner table re: their veggies: “Just one pea, Timmy. One pea. Just try it!” At another point we see world leaders mentally enslaved to their houseplants.
There was potential here for a 5-star book, but something was just lacking in the plot and characterization for me.
The art reminds me of a lot of the old school Vertigo stuff (I just recently read Moore’s “Swamp Thing” run and I’m currently reading “Lucifer”). But despite the eye-catching art, I didn’t know what the heck was going on for most of the book. There’s something about there being a parallel world of plants that are sick and tired of us humans destroying the planet, so now they’ve come for revenge and a takeover. I’m not really sure how the characters fit into that plot.
I did appreciate some of the dark humor. Early on there is an audience misdirect that made me chuckle a bit (wait, he’s not the main character?!). Some of the sentient vegetables only repeat the words that parents say to their children at the dinner table re: their veggies: “Just one pea, Timmy. One pea. Just try it!” At another point we see world leaders mentally enslaved to their houseplants.
There was potential here for a 5-star book, but something was just lacking in the plot and characterization for me.
March 9, 2019
After the ecological collapse, Planet Earth teaches humans a lesson. Homicidal vegetable homunculi gun down people across the globe. The Otherworld knows no mercy and it seems humanity's only chance is a clandestine organization and its "champion".
The book depicts two worlds and their intersection. We see both man’s world and an ancient vegetative world beneath. I'm impressed with this volume - it gets everything right. Pacing, world-building, characters, and art delighted me. The artwork of Val Rodrigues paired with Triona Farrell's colors do the job of presenting otherworldly landscapes and creatures convincingly and with style.
The only flaw I can see is the unfocused narrative, especially in the beginning, but don't let it stop you. Deep Roots is a thrilling eco sci-fi thriller.
The book depicts two worlds and their intersection. We see both man’s world and an ancient vegetative world beneath. I'm impressed with this volume - it gets everything right. Pacing, world-building, characters, and art delighted me. The artwork of Val Rodrigues paired with Triona Farrell's colors do the job of presenting otherworldly landscapes and creatures convincingly and with style.
The only flaw I can see is the unfocused narrative, especially in the beginning, but don't let it stop you. Deep Roots is a thrilling eco sci-fi thriller.
February 21, 2019
Mixing two styles of art, two worlds and lots of characters plus a bit of criticism, we have a amazing graphic novel called Deep Roots by Dan Watters and Val Rodrigues.
Earth and man, and myth. Two worlds linked, two worlds being destroyed. Fauna is attacking back, the God Pan is dead.
I really enjoyed the volume 1 of this graphic novel a lot, the art, the colors, the way they told the story. Ot was marvelous.
Earth and man, and myth. Two worlds linked, two worlds being destroyed. Fauna is attacking back, the God Pan is dead.
I really enjoyed the volume 1 of this graphic novel a lot, the art, the colors, the way they told the story. Ot was marvelous.
April 20, 2019
Deep Roots is a lot like Swamp Thing but with unnatural prose that tries too hard to be something it isn’t. This version of Swamp Thing is called The Sentinel and he wakes from his slumber to muse about tree rings. To distinguish itself from Swamp Thing, the story features some scary bank robbing vegetables and a snooty lady who works for yet another secret X-Files type agency. There's also a plant-based underground called the Otherworld, which seems a lot like Swamp Thing's "the Green." In the Otherworld, there lives a beast that has become a tree, or maybe it’s a tree that has become a beast, sort of like Swamp Thing's Parliament of Trees. The Otherworld is getting even with us for ruining the planet, which has also been an occasional a Swamp Thing theme and a fairly standard plot of “plants take over the world” stories. The story becomes a bit tedious but the art is middling good.
The plants take over the minds of termites who learn to eat through concrete and collapse buildings. I'll bit you didn't know termites could eat concrete. It just takes a bit of coaching. The plants are also babysnatchers who somehow use the babies as a conduit between this world and the Otherworld. The secret agency lady has a thing called a whispersuit that, notwithstanding its name, does not empower the wearer to whisper. The snooty lady gets in trouble for saving a life using the whispersuit but her heart was in the right place. This same lady once visited the Otherworld wearing the hide of a bull and eventually she will go back, once a tree branch starts growing out of her head. Oh, and there’s a little green guy who used to be a Brussels sprout. Does this story make any sense at all? Not in the slightest, but I kind of like the resolution, if only for its bleakness.
Search out Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing during the 1980s if you’re interested in seeing how humanized plant monsters can be done brilliantly. Deep Roots has pretensions of depth but I think the story could have been called Shallow Roots. Still, it generated enough interest to earn an indifferent 3 stars.
The plants take over the minds of termites who learn to eat through concrete and collapse buildings. I'll bit you didn't know termites could eat concrete. It just takes a bit of coaching. The plants are also babysnatchers who somehow use the babies as a conduit between this world and the Otherworld. The secret agency lady has a thing called a whispersuit that, notwithstanding its name, does not empower the wearer to whisper. The snooty lady gets in trouble for saving a life using the whispersuit but her heart was in the right place. This same lady once visited the Otherworld wearing the hide of a bull and eventually she will go back, once a tree branch starts growing out of her head. Oh, and there’s a little green guy who used to be a Brussels sprout. Does this story make any sense at all? Not in the slightest, but I kind of like the resolution, if only for its bleakness.
Search out Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing during the 1980s if you’re interested in seeing how humanized plant monsters can be done brilliantly. Deep Roots has pretensions of depth but I think the story could have been called Shallow Roots. Still, it generated enough interest to earn an indifferent 3 stars.
February 17, 2019
'Deep Roots' by Dan Watters with art by Val Rodrigues is a weird graphic novel about plants that decide to fight back.
Plants and roots have had enough and they've decided to overthrow humans. Humans, of course, decide to fight back. As buildings become choked with roots and fall, and humanoid plant beings invade, a mission is taken to try to understand what is happening and to take the battle to the plants. Along the way, they meet an ancient warrior, and a man caught in the plant's world for over a century.
This book was weird and cool. There are two art styles prevailing and I love the "plant world" art with it tree ring lines informing everything. It doesn't all make complete sense, but it had me turning pages and reveling in the strangeness of it all.
I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Vault Comics, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.
Plants and roots have had enough and they've decided to overthrow humans. Humans, of course, decide to fight back. As buildings become choked with roots and fall, and humanoid plant beings invade, a mission is taken to try to understand what is happening and to take the battle to the plants. Along the way, they meet an ancient warrior, and a man caught in the plant's world for over a century.
This book was weird and cool. There are two art styles prevailing and I love the "plant world" art with it tree ring lines informing everything. It doesn't all make complete sense, but it had me turning pages and reveling in the strangeness of it all.
I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Vault Comics, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.
March 24, 2019
Early discussion of us humans not realising that our myths come from an actual place, and not our imagination? Check. Plot that takes Swamp Thing and hugely runs with it? Check. Yes, Gaiman's and Moore's influences are all over these pages. Shame then that ultimately they're just a little too weird for my taste. It's one of those comics that pride themselves in being wilfully awkward to read.
March 11, 2019
Though there are some cool ideas present I generally was pretty bored because they characters were flat and the art was awful.
February 17, 2019
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.
November 30, 2021
Only two stars but a very interesting read.
Good concept and fantastic artwork. Love the nods to Munch and Van Gogh in the swirly backgrounds.
Most of the text and dialogue is also great. The flaw is that it's trying hard to do a LOT and it's too much. The pace is too fast, the shifts are too swift and there wasn't enough time to feel invested. But there were several characters I enjoyed and there are brave twists in their destruction.
It missed the mark quite widely for me but this is a very promising team who I will look out for in the future. I would even go as far as to recommend it despite the low rating.
I was gifted this by the excellent comic shop: https://www.closeencounters.co.uk
Good concept and fantastic artwork. Love the nods to Munch and Van Gogh in the swirly backgrounds.
Most of the text and dialogue is also great. The flaw is that it's trying hard to do a LOT and it's too much. The pace is too fast, the shifts are too swift and there wasn't enough time to feel invested. But there were several characters I enjoyed and there are brave twists in their destruction.
It missed the mark quite widely for me but this is a very promising team who I will look out for in the future. I would even go as far as to recommend it despite the low rating.
I was gifted this by the excellent comic shop: https://www.closeencounters.co.uk
March 25, 2019
Red Herrings from Hell. I love the way this story is written.
Though it was a tad hard to follow.
The whole environmental aspect was very inventive! And the art was perfectly dark and horrifying.
Eat your vegetables, Kevin.
Thanks to NetGalley, Diamond Comics, and Vault Comics for a copy in return for an honest review.
Though it was a tad hard to follow.
The whole environmental aspect was very inventive! And the art was perfectly dark and horrifying.
Eat your vegetables, Kevin.
Thanks to NetGalley, Diamond Comics, and Vault Comics for a copy in return for an honest review.
November 11, 2019
Thanks NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Whoa! This story is as beautiful and complex as it’s artwork! Simply magnificent, I truly enjoyed this! The plants take the earth back and all the tech in the world pales in comparison to the marvelous Mother Earth! Damn good read!
August 5, 2021
Weird. I think that while the acting, sound effects, etc... were great. I had a hard time following the story without the pictures. Almost wish I could see the panels while they read it to me. Oh well. I don't think I'll be listening to more of this, though the ending makes me curious. If you like different stuff, then this might be for you.
August 5, 2021
Solo por este Audiolibro creo que comprare algunas adaptaciones mas para escuchar mientras trabajo, pero la obra en general es buena y la forma en que te puedes meter en el drama es increíble, recomendable.
March 6, 2024
This mini series was full of fun ideas and imagery, but it was too ambitious for five issues. I too lament the days of Vertigo, but trying to force what used to be a twenty plus issue series into a single trade just doesn’t work.
July 30, 2020
Great art, weird story. Had some cool elements tying religion to trees and the earth and such. Kind of like Annihilation meets The Last of Us in a way.
October 7, 2020
muitas ideias incríveis em uma narrativa truncada. já beira o romance filosófico, como as outras obras do Watters. as cores salvam o quadrinho demais.
October 6, 2021
The Happening meets Pan’s Labyrinth. Good follow up to reading Greta Thunberg’s speeches.
**Big fan of the sentient pea**
**Big fan of the sentient pea**
November 12, 2022
Man VS Nature horror
This is basically a weird horror version of Fern Gully. Nice art and pretty prose but made deliberately obtuse out of fancy.
This is basically a weird horror version of Fern Gully. Nice art and pretty prose but made deliberately obtuse out of fancy.
June 5, 2024
Really enjoyed the art that was a combo of comic art and Van Gogh style.
May 17, 2019
Disclaimer: I received a free ecopy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Sentient plants? Sign me up. I think the idea of a world where plants have become sentient and lash out at humans for the damage they are doing to the Earth is kind of cool, if a bit heavy handed. The art is fantastic. There are some wonderful scenes that made me stop to just take them in. It also has some moments where I just couldn't tell what was supposed to be happening.
The plot doesn't hold up real well though. There are a group of scientists investigating what is happening with the plants. None of the characters stood out to me, so the story just plodded along. The story gets caught in the labyrinthine environment as much as the characters that head into it. Not a bad book by any means, but the elements that didn't work for me held me back from enjoying the rest of it too much.
Sentient plants? Sign me up. I think the idea of a world where plants have become sentient and lash out at humans for the damage they are doing to the Earth is kind of cool, if a bit heavy handed. The art is fantastic. There are some wonderful scenes that made me stop to just take them in. It also has some moments where I just couldn't tell what was supposed to be happening.
The plot doesn't hold up real well though. There are a group of scientists investigating what is happening with the plants. None of the characters stood out to me, so the story just plodded along. The story gets caught in the labyrinthine environment as much as the characters that head into it. Not a bad book by any means, but the elements that didn't work for me held me back from enjoying the rest of it too much.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews