Dreams and Nightmares — ‘1000 Storms’ Reviewed
by Tito W. James
Summary
1000 Storms is a successful spiritual successor to the surreal fantasy world explored in Water Snakes and opens up exciting possibilities for further adventures.
Overall
9/10
Lisa is a lonely girl who enjoys wandering in nature and collecting odd bones and pebbles. The other kids think she’s kinda weird, maybe a witch, and avoid her. When one day she discovers a tree that allows passage to a parallel world, she finds herself in the middle of a demonic invasion plot, faced with saving the very children who ridiculed her.
1000 Storms by Tony Sandoval is a surreal contemporary fable set within the same world as his previous graphic novel, Water Snakes. Fans of the first story can expect more adolescent romance, humor, tragedy, fantasy, and bloodshed.
Sandoval utilizes multiple art styles and levels of detail to evoke multiple layers of emotion. The magic and realism are expertly woven between each other like a musician strumming a guitar. The rhythmic quality to the storytelling is the hardest to quantify and the most endearing; it’s as if we are given the dreamlike serenity of a picture book mixed with the guts and glory of a Grimm’s Fairy Tale.
It’s this balance between dreams and reality which makes Sandoval’s storytelling so unique. Many other fantasy writers would get lost in the “world-building” and other illustrators would opt for a photorealistic style. The characters in 1000 Storms are a purposeful mixture between a textured watercolor painting and a sketchy caricature. The result is a truly unique and unsettling universe.
1000 Storms is available now from Magnetic Press.
