Emma Ríos's Anzuelo is a beautiful and surreal story of survival and the sea

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The Pretty Deadly artist writes and draws the new graphic novel

The kids try to stay warm in Anzuelo.
(Image credit: Image Comics)

Pretty Deadly artist and co-creator Emma Ríos is releasing a new solo graphic novel this month. Anzuelo is a vivid fantasy described by Image Comics as "a breathtaking, dystopian story with an expansive scope and style," which follows three kids in a world where the sea suddenly and unexpectedly begins to rise. On her own Instagram, Ríos has described it as, "A book about the sea coded in eco-horror and kindness."

Anzuelo is an absolutely beautiful-looking work, one that really shows off Ríos's stunning watercolour art in full effect. We have an exclusive extract from the book, which you can check out in the gallery below.

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Interior pages from Anzuelo.
(Image credit: Image Comics)

"The Sea, secretly more complex than anyone imagined, rises one day," reads Image's synopsis for the 304-page hardcover. "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."

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Here's an animated trailer by Ríos and animator Luis Yang.

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"No matter how carefully you plan a project like this, the work and the creator always transform and adapt due to learning and experimentation," Ríos said in a statement about Anzuelo. "I wanted to write the Sea under my skin and I'm fortunate to have become someone else in the process."

Anzuelo is published in hardcover by Image Comics and will be available in comic shops on November 6 and from indie bookstores from November 19.

Read our interview with Tula Lotay and Becky Cloonan about their dark and dreamy folk tale, Somna.

Will Salmon
Will Salmon
Streaming Editor

Will Salmon is the Streaming Editor for GamesRadar+. He has been writing about film, TV, comics, and music for more than 15 years, which is quite a long time if you stop and think about it. At Future he launched the scary movie magazine Horrorville, relaunched Comic Heroes, and has written for every issue of SFX magazine for well over a decade. His music writing has appeared in The Quietus, MOJO, Electronic Sound, Clash, and loads of other places too.