Water Baby

2008 graphic novel by Ross Campbell. Water Baby follows a few unusual days in the lives of surfer girls Brody and Louisa. When Brody's surfing days are cut short by a shark making a snack out of her left leg, things could only go uphill, right?

Wrong.

Now not only does she have to get used to the simple concept of walking again with a prosethetic leg that she hates wearing, but her jerk ex-boyfriend Jake has come for an impromptu visit, and she's begun having increasingly freakier shark-related nightmares and hallucinations. When Jake's mooching reaches an all-time high, Brody's patience finally runs out, and so begins a car-trip adventure up to New York...

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Water Baby contains the following tropes:

• Ambiguously Brown: Brody. We see both her parents, and they're both distinctly different, but their specific ethnicities are never brought up.
  • Actually, her last name is Arakawa which is Japanese so thats probably her dad's race. And its a safe bet her mom is African American, so yeah.
• An Arm and a Leg
• Artificial Limbs: Brody's prosthetic leg.
• Bald Women: Brody shaves her head completely after being discharged from the hospital. May also count as Bald of Awesome.
• Bi the Way: Chrissy, towards Louisa.
• Brick Joke: Brody did Jake's dad.
• The Cameo: Outside of Water Baby, in Wet Moon, Campbell's more well-known series. Brody makes a cameo in Volume 3 as one of Fall's friends, Louisa shows up in Volume 5 as a member of the Worm Lizards softball team. Conversely, Natalie gets a verbal cameo here.
• Disabled Means Helpless: Mostly averted. Brody's still pretty capable with just one leg, and frequently insists on getting around with minimal help, even just a few days after she's lost it.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Chrissie does not take being turned down well.
• Everything's Even Worse with Sharks
• Girlish Pigtails: Chrissie's default hairstyle.
• The Goggles Do Nothing: Chrissie again, with her huge Elton John sunglasses.
• Gorn: A lot of the shark-attack nightmares are quite vividly detailed.
• Hollywood Pudgy: Sort of. Brody calls Louisa "fat" a few times in (lighthearted) insult, despite Louisa not being even close (she does have sort of pudgy cheeks). A little odd considering the high BBW quotient in some of Campbell's other work.
• Ladette: Brody definitely qualifies.
• Les Yay: Between Brody and Louisa. Lampshaded at one point by Brody. Ultimately disproven, they're just good friends.
• Love It or Hate It: Most peoples reaction to the story.
• Overdrawn At the Blood Bank: Averted. Brody understandably loses a LOT of blood after her leg's been bitten off, but it's still within realism.
• Really Gets Around: Implied for both Chrissie and Jake.
• Shout-Out: To Wet Moon. Louisa is at one point seen with shorts bought in that series' titular town, and some of the infamous "Cleo Eats It" graffiti is seen in a gas stop restroom. In a nod to Star Trek, Brody cracks "you will be assimilated" soon after getting her prosethetic leg.
• Surfer Girls: Brody and Louisa, though not in the usual way. They are literally just girls who enjoy surfing.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Instances between Brody and Louisa. Their arguments with each other often quickly degenerate into punching and name-calling.