Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Ojo (En Espanol): Ojo (En Espanol)

3.77 of 5 stars 3.77 · rating details · 142 ratings · 15 reviews

Annie has terrible luck with pets. She's killed hamsters and mice and lizards and birds. For a domesticated animal, getting Annie as an owner is akin to a death sentence. But when Annie finds a little beastie in a drain pipe named Ojo, has her karma really changed or is she destined for more disappointment?

Paperback, 128 pages

Published December 25th 2006 by Public Square Books (first published 2005)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list »

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 219)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Aug 28, 2011 Dan Schwent rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

Annie was living with her grandpa and sister after the death of her mom when she found Ojo, a strange little tentacled creature and made it her pet. Since Ojo only drew nourishment from its mother, Annie begins feeding the mother roadkill and things. Or is Ojo just a way of coping with her mother's death...

Ojo has a lot of similarities with the Maxx. While there are monsters, it's really a story about coping with loss. Annie and her sister both refuse to talk about their mother's death. Ojo, whi...more

like 11 likes · see review

Oct 17, 2009 new_user rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to new_user by: Kathryn

Shelves: graphic-novel

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. So I read this, Four Women, and Zero Girl. Out of the three, Ojo most appeals to someone like me looking for more meaning than comic book. It's the most realistic and the least "colorful," literally and figuratively. I don't mean to say that there's no life to this book, but it's more subtle.

To all appearances, Annie is about a girl who can't keep pets, but Annie's relationships with her pets, especially the most fantastical of the set, is an extended analogy to her relationship with her dead m...more So I read this, Four Women, and Zero Girl. Out of the three, Ojo most appeals to someone like me looking for more meaning than comic book. It's the most realistic and the least "colorful," literally and figuratively. I don't mean to say that there's no life to this book, but it's more subtle.

To all appearances, Annie is about a girl who can't keep pets, but Annie's relationships with her pets, especially the most fantastical of the set, is an extended analogy to her relationship with her dead mother. At every turn, when Annie is told to let go of her pet Ojo, she refuses, "He needs me," or rather, she needs her mother. She is as unwilling to part with her mother, taken from her in a tragic car accident, as she is the little monster.

As Annie goes on, she learns to "mother" her bizarre friend, and we learn about Annie's view of her mother's death. "Feeding mom makes the baby one better." As long as mum is doing well, baby is too. Eventually, Annie comes to an understanding with her mother's death, but the journey there is interesting, especially Annie's relationship with her older, fourteen-year-old sister, who views Annie's childish coping fantasies of their mother incarnated into a drainpipe monster as disrespectful to their mother's memory. As their mother's death remains unspoken in their home, it is not unreasonable that Annie would fashion her mother into a monster hidden yet ever looming in their lives, but her sister responds by torturing Annie in typical adolescent fashion, which, while understandable for a pubescent girl in pain, is quite cruel to Annie. That's painful to read, and it is the most visibly realistic element of the book, enough to make the reader wonder whether Kieth has had some personal experience with this. Ojo is not the only of his works to handle a mother's death, and he does mention in interviews that he grew up with "dominant women." He wouldn't be the first comic book artist to blame his insecurities on women, but in one scene, amongst others, when Annie says, "I wish you weren't so mean," and her sister replies, "Me too," it's too true to life.

At any rate, both girls are unable to communicate their grief to each other. One of her sister's tactics is to blame Annie for their mother's death, and when she can't keep an animal alive, Annie believes her. This may be where Ojo derives his meaning. Ojo in Spanish being "eye," or more popularly "the evil eye" (often blue, as depicted here) with which look someone can curse another person, Annie believes that her touch has been a blight on her mother. Given that the story begins with Annie in a long shot observering from afar as her parents watch TV, this may be literal; she may have wished her mother to give her more attention, and this may also be the source of her self-blame when her mother afterwards dies.

However, a child's reasoning is not always logical, and Annie's self-blame can as easily derive, just as her grandfather's does for his own parent's passing, from no apparent cause. Eventually, through the help of a magical trout, Annie realizes she is not to blame for her mother's death and she knows that she must let her go. This is accomplished when the family finally acknowledges the mother's death and provides some closure with a ceremony. Her mother is Mexican, so Annie suggests an All Saints' ritual. Later, she conducts her own ritual. She lets little Ojo go to his mother, and the drainpipe monster ("Mama") disappears. Whether or not Annie believed her mother had given her her due of attention in life and death, she seems content to allow her to rest when her drawings of her mother suddenly go from one-eyed monsters to what appear to be sun-like circles of light.

I very much liked the eerie, sketchy art. Sometimes realistic, sometimes comical, the panels were as shifting as I expect a child's view can be-- or perhaps Kieth was just experimenting. The art is much more varying than I've seen in his other work.

I give it 3.5 stars. I would have liked the symbolism to be less overt, i.e. had Annie not overtly named the drainpipe monster her mother. I prefer some room for interpretation. Some of the dialogue also speaks like exposition rather than lifelike speech, which I would consider fitting in a largely symbolic story if I had not seen this mistake made in his less symbolic works. He slips. Overall, however, a good, quick work on handling grief. Definitely not horror, LOL.(less)

like 3 likes · see review

Jul 23, 2011 Luke Baldock rated it 4 of 5 stars

A lovely little modern fairytale. This is the kind of book I would have liked when I was much younger. I still loved it, but the darkness reminded me of early Tim Burton films, and the TV show Are You Afraid of the Dark?. Ojo tells the story of a young girl and her bitchy sister. They have recently lost their mum and been left in the care of their grandfather. Annie (our protagonist) expresses herself via her dead pets, all of whom she ended up killing in some way. These pets recur as a trio of...more

like · see review

Sep 23, 2011 Kristy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2011, graphic-novel

Annie's mum died recently, she and her sister are living with her grandfather for a while. Annie doesn't have much luck with pets (they keep dying!) until she finds Ojo, a strange creature that draws strength from its mum. It's all very weird but in a way Ojo helps Annie to let go of her mum. Really sad and touching.

like · see review

Mar 31, 2010 Devowasright rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: graphicnovelcomics, horror

another trip into the twisted mind of sam keith. while sharing several thematic elements with The Maxx, it definitely stand on its own, and presents its own parade of bizarre and inexplicable characters, all wrapped up in the life of a sad little girl who is learning to deal with loss beyond her years.

like · see review

Feb 10, 2011 Zena V. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: comix-d0ne

I read this years ago but I still think of it as one of my favourite comics, and probably the reason I love Sam's work so much (actually - consciously, the REAL reason is probably Preludes & Nocturnes). I'm going to guess the date as 2008 when I read it, it may be wrong.

like · see review

Dec 20, 2009 Kris Larson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics-graphic-novels, fantasy, fiction, illustrated

Sam Kieth is so beautifully weird. He perfectly captures the matter-of-fact weirdness of childhood imagination in this one, but not in an annoying Disney way. More in a freaky, wow, HA! kind of way. Come for the wonderful little girl, stay for the giant trout.

like · see review

Jan 19, 2011 Jay Westermann rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read this book in the hospital, during a really hard time in my life. I kept me balanced in my own way. For anyone stuck in a hospital room I suggest this Sparklehorse (band, RIP Mark Linkous), and Fables The Good Prince. It helped smooth things over.

like · see review

Jul 29, 2011 Russell Grant rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sam knocks another one out of the park with this one. Looks like a monster book, but is actually the story about a little girl dealing with the loss of a parent. A very effectively told one as well. And there is a nice touch of monster in it...

like · see review

Mar 07, 2010 Nick rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

A cute, short, entirely black and white Sam Kieth work about a little girl dealing with her jerkface older sister, her mother's death and raising a pet without accidentally killing it. Oh yeah, the pet is a baby one eyed tentacle monster.

Cameos by a scary trout man and various taxidermied animals.

like · see review

Nov 02, 2012 Alison rated it 2 of 5 stars

I read this in English. They only had the spanish version listed

like · see review

Apr 24, 2012 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: beyond-illustrated, strange-books-that-i-might-have-lik

creepy, strange, upsettting, odd

like · see review

Jan 19, 2008 Jen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

A darling (but distraught) little girl finds a bizarre monster baby that she takes in as a pet to help her deal with the death of her mom. It's bizarre and sweet and a little scary and touching all at once.

like 1 like · see review

Oct 10, 2009 Kathryn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel-manga

I had some problems with the scritchy scratchy art but the writing, story, and characters were excellent.

like · see review

Sep 21, 2008 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: own

fantastic "slice of life" style comic about a little girl getting over her mother's death.

like 1 like · see review

Apr 30, 2013 Alex Fyffe rated it 4 of 5 stars

Apr 29, 2013 harlequin {Stephanie} rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Apr 13, 2013 Deinos rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own

Mar 17, 2013 Maria rated it 3 of 5 stars

Mar 06, 2013 Sid rated it 5 of 5 stars

Mar 03, 2013 Turtlesong rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Feb 08, 2013 Starmelt marked it as to-read

Feb 07, 2013 Len rated it 3 of 5 stars

Jan 21, 2013 Ilja Rautsi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Jan 15, 2013 Sophia marked it as to-read

Jan 07, 2013 Lydia J. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Jan 07, 2013 Terry Lockhart marked it as to-read

Jan 04, 2013 Jacen Kemp marked it as to-read

Jan 02, 2013 David Felix rated it 3 of 5 stars

Dec 29, 2012 Sheri Chamberlain rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (2)

Genres

Sequential Art > Comics

23 users

Sequential Art > Graphic Novels

9 users

Fantasy

4 users

Comics > Comic Book

2 users

Horror

2 users

See top shelves...

About Sam Kieth

Kieth first came to prominence in 1984 as the inker of Matt Wagner's Mage, his brushwork adding fluidity and texture to the broad strokes of Wagner's early work at Comico Comics. In 1989, he drew the first five issues of writer Neil Gaiman's celebrated series The Sandman, but felt his style was unsuited to the book (specifically saying that he "felt like Jimi Hendrix in The Beatles") and left, han...more

More about Sam Kieth...

Books by Sam Kieth

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Ojo (En Espanol):...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

title link	preview: Ojo (En Espanol): Ojo
avg rating	preview: Ojo (En Espanol): Ojo Goodreads rating: 3.77 (142 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/287308.Ojo_En_Espanol_?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1173422876l/287308.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/287308.Ojo_En_Espanol_?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Ojo (En Espanol): Ojo by Sam Kieth[/url]

Ojo (En Espanol): Ojo (En Espanol)

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

combineOther Editions (2)

Genres

About Sam Kieth

Books by Sam Kieth

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About Ojo (En Espanol):...

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (2)