The Underwater Welder

Author: Lemire Jeff

Brand: Top Shelf Productions

Color: Multicolor

Edition: Illustrated

Number Of Pages: 224

Details: Product Description

Pressure. An underwater welder on an oil rig off the Nova Scotia coast, Jack is used to the pressures of deep-sea work. Nothing, however, could prepare him for the pressures of impending fatherhood. As Jack dives deeper and deeper, he seems to pull further and further away from his young wife and their unborn son. But then, something happens deep on the ocean floor. Jack has a strange and mind-bending encounter that will change the course of his life forever!

Equal parts blue-collar character study and mind-bending science fiction epic, The Underwater Welder explores fathers and sons, birth and death, memory and truth, and the treasures we all bury deep down inside.

“It’s a striking evocation of the Canadian Maritimes, and a moving meditation on what haunts us and how we struggle to keep those specters at bay.” – New York Times

From Booklist

Though his and Susan’s first baby is due within the month, Jack Joseph opts for another two weeks away at his welding job on the oil rig offshore from his Nova Scotia hometown. He feels compelled to be “down there”—his salvager father’s term for being in deep water—especially now, on Halloween, the day his dad disappeared more than 20 years earlier. On the first dive of his shift, however, Jack sees something and loses consciousness. After being hauled out and dry-docked, he insists on going back, surreptitiously. This time, he gets unstuck in time before, during, and, most portentously, after the dive. In an introductory note, TV producer Damon Lindelof (LOST) enthuses that The Underwater Welder is like a terrific Twilight Zone episode, but that’s just the half of it. Lemire combines his characteristic sketchy line work, deftly deployed small areas of pure black, plenty of moody watercolor shading (particularly when underwater), and a predominance of wider-than-high panels to realize a visually stunning analogue of the subtle, old-fashioned, black-and-white-movie creep show. –Ray Olson

Review

“The most spectacular episode of The Twilight Zone that was never produced. I really, really care about the people in this story… And I can pretty much guarantee you will too.” — From the introduction by Damon Lindelof (LOST, Star Trek, Prometheus, The Leftovers)

“With The Underwater Welder, Jeff Lemire has created a moving, brilliant, and fiercely original work about loss, longing, and love. Full of piercing moments that will stay with you for long after you’ve finished reading, The Underwater Welder is a testament to the basic truth that down in the depths or up on land, there’s nothing more haunting and wondrous than the human heart. A masterpiece of visual storytelling.” — Scott Snyder (Batman, Wytches, American Vampire)

“Lemire’s stylized art and inventive panel structure is the perfect vehicle for his well-told story, and the tale’s poignant moments make the moments of desolation even more heart-wrenching… A beautiful, moving, wholly satisfying story about fatherhood and growing up.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[Lemire] has not lost his ability to pack an emotional wallop.” — George Gustines, The New York Times

“A striking evocation of the Canadian Maritimes, and a moving meditation on what haunts us and how we struggle to keep those specters at bay. And the use of ink wash has rarely been put to more apt use.” — Dana Jennings, The New York Times

“The Underwater Welder… is all kinds of wonderful. Buy it. You will wet yourself with tears, your brain will spin from masterful storytelling, and you will love it.” — Jeff Jensen, Entertainment Weekly

“Haunting… Underwater Welder is just the right blend of action and abstraction, and greatly enhanced by Lemire’s ability to signal movement, time and distance through clever arrangement of his panels on the page.” — Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

About the Author

Jeff Lemire is a prolific, award-winning comic book writer and artist from Ontario, who’s known for creating literary stories depicting the frai

Release Date: 07-08-2012

Package Dimensions: 20x264x567