The Deep in The West Australian

This was a happy accident. We get the newspapers delivered everyday at work, so during brekkie I was reading the arts pages, as I’m a highly cultured and sophisticated individual, and found something of a rarity – a review of a comic in The West Australian newspaper.

Perth publisher Gestalt has been increasing their diversity and output this year and The Deep by Tom Taylor and James Brouwer is one of their best works.

You can read the whole review at The West’s site (although they give it the wrong name), but do give it deserved praise.

To have captured the feel of a slick animated adventure so successfully in a graphic novel is not just impressive but a delight.

The Deep: Here Be Dragons introduces the Nekton family – cool mum, smart dad, crazy brother, canny sister (and Jeffrey the fish) – who explore the deep sea in their futuristic submarine.

Their adventure is absorbing and intriguing but what we really follow is this multiracial family and the bonds that keep them together and alive. They are involving and charming, subtle but quick-witted and all captured equally well in Tom Taylor’s tight writing and James Brouwer’s superb draftsmanship.

This adventure ends with the promise of more – making the ending even better.

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