The Underwater Welder

Starred review from July 23, 2012
Lemire (Essex County) returns with another Twilight Zone–style story of horror, love, and redemption. Jack Joseph lost his father, a diver and treasure hunter, on Halloween night as a child. As an adult, Jack, an underwater welder, is still looking for answers; about to become a father himself, Jack has a dive accident that begins a series of otherworldly, or alternate reality, experiences. As his past forces itself into the present, Jack’s world is stripped of the living, leaving him to confront the memories binding him to his childhood. Flawed but utterly sympathetic, Jack is a lost soul whose life beneath the waves is beautifully depicted in several glorious two-page spreads. 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. Lemire seeds details throughout the early pages that resonate across the book, giving the story the feel of a carefully threaded whole. A beautiful, moving, wholly satisfying story about fatherhood and growing up.

September 15, 2012
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 waterespecially 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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)