The Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire

“The most spectacular episode of The Twilight Zone that was never produced.” – Damon Lindelof, from the introduction to The Underwater Welder

In our creator spotlight episode, the guys discuss Mike’s all-time favorite comic creator: Jeff Lemire (Alex is a big fan, too, just not quite on the buy-every-Jeff-Lemire-variant-cover-published-regardless-of-series level Mike is). They give a history of Lemire’s work, an overview of his style and themes, and finally, provide a synopsis and sales pitch for their next discussion, The Underwater Welder!

In this oversized, one-shot episode, Mike and Alex cover the entire indie comic book for Jeff Lemire’s solo masterpiece, The Underwater Welder. No chapter breaks, no multiple volumes, just the whole story all at once, so be sure you’ve finished reading before jumping into the episode. They discuss how the exploration and presentation of time is central to so much of Jeff Lemire’s work and how effectively it is or isn’t used in this book. Mike talks about how eerily the setup of the story mirrors his own current life situation (hint- it’s not the underwater welding part) and Alex is forced to confront several very terrible (are there any other kind?) water puns.

The themes in this book are dark, and the characters aren’t necessarily likable, but it has an overall optimistic view that will definitely strike an emotional chord with the reader. What kind of emotion? You’ll have to dive in and find out (dang it!).