Five Reasons You Should Be Reading Snyder & Murphy’s The Wake

For the few people who haven’t heard about this series, this does contain some minor spoilers because I can’t tell you how awesome this series is without telling you a little bit of the story.

1. Really terrifying merpeople.

First, I need to confess that the deep sea terrifies me. It’s so vast and contains weird creatures, and we don’t actually know what’s down there. It’s like outer space but on our own planet. Ask James Cameron if you don’t agree with me (or just watch The Abyss). I cannot emphasize this enough: the ocean is frightening. In The Wake, I am once more justified in being wary of the sea, because there are freaky mercreatures down there who want to take over the world. Look, all I’m saying is, in the ocean, no one can hear you scream.

2. Awesome characters who kick ass and make you care about them.

Aside from the fact that the protagonists in the two halves of the story (modern day and in the future) are both really cool women, this series has a whole cast of great characters. A tyrannical governess, a cynical fur-wearing hunter, a quiet folklore professor, a brave ghost rig captain, a father figure/black market dealer, and more. The author, Scott Snyder, is doing his best to give us a vision of Earth as we know it—with real, diverse humans in it—and then shattering it with a sci-fi twist of nightmare sea creatures. And with characters this real, in whom we can see ourselves in or to whom we can relate, the story becomes much more than just a fun, horror sci-fi comic.

3. All the best genres in one comic!

Did I say horror sci-fi comic? Because I should mention that The Wake is also smart fantasy, apocalyptic sci-fi, thriller/suspense, action adventure, and drama. It reminds me of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy mixed with Ridley Scott’s Alien, with echoes of tension on the level of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead and touches of the lyrical like that of Kelly Sue DeConnick’s Pretty Deadly. It really is unlike any other comic out there right now. Don’t forget this is from the author who has written the award-winning American Vampire and some of the best recent Batman titles (Gates of Gotham, The Court of the Owls).

4. Amazing art that you’ll want to plaster on your ceiling.

Maybe it’s just me, but I find that I constantly want to tack whole pages of this comic up on my wall because they’re so damn pretty. There is a roughness and beauty to Sean Murphy’s lines that works so well with the story they’re telling. He can capture violence, action, and terror on one page, and then do a lovely hallucination sequence on the next. The characters’ expressions augment their lines and the world is one you’re both afraid of and entranced by. There are also splash pages in which he carefully illustrates whatever a character is speaking about, giving us just enough to imagine the rest. The colors they have chose to work with are dark or faded in tone depending on the mood. These end up being perfect for that 1980s sci-fi vibe, the shadows of the scary ocean, and, at least for me, alluding to the way everything fades in sea water. But even without colors, Murphy’s work is detailed and atmospheric. Snyder and Murphy have worked together a lot on American Vampire and they sure have something amazing when they’re in sync. The duo demonstrates how words and pictures really, truly become unforgettable comics.

(Warning: mermaid nudity in the picture below.)

5. Exercise for your brain.

Hallucination sequences? Yes, there are a few. I won’t say why, but they contribute another dimension to the lyrical or fantasy aspect of The Wake.  The hallucinations of some characters reveal their desires and fears, and hint at backstory traumas they wouldn’t usually tell others. This story also makes the most of the human penchant to tell stories about what we find fascinating or weird and weaves our society’s mythology and folktales into the sci-fi of the present and future. It also provides a semi-scientific explanation for what is going on, and includes a lot of real scientists researching real things (like whales). What I’m trying to say is this story covers a lot for ten issues, but I don’t think Snyder is going to leave readers with every question answered. This is the kind of story you read once quickly because you just have to know what happens, and then you reread it a few more times to figure out how everything works. And just because it’s so awesome.

The Wake is only slated to be ten issues long and nine issues are out as of this writing. (The first five issues have been conveniently collected in one nice little paperback issue.) I haven’t even talked about the creatively designed pirate submarines, the tech-augmented dolphin, or some of the cool cetology facts that The Wake contains. But at this point, you really should just be running out to your local comic book store (or clicking your Comixology app). And hey now, don’t say I didn’t warn you about the deep ocean.

If you enjoyed B.K.’s article and would like to read other pieces like it, you can find the rest of her work HERE. You can also follow her on Twitter @kobayashiXmaru.

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