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Wells Thompson Pits the Power of Friendship Against the Harshness of Life in Depths: Book One
When darkness is the familiar ground one walks upon, it can be hard to sway away from the call when shadows feel like home. But stay too long, and it can turn the world to pitch black, with lurking dangers strangling one down to the endless bottom. The writer duo of Wells Thompson and Dalton Shannon dives deep underwater in their latest book, exploring themes of despair and perseverance in the gloom.
Created by Thompson and Shannon with illustration from J. Schiek, colors from Rajesh Kumar, and letters by Nathan Kempf, Depths: Book One follows the story of a brilliant engineer Emil Parker, whose latest expedition with his perpetually sustaining suit shakes his best friend James Harrigan to the core. As one embarks on a journey to find his lost pal, the other struggles with their predicament. CBR spoke with Wells Thompson about the inspirations behind the story, the world building of Depths, and their Kickstarter campaign, which is now live.
CBR: What can you tell us about your latest graphic novel, Depths: Book One?
Wells Thompson: Depths: Book One is the first half of a massive story about a 1930s scientist who gets trapped underwater for three years in a perpetual diving suit of his own creation. It’s loosely sci-fi, but I think it’s more accurate to call it a period piece and a character study with the one absurdist element being the suit. It’s something we’ve been working on for about seven years now, and with everyone having just experienced their own form of isolation through quarantine, it felt like the right time to tell the story.
How did you address the real-life issues of grief and depression through Depths? Did you weave your personal experiences into the story?
We absolutlely did. That was really the driving force of the story, especially this first book. All the characters, particularly Emil, suffer from some form of depression or anxiety, or grief. For Emil, that’s literalized in being totally isolated in a hostile environment that has no apparent exit. He’s stuck, and it takes all his energy to move forward, let alone pull himself out. I’ve personally struggled with depression my entire life. And Dalton first thought of the story during a depressive episode after college, when he was living on his own for the first time with no family or support system. He saw himself as being trapped underwater but unable to drown, and that feeling has been core to the creation of this story.
What can you tell us about your protagonist Emil Parker and his journey into the deep?
Emil is brilliant, but deeply troubled. He has a complicated relationship with his father, who disappeared in a dementia-ridden haze some time ago, and Emil feels responsible for it. He’s developed a drinking problem and is wasting his mind and talents on self-pity. That’s where his friend James Harrigan comes in. James helps Emil focus and create something brilliant — this diving suit that can stay underwater indefinitely. On the first official launch of the suit, Emil insists on being inside, and something goes wrong. His lifeline gets severed, and he gets stuck at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean with no way home.
Emil’s friendship with James Harrigan seems to be the heart of the story. Please, tell us more about their dynamic.
Emil and James grew up together. They are spiritually brothers even though they aren’t related. There’s definitely a little bit of me and Dalton’s relationship in there, and I think that’s what makes it feel so visceral and authentic. James knows Emil better than he knows himself and is aware of the extent of his brilliance. So when he gets lost, James is the only one that believes Emil is still alive. James trying to rescue Emil takes up about half the book, so it really is, as you say, the heart of the story. Emil, meanwhile, probably would have given up if not for the thought of getting back to the surface to prove to James that they were right, that the machine worked, [and] that James was right for putting his faith in Emil. They wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without each other, and they feel eternally indebted to [each] other.
Last time we spoke, you mentioned how adventure resonates with you and Dalton Shannon. How did you explore the genre with an undersea exploration story like Depths?
Funnily enough, this is probably our least genre-heavy book. That said, it still fits comfortably into the Flash Gordon [and] Indiana Jones adventure genre, as well as a certain 18/19th-century romantic sailing genre that saw books like Moby Dick, Robinson Crusoe, and Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It’s also something of a period piece. I love the lost generation and the literary world post World War I, so getting to explore that in the fiction of the book – how the Great Depression and sensibilities of the era would have affected these characters was too promising to pass up. At the end of the day, this book couldn’t exist without its genre influences. At the same time, it’s a quiet character study [compared to] something like MechaTon. It still has the occasional battle with a colossal squid, but what are comics for if not throwing in something absurd at the last minute?
What can you tell us about Emil’s cute companion Douglas? Not only is that a funny name for an octopus, but he is also a bright spot among the doom and gloom.
Douglas, like most things in this book, was a problem-solving tool. We needed someone or something for Emil to bounce off of, but he’s all alone — that’s the whole point. So we gave him a companion that can’t necessarily talk back but that he can talk to. The more we played with it, the more Douglas became, as you described, a bright spot among the doom and gloom. He’s something Emil can look forward to while he’s out. He gives Emil a sense of comfort when he’s at his shelter. In a way, he’s just as lost as Emil. How a giant Pacific octopus wound up in the Atlantic is a mystery we never discover, but, like Emil, Douglas is out of place, alone, and needs a companion. Which, you know, aren’t we all?
In what ways did your collaboration with artists J. Schiek and Rajesh Kumar add to the world building?
They add a real texture and sense of place to the world that lends the fantastical circumstances a sense of weight and legitimacy. This is definitely the kind of book that would be easy to cheat, to imply a background that let the world sort of melt away into no place in particular since ocean topography isn’t something most people are terribly familiar with anyway. J. refuses to do that and instead reminds the reader constantly of the environment that Emil exists in — hostile and alien and cold as it is. Rajesh adds to that by creating this overwhelming sense of claustrophobia [in] the water. I keep hearing people saying that they caught themselves holding their breath while reading the first few pages because the underwater texture just seems that real. That’s all J. and Rajesh.
You have worked extensively with letterer Nathan Kempf in the past. With Depths being such a somber tale, how did you plan the scenes with him?
Nathan is a champion, and I’m really glad he puts up with us. He has such an adaptable style and is able to pinpoint exactly what the story needs. With Depths, we knew there was going to be a lot of captions and dialogue, that we were leaning into the period elements, and that we wanted to separate the underwater segments visually from the above-water segments. Nathan took all of that in stride and created a caption set and dialogue balloons that evoke a sense of that [same] stylization. The more squared-off balloons are a practical choice. This is a book with a lot of words on the page, but they also feel like a style that might have been used in the 30s. It feels old without feeling outdated, and threading that line is nothing short of brilliant.
The synopsis calls it, “The Martian Meets 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” What would you say are your artistic inspirations behind the story?
Those are certainly handy points of reference. I would say this most strongly invokes books from the era; The Great Gatsby [and] The Sun Also Rises. Books about lost people struggling to find their purpose in a world that is rapidly changing. Gatsby tries to relive the past, Jake Barnes bounces back and forth between philosophies without ever committing to one that fulfills him, and Emil explores the unknown, unable to face what waits for him on the surface. There’s a healthy dose of modern influence as well, from the ultimately hopeful nihilism of Grant Morrison to the emotionally stunted protagonists of Brian Lee O’Malley. We also can’t ignore Jennifer Egan and Kurt Vonnegut, who worm their way into everything I write by virtue of being too brilliant not to steal from.
Congratulations on your Kickstarter campaign for Depths! What plans do you have regarding Emil, James, and Grace’s future?
Thank you! We’ve raised a little over $11k for the book, though we’ll still need a lot more if we’re going to get it made. If we’re able to pull it off, there will be [a] Book Two covering the second half of the story. This first book does have a satisfying ending in its own right, but the second half really brings everything together and wraps up the stories and characters in a way that makes me tear up just thinking about it. Beyond that, I don’t know. I don’t think there’s more to tell with Emil, James, and Grace beyond these 224 pages, but maybe there’s a spiritual sequel to the story where they can make a feature. I would be open to doing a short about Douglas as well. I’ve always wondered how he made it to that cave in the Atlantic. Maybe if there’s enough interest, we can tell that story in the collected edition or as a short somewhere.
Depths: Book One is on Kickstarter now. For more information about Depths, follow the Kickstarter campaign.
