THE DEEP END

An editorial cartoonist’s–eye view of deep-sea mysteries and denizens.

Avast, there! When light-hued Brownbeard the pirate proves clueless about what glittering “treasure” lies at the bottom of the sea (“Awk! What’s a doubloon?” asks feathered first mate Alan. “I have no idea. Maybe a pastry?”), a dark-skinned scientist in a lab coat pops up on his ship’s plank to set him straight. Starting with ancient divers bringing up food (“This looks like a booger,” says a Chinese diver, peering into a clamshell) and sponges, the scientist proceeds to introduce oceanic denizens from sea pigs and giant squid to snailfish and life around thermal vents, with nods to exploratory ventures of the past giving way to modern uses of sonar and submersibles for research. The book ends with warnings about the dangers of climate change and overfishing (an image of a polar bear atop a tiny melting piece of ice drives home the issue), which leave the captain tearful and lead into a closing spread of random ocean facts highlighted (if that’s the word) by a portrait of a blue whale posed for scale next to a barely visible banana. The art throughout is similarly finished and playful. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

An easily digestible course of “real facts.”