The Deepwater Editions · A graphic novel

Atlantea

The city that breathes water, and could leave the planet.

A mile down, a civilization of gilled humans keeps its own weird, warm world: the music, the markets, a full-contact sport with no floor, and a secret built into its foundations.

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Issue No. 1No FloorRookie season, biggest match of the year, and the city picks tonight of all nights to remember what it really is.

Issue No. 2The ComebackThe Deep Crown final, a nineteen-point hole, and a cold northern power that had already been handed the trophy. Then the Gillhorns remembered they were home.

The worldHistory of AtlanteaTen thousand years, and the drowned parallel to a hot inland town up in the dry world.

What it is

The peopleThey breathe water.Gilled humans, adapted to live and work a mile down. No tanks, no masks.

The gameA sport with no floor.Deepball, played in a full sphere of open water, where up is another way to get hit.

The techGrown, not built.A technology that took the road of living, cultured materials instead of the spark and the wire.

The twistA city with escape velocity.Atlantea can surface. What it was really built to do next is the whole story.

The feelAustin, drowned and rewired.A loving parody of a city that kept it weird, reimagined for people with fins.

Grounded in real scienceEvery impossible thing has a plausible spine. The gills lean on real diving physiology and gas exchange. The city-as-starship leans on a real fact: a hull built to hold pressure out is already halfway to holding it in, and a sphere full of water is one of the best radiation shields we know. We take the liberties a good story needs, and we show the math in the margins.