Way hey row we go. To the bottom of the ocean, in a ship long lost, with booze long forgotten, except by our three rowdy, randy, and soon to be really fucked up mermaids. Grab your rum and get ready everyone, because tonight it’s time to go on an adventure with some “Thirsty Mermaids.”
Cover by Kat LeyhWritten, illustrated, colored & lettered by Kat Leyh
The raucous and literal fishes-out-of-water graphic novel from prolific comic artist and writer Kat Leyh, creator of the acclaimed Snapdragon and coauthor of the Eisner and GLAAD Award–winning series Lumberjanes.
Fresh out of shipwreck wine, three tipsy mermaids decide to magically masquerade as humans and sneak onto land to indulge in much more drinking and a whole lot of fun in the heart of a local seaside tourist trap. But the good times abruptly end the next morning as, through the haze of killer hangovers, the trio realizes they never actually learned how to break the spell, and are now stuck on land for the foreseeable future. Which means everything from: enlisting the aid of their I-know-we-just-met-can-we-crash-with-you bartender friend, struggling to make sense of the world around them, and even trying to get a job with no skill set…all while attempting to somehow return to the sea and making the most of their current situation with tenacity and camaraderie (especially if someone else is buying).
The first thing that struck me about “Thirsty Mermaids,” and I know it’s a strange observation to start a review with but bear with me, was that Kat Leyh is finally allowed to write with swears. Her previous works, “Lumberjanes” and “Snapdragon” were firmly G/PG and so she had to work within that framework for those books. Sometimes it worked wonderfully, pulling from the verbal lexicon set by series like Adventure Time or previous “Lumberjanes” writers to craft a vocabulary that felt like it was organically built from characters who do not swear for whatever reason. Other times the softening or substitution of a swear felt like what it was, a swap, and made the lines read as unnatural.
With “Thirsty Mermaids,” she’s free to swear up a storm…and yet she doesn’t. Sure, the characters punctuate their sentences with the occasional “fuck” or “shit” but Leyh’s voice, nor the voice of the characters, is ever subsumed by them. Read this book and then read an issue of Leyh’s “Lumberjanes” and they will have the same rhythm and cadence. That’s tough to do! When Eez screams “WHAT THE SHIT, YOU GOOBS?! M’AIR BLUBBLE POPPED!” on page five, the sentence retains a playful energy that might have turned belligerent under the pen of a less careful writer. It also makes the characters feel like real people, ones that I would totally see on the street or hang out with, rather than the cleaner version you might elsewhere. Many authors will abuse swears when given the chance but rather than do that, Leyh uses them to set a distinct mood and firmly establish the personalities of the three titular mermaids as well as the rest of the cast.
In fact, that sentence, and that page, is a microcosm of what makes “Thirsty Mermaids” work so well and demonstrates Leyh’s prowess as a cartoonist. It’s a three panel page where the driving action is the loss of the last of the shipwreck booze as the drunken antics of Tooth & Pearl cause it to become “diluted by the factor of n’…of N’ OCEAN!” Despite it being only three panels, Leyh creates clear throughlines that bounce and move with a frenetic, wobbly energy that is perfect for the scene.
We start at the top of panel one and fall past the booze that’s being diluted down to the top of Eez’s head, where a tiny yellow “ah” and four indication lines create a visual shorthand for Eez realizing what has just happened. Because her eyes are pointing up, and the lines create a false sense of motion, we’re bounced to the top of the next panel where Eez has her exclamation, dramatically rising as well in frustration, giving us our first good look at her long eel-like tail. As we follow that tail, we see Tooth & Pearl’s reactions. Pearl is playfully falling back, a smile on her face, while Tooth is sitting there stoically, as if enduring the force of the water is her natural state.
Continued belowNext to Pearl is her exclamation from the next panel, which because of its placement in panel 2 keys us into that fact, as the tail in panel 3 just kinda floats there so as not to obscure the characters or the setting. The last panel is the statement of intent for the rest of the series – “get more booze” – but it is also a joke sold through not so much through the characters than as through the setting. Leyh picks a wide, distanced shot, peering down through a hole in the wreck, as other sea life goes about its business, the thirsty trio tiny yet expressive. This reinforces the “factor of n’ ocean” statement and also solidifies the detail that they’re in a sunken ship.
It’s these little details that craft a verisimilitude for the readers of this story, allowing Leyh to use background details to do plenty of subconscious storytelling without them being easily dismissed or lost. It helps too that her lettering is clear and evocative, with uneven balloons that bend and break and morph as the situation calls for it. I particularly love the way she transitions between parts, with these huge chapter titles that enhance rather than break the flow of the scene. Honestly, I was having fun at the start but it wasn’t until I saw “Part 1: The Hangover” towering over the splash page of Eez vomiting after waking up while Tooth lies face down in a pile of garbage bags next to Pearl that “Thirsty Mermaids” had me hook, line, and sinker.
There was also never a point in “Thirsty Mermaids” that I felt lost, narratively, even when Tooth, Pearl, and Eez start having independent storylines and Vivi’s is added to the mix. The theme of found family helped keep it all together and the individual triumphs and struggles of the characters kept it all engaging and moving while also being a raucous, wild ride all the way through. If I had a complaint, it’s that the aunties’ presence is a bit underdeveloped but I don’t think more of it would’ve benefited the narrative.
I will miss the adventures of Tooth, Pearl, Eez, and Vivi as I move onto other books. This is not a one night of drunken reverie type of book. Rather, it is a lifetime of bar talks, parties and fishing tales. It’s a story that stays with you long after you last heard it, one where you find yourself remembering the smallest parts, as well as the whole, and find that it calls to you in those moments. If the ocean has a sound, it’s the burp of Pearl and the laughter of these three thirsty mermaids, and there’s no sweeter sound out there.
