MerMay may be over, but you can still enjoy some good mermaid content all year round. Yesterday Iron Circus Comics closed out the month by announcing the latest campaign coming to their independently-run crowdfunding platform. The Sea in You is a new graphic novel reimagining of the story of The Little Mermaid from cartoonist Jessi Sheron. Today The Beat is pleased to present an exclusive excerpt from the 212-page graphic novel.
Here’s how Iron Circus describes The Sea in You:
In THE SEA IN YOU, Corinth was just trying to clean up the beach; she never expected to meet a mermaid, let alone be nearly drowned by one. But before long Corinth and mermaid Skylla grow closer through a cautious exchange of stories, gifts, jokes, and sign language. Mermaids, it turns out, eat people — but however terrifying Skylla may look, she’s a little younger, a little smaller, and perhaps a little too soft for all that. Bewitched by Corinth and their growing bond, she learns about all the best things in life on land: books, burgers, donuts, and this strange chattering human sound called laughter. But a storm is brewing – both at sea and in Corinth’s increasingly dangerous relationship with her obsessively jealous boyfriend – and a magical bargain may be the only thing that can save her, at a tremendous cost.
Sheron’s The Sea in You began as a webcomic serialized as over 200 installments on Tapas. Running from 2015 to 2021, the series amassed more than 38,000 subscribers and 8.7 million views. In a statement announcing the new campaign, Iron Circus founder/publisher C. Spike Trotman described bringing the aquatic fantasy story to print:
“The Sea in You is a perfect Iron Circus title,” said C. Spike Trotman. “Offbeat, totally unique, and a recentering and reimagining of themes it’s too easy to consider well-trodden territory that no longer holds any surprises for the reader. I can’t wait until kids get their hands on this.”
Check out the excerpt from The Sea in You below. The crowdfunding campaign for the print collection of the book is live now, and runs until June 30th.
