From New York Times bestselling Mind MGMT creator Matt Kindt comes an exciting and new undersea sci-fi mystery.
Mia is a special investigator hired to uncover possible sabotage taking place at a deep-sea research station. What she uncovers is a mind-blowing crime scene filled with suspects with terrible secrets, strange deep-sea creatures, and an impending flood!
Praise for the previous work of Matt Kindt: "Kindt is a storyteller so fully in control of his gifts that his graphic novels read like quietly compelling arguments for the comics medium's narrative potential." -NPR
"Kindt has developed into one of the most exciting and original talents in the business" -The LA Times
"Kindt breaks all pre-conceived notions of what comic books are." -IGN
Reading this graphic novel reminds me of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea because of the setting of the story. Some readers who were able to read this may not have like this, but for me, I really enjoyed reading this sci-fi/mystery novel because of the storyline. However, the illustrations may not be that spectacular, but as for those who are art enthusiasts just like me, I really appreciate it. While reading, I also checked out the drawings and what techniques were use by the artists. If you have read Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues, I'm quite certain that you will also like this graphic novel by Matt and Sharlene Kindt.
Finished the first six issues that comprise this volume, and a great set up for Volume 2. Mia is a special investigator hired to uncover possible sabotage taking place at a deep-sea research station, and the death of her father there. Disaster after disaster takes place, sea monsters abound, everyone's a suspect. . . The drawing by Kindt and coloring by Sharlene Kindt, his wife, are great and fitting the mood/tone. Has an Abyss feel to it, in places. Great storytelling. I think the first volume is available as a trade in late January 2017.
I wanted to like this but I just couldn't get in to it or the characters.
So basically it's a murder mystery with atmosphere similar to say like "The Thing" or "Alien" and that should work perfect for me. I love both those. The cast is super diverse which is a plus and it has a main lead who isn't just on the straight and narrow and has some internal problems. When her father is found dead she goes deep undersea to the base to find out what happened. Then her brother goes missing and well...the mystery is on!
Good: I liked the idea of it a lot. I also liked the setting. Something about being underwater and alone and isolated is as scary as it is going into space.
Bad: I did NOT like the art. It felt way to sketchy and I understand the appeal but it was not for me. I also hated the lettering and it made it hard to read some of the lines. The characters, while interesting at times, didn't seem to capture me at all. I can't even remember anyone's name sadly. I also thought the ending was a letdown and I wasn't eager to pick up the next volume at all.
While a interesting setting and diverse cast is a step in the right direction this title did little else to keep me going.
Mia's father heads up a research facility at the bottom of the ocean. Now he's dead and Mia is sent to find out what happened. Once down there she's repeatedly distracted by a bunch of side quests. I felt like this really meandered around quite a bit, it's just introduction to subplot after subplot without resolving anything. Plus all these scenes in outer space didn't make much sense for a long while, especially when the book starts out with a job offer for Mia to head up a space exploration vehicle. At first I thought they were in the future or she was hallucinating. Kindt needs to focus in on the main story more, because he definitely lost my interest here.
Received a review copy from Dark Horse and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
No, not this, but this: without the all-male, predominately white cast. In this story, there's an ethnically diverse, predominately male cast.
It takes place at some point in the future, I assume, after a deadly illness has swept through Mia's world, maybe the entire world. Her father, creator of a super spiffy space station that went out looking for life (she and her brother, Raj, had been on board for that trip but she was the junior officer and not allowed an opinion) was unsuccessful in his mission so he moved his research to the ocean. Mia didn't go with. She's an astronaut, not a diver. She doesn't even like the water, having drowned once. After her father dies in a terrible accident that wasn't actually an accident, she's sent by his funding entity, USEAR, to investigate because she has knowledge of the sea base (it's very similar to the space station) and is quite familiar with several of the crew members down there. Plus she has mystery-solving skills. So down she goes!
And that's where the "The Thing" influence begins - Mia, one of two female characters and bland, stock ones, at that, is sent to a remote locale where everything is dangerous and someone down there has a terrible secret to hide and also, there's a toxin threatening people but no one can get away because they're six miles under water. Everything goes wrong, sabotage abounds, and previously unknown sea creatures are seen.
Right. I don't make it sound very engaging and it's actually not. The story isn't new (like I said - "The Thing" though others claim "The Abyss" and I find that to be incorrect because only the setting is similar, not the storyline), the art is clunky and not interesting, and I was mostly bored with it. It wasn't until hours later that I realized the appeal.
Again, the art, itself, wasn't my thing. The storyline was sparse and not written in a way that really grabbed my interest. It was the feelings I was left with afterward that made an impression. The art and story work together to create a sense of being stuck - Mia is stuck at the bottom of an ocean in cramped quarters with jillions of PSI pressing down on the seafloor base of operations. Mia only feels free in space but she's stuck investigating her father's death. She is stuck outside of her relationships, all of them. She and her best friend had a falling out that was never reconciled, she and her brother are neither close nor companionable, her father is dead, her lover is ... something. They may have broken up. It's unclear. She's also stuck with her knowledge and memories because she can't forget anything. As the implausibility of her situation builds, her stuckness builds, too. It's tight, dark, airless, panicky. But she's a scientist and she doesn't panic, it's not in her nature, and she has a job to do.
So even though I didn't care much while I was reading the book, I found I kept coming back to the feelings I was left with after I was finished and by the end of the day, I really wanted to know what's going to happen next. And, of course, there's that clever title. Department H Dept.H Depth That made me happy.
Matt Kindt does it again. Not even on my radar a few years ago, he seems to have come out of nowhere writing all these incredible series. At its heart, Dept. H is a murder mystery. The director of an undersea research facility is killed, and his daughter, Mia, is sent to investigate. Miles beneath the ocean's surface, the suspects are few, but the dangers are enormous. This being only volume 1, it's mostly about character introductions and setting the mood. As always with Kindt books, the pacing is superb and the paranoia almost overwhelming. Recommended!
This murder mystery has vibes of John Carpenter's "The Thing" and James Cameron's "The Abyss". A murder takes place in an isolated underwater lab and one person has to figure out who did it.
More and more things start to go wrong and there's definitely some weird supernatural elements going on here.
There's an interesting parallel to space travel in this story. The main character tasked with solving the murder, Mia wants to get back out into space. She prefers the vast empty lonliness to the crushing pressure of being deep under the sea.
Space feels completely empty, which can be kind of terryfing, but the ocean definitely isn't empty, we just don't know what's down that darkness, and that is equally terryfing.
This is volume one, so the murder isn't solved by the end of this, but it also isn't the most important question that's asked.
Matt Kindt really has an interesting storytelling method, he takes his times, focusing on things that don't seem important but lays the groundwork for what's coming next.
The main character heads undersea to try to solve the mystery of her father's death at an undersea research station. Why/was he murdered? And with only a handful of people at the station, who if the people that have been working with him for years would do such a thing?
A daughter travels underwater for an organisation to invetsigate her fathers death. Other small issues develop as well as her brother going missing, and its really her trying to figure out what happened. The world buidling is ok but I prefer Remenders Low series for an underwater world. The plotting is pretty average and slow, especially the ending. The cast is too broad with way too many people who all look the same. I think the art is definitely not my style. It seemed too rushed and messy at times.
The main focus of this seems to be on being under the ocean instead of the murder mystery which the cover proclaims. Also, I'm a bit disappointed in Kindt's artwork for this one....it seems really sloppy in comparison to his Mind Mgmt series.
A decent start to a sci-fi murder mystery. I have to admit that if the art was better i would have given this 4 stars. The story is fine, it centers around Mia who travels to an underground sea lab to solve a murder. There is some nice layering in the story with flashbacks and personal ties however it isn't incredibly inventive or captivating, it feels middle of the road. back to the art, I don't mind when art is different or abstract but this just feels like not a lot of effort was put into it. I do want to see where the story goes so i will pick up vol.2
Matt Kindt can write some good comic stories. As an artist? Uhmmm no..just no. Comics are a visual medium and this art is borderline atrocious. Christ. The story? It's ok. It's a weird murder-mystery set in an unknown time (I say this because the technology seems a few decades advanced) and the state of the world is strange-since why have a scientist investigate a murder?
Anyways this is set deep underwater and as such the panels showing the underwater scenes are not only underwhelming but downright ugly. There is a scene where the "cool" base is shown but in the artwork it's a bunch of blue shit and some red blobs...oh wow...that's really amazing. I'm being sarcastic.
The worst part? After going through this overly complicated and ugly mess, the story didn't end. I am not paying for Volume 2 and shouldn't have paid for volume one. Also what's up with the character of "Q"? I knew, before reading it in the afterword, that he was supposed to be Queequeg from "Moby Dick"..but uhhh Queequeg was a cannibal from the South Seas. This guy? WTF? Is it the 1800's again? Also is he even human? *sighs*
Good concept, poor execution and hideous artwork. Matt Kindt stick to WRITING and leave the art to ummm artists?
With MIND MGMT, I became really interested in Matt Kindts' work. What made me, at a certain point, get tired of the series was the thickening paranoid plot. The same thing happened, even faster, with Jonathan Hickman's The Manhattan Projects. The exploitation of conspiracy theories, that now seems to be a strong trend usually makes me disconnect with the narrative. And Hickman too, is a great writer, his Transhuman, with art by J. M. Ringuet is brilliant.
With Dept. H, Kindt seems to focus more in the psychological aspect of the environment and in the atmosphere of the work. His art is, as always, immersive and gorgeous. Sea creatures, diving equipment, the underwater ecossystem, all that is stunning and has the rough, sketchy quality of Mat Kindt's art and his perfect selection of color scheme. And there are some aspects of the crime/detective genre that make this work particular, adding to the suspense and the fantasy and other ingredients. Kindt is one of the great ones.
The basic plot of this story is that a woman is investigating the murder of her father. The location of the murder is a deep sea based founded by her father. On arriving at the base, communication is cut off and things start to go wrong. The story and the art create a sense of panic and claustrophobia. The art is drawn in a kind of sketchy freehand style and it is colored with watercolors, which creates a beautiful effect. The story itself, though, doesn't make much progress. By the end of the first volume, it doesn't feel like we're any closer to figuring out who the killer is. It is all very mysterious though, which I like.
Mia, the daughter of a well known astro/nautical scientist, goes to the depths of the ocean to find out the truth behind her father Hari's presumed murder. Below at the underwater base awaits the research team of seven possible guilty personnel, one her own brother. Amidst the horrifying and unsettling creatures that lurk in the dark depths, Mia stakes her claim that one of them is guilty, even as each of them deny it.
The story by Kindt moves along fairly slowly here in V1, but sets up the creepy scenario well. The artwork (also) by Kindt does a great job through inks and watercolors in creating a suffocating submersive environment. Some beautiful full page illustrations too. Looking forward to see where V2 goes.
Matt Kindt’s Dept. H is a mystery-thriller with oodles of style and savviness that blends elements of Alien, The Abyss, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. His work-for-hire stints as a writer or artist with a full creative team (e.g., Ether, X-O Manowar, etc.) simply don’t compare to magnificent, idiosyncratic solo outings like this book.
Another great series from Matt Kindt, the kind I'd expect him to do in follow up to Mind MGMT. This has a similar feel, although the mystery appears to be more straightforward and not near as convoluted. Then again, we're just beginning the journey, right? Still plenty of time to throw in the twists.
THAT CLIFFHANGER. I loved all of this -- the watercolor-on-textured-paper art, the slow plot development with plenty of space for underwater creatures, the diversity. All very very good.
Imagine having to solve a murder in the darkest reaches of the ocean. Contrary to popular belief, the ocean is claustrophobic. In Matt Kindt’s book Dept H. Vol. 1 Pressure, Mia is sent down by the research company, USEAR, to solve the mystery of her father’s death. Although officially ruled as an accident, many shareholders in the company suspect sabotage taking place at the deep-sea research station. It is up to Mia to unravel the mystery of her father’s death and find the mole sabotaging decades of research.
The novel opens up with Mia, the daughter of a prominent researcher in astronomy and oceanology. She is tasked with going down to the deep-sea research facility to uncover any possible sabotage. Prior to her father’s murder, several operations at the facility have accidentally gone wrong, wasting money and years of valuable research. Matt Kindt does any excellent job of relaying the conflict Mia feels about diving down. It is evident she feels uncomfortable underwater; readers can almost feel the tension as she first descends into the deep. Pressure is definitely an appropriate name for Vol. 1. Mia feels both the crushing weight of both the pain of losing her dad and the responsibility to solve the case. As Mia arrives down at the research base, we meet a mixed cast of characters. Many have known Mia for years; they were first her father’s friends then his colleagues. Even Mia’s brother and childhood friend are now suspects, as they too work at the research facility. Once she is settled into the research base, Mia sets to the impossible task of ruling out suspects. However, it isn’t going to be an easy task. The crime scene is mind blowing: on first inspection, it seems like her father was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. However, as the story unfolds, it is evident that everyone on the base has something to hide. Mysteriously, the building begins to give into the pressure surrounding it, flooding several sections of the base. Now, Mia must truly hurry if she wishes to solve the murder, save the research base, and all the occupants before the ocean claims their lives.
Not only is this graphic novel a delight to read, it is also beautifully illustrated. Sharlene Kindt’s surreal watercolor illustrations perfectly convey the hazy, dream-like tone of the novel. If you are looking for a series to dive into, Dept. H Vol. 1 Pressure is your go to graphic novel, available for download through the Hoopla app.
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I read a lot of comicbooks and graphic novels but i don't often review them on Goodreads. One has to make choices, there's only so much time to write reviews in. But I like to make an exception once in a while, and so here I want to recommend to your attention the first volume of this series. It's part deep sea exploration, with cool bases, diving suits and alien looking creatures (including a giant squid!), there's survival adventure echoing The Abyss as the ocean makes itself felt, and there's a murder plot to solve - the daughter of the expedition leader trying to find the killer of her father, and a growing sense of paranoia as claustrophobia, insomnia and infection make tensions grow among the besieged crew. There are hints of Custeau here, but also of European comics (the diving suits reminded me of Yoko Tsuno, and there's a character called Blake Mortimer - after comic book heroes Blake and Mortimer). The drawing style takes some getting used to, I must confess. It feels a bit experimental because of it, but it has its own beauty. I certainly appreciated how it added to the tone of the story. I am a fan of these kinds of stories, and there are a lot of delicious mysteries here (like what's in the cave at the bottom? A kind of giant turtle?) to make me look forward to the second collection!
This is kind of hard to rate. Something about the graphic novel really has me wondering what happens next... There’s definitely SOMETHING that works for me in this. I couldn’t tell you what that is, though. The art didn’t work for me. The narration mostly being in Mia’s head didn’t work for me. Many of the events toppled by suspension of disbelief. And yet...
So admittedly I'm obsessed with books about water in general, but I really loved this first volume. It's a claustrophobic murder mystery set in an underwater base, with some Lovecraftian undertones that I can't wait to see more of as the series progresses. Now...anyone for a swim? :D
A deep-sea murder mystery starring an investigator who has a special bond/history with the location and some of the suspects. A compelling, claustrophobic read full of surprises.
this story eked out a three because i am very curious about the world above if you will, the greater plot i.e. the stage one virus, the cure, what they are really doing down there, & what's up with them already having spent years in space! but if it weren't for the author getting me intrigued enough for that i am not sure i would keep reading. the murder mystery is somewhat interesting & the characters okay but it is a bit slow, & to be honest the art isn't lively enough to keep me really interested in that regard. i will give the second book a try but after that it will all depend on if the story develops enough to hook me for the remainder.