Italian cartoonist Carpinteri (Pop-eye) combines a range of artistic styles, including futurism, cubism, and German expressionism is this fantasy tale of an undersea metropolis. Happiness is vital to the people of Aquatlantic, so much so that they have a Minister of Harmony and greet one another by saying joy instead of hello. Nothing brings the people more joy than the antics of Bho, a vaudevillian comedian renowned for depicting a boorish, self-involved surface dweller, playing upon a stereotype the populace is taught from birth. When Bho starts to feel dissatisfied with his life and work, it disrupts his relationship with his beloved Stella and worries his turtle companion Rex, especially after he becomes obsessed with some of the artifacts he sees while visiting a museum devoted to life on land. Soon, Bho plots an explosive final performance, in which he plans to retire his surface-dweller character once and for all, unwittingly triggering a chain of events that threatens to result in a confrontation with the world above and may cause the destruction of the Aquatlantic way of life forever. VERDICT Carpinteri's imaginative worldbuilding and astonishing illustration more than compensate for a relatively slight plot. Recommended for larger graphic novels collections.

Carpinteri's stylish allegory set in Atlantis satirizes the savage surface world that the Atlanteans, who call their submerged society Aquatlantic, fear and mock. Bho, an Atlantean actor, performs a popular parody about a vulgar surface man named Ettore Patria. But he's losing himself in his role, as vulgar thoughts break in offstage and in recurring dreams. The legend taught to Aquatlantic's school children is that two citizens swam above long ago and established a wasteful, sinful society. ("They found money to buy what they already had... warriors to defend what had never been theirs.") Surface artifacts are displayed in a museum (including a key and a gun--which, true to form, must go off by the last act). The Atlantean's own elitist tendencies are brought to light, as the ruling class, who worship sentient sea turtles (and torture them for prophecy) closes in on Bho as a threat to the stability of their right-thinking society. A sinister surface-dweller plot against Atlantis is revealed, then swiftly thwarted, by the wise turtle guides, who raise a song that repels the invaders. Carpinteri's dazzling painted scenes employ motifs from futurist, art deco, and other modern art influences. While the moral of the slim story doesn't land as particularly profound, the hypocrisy of the related worlds, above and below, is exquisitely realized, and art comics fans will likely pick up the volume more for its look than its lesson. (Sept.)