Title: Atlas des abysses / Atlas of the Abyss (?)
Authors: Jozée Sarrazin, Stéphanie Brabant
Art: Julie Terrazoni
Despite the name, "atlas", this is more about creatures than it is about the geography of the deep, although it does broach the topic. And despite the name again, it isn't a particularly heavy book. In fact, it's more of a discovery book for adults, you know what I mean? You've been a child? You've read magazines or books about, like, nature or the world or the countries? This feels like it.
It has both its advantages and flaws. Let's start with the latter: it doesn't go in depth too much. The format is: each double-page display contains one page of text and one page of illustration. The text introduces the creature. Then we move on.
Overall I suppose it makes sense given the topic -- study of deep marine life is still full of unknown, right? It's kind of the current front of big discovery. There's much to find out still. You could feel it in some of the descriptions.
Broadly related was the organization of text on the page. Each creature description contained a quote in big letters interrupting the paragraphs, newspaper style, and can I just say I hate that shit? Especially when the big quote was pulled from the very same text you're already reading. Please. Similarly, chapters were often introduced by a white page with a single big quote about how cool the deep is, and most of those were forgettable lol. Looks nice, I guess.
Okay, so one minor flaw and a petty nitpick. Overall, it's a good book. Like I said, it's like a discovery book for adults, and that really brought me back to that sense of wonder, of shameless curiosity for anything and everything... and what a delight that is.
The art is doing A LOT for this reading experience. It's clean and somewhat gothic in vibes, always a full page save for the double-page displays. You get the dark, dark water and the artificially lit denizens of the deep... Loved it so much, gosh. There's a real cute ghost shark in there. It's so adorable, like a sleek, wet, puppy-shaped fish. Then there's plenty of weird sea life. Tubular worms. Furry crabs. Weird tiny beasts that live who-knows-how in the deepest sediment pools. big squids with scary sexual habits. As someone who already knew a bunch of species from too much youtubing, I was glad to see a mix of classics (tardigrades, vampire squids...) and things I had no idea existed.
The text manages to balance "informative" and "compelling" rather well, I thought. It tied many entries with deep sea exploration and what it entails, which made it immersive, in a way. Sometimes, it referenced videos. I never had trouble finding them and seeing it for myself, and I thought it was a nice addition.
A nice read in general :)
