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This historical fiction graphic novel imagines the lives of blue-collar workers involved in the real-life Lake Erie tunnel disaster in Cleveland in 1916.
Award-winning author Scott MacGregor and celebrated illustrator Gary Dumm have created the intersecting story of a brilliant African American inventor, Ben Beltran (based on Garrett Augustus Morgan), the desperate immigrants tunneling beneath the lake, and the corrupt overseers who risked countless lives for profit.
In Fire on the Water, all work on the tunnels has been put on hold after numerous fatal accidents. However, on July 25, 1916, after relentless pressure from high-ranking politicians, a team of expert tunnelers, known as Sandhogs, are bribed into resuming work. When disaster strikes, many of the men are killed by a fiery explosion, and those who survive are trapped far below the earth. With time rapidly running out, city officials have no choice but to turn to inventor Ben Beltran, who is the only hope for the living Sandhogs. This original graphic novel sheds light not only upon one of America’s earliest man-made ecological disasters, but also the economic disparity between classes and racism in Midwestern America.
Scott MacGregor has been writing comic book stories for more than 30 years. This is his first full-length graphic novel. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio.
Gary Dumm is a lifelong resident of Cleveland and an artist who worked extensively with Harvey Pekar on his ground-breaking autobiographical comic, American Splendor. Dumm’s cartoons have also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, the New York Times, the Village Voice, and Le Monde.
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