Retelling a radical reformer’s story

In the culminating moment of the film Contact (1997), Ellie Arroway (played by Jodi Foster), having been selected as a representative of humanity to make first contact with alien life, finds herself viewing a celestial event as she travels through space. Trying to elaborate on the sight, in awe she stammers, “No words to describe it. Poetry! They should have sent a poet. So beautiful.”

These words describe my own feelings about reviewing By Water, which offers an account of the life of Felix Manz. Manz was a 16th-century reformer in Zurich whose advocacy for believer’s baptism led to his (intentionally ironic) execution by drowning at the hands of his former mentor, Huldrych Zwingli. The subject matter falls within my specialty as a historian of early modern Europe, but unlike most biographies that line my shelves, this is a graphic novel—and here, I am in uncharted seas. By Water is a work driven by its art, and it is impossible to speak with any seriousness about the book as a biographical project without addressing the art as the primary medium. While the authors retell the story of Manz’s life with faithful adherence to detail, much of that historic detail may escape attention on a first pass due to how it is layered into the art itself.

From manuscript illuminations to woodcuts and portraiture, many of the images and scenes that grace By Water are drawn from real pieces from the 16th century. These details can be found even in the panel backgrounds of several pages. Some of the historical images are reproduced in the book’s appendix, along with a timeline and several translations of important primary sources from the period, such as the Twelve Articles of the German peasants and a hymn by Manz. But still, much will be missed without a prior familiarity with the period and its history.