The Internal Sea is one of those comics. You know the kind. You walk in thinking that it’s one thing, but it turns out to change your life.
For those who don’t know, The Internal Sea, formerly titled Mare Internum, is a sci-fi comic from Der-Shing Helmer. Originally published online in 2015, it follows two scientists, Dr. Michael Fisher and Dr. Bex Egunsola, during a cave exploration on Mars that goes catastrophically wrong. Instead of being crushed from a cave collapse, the pair lands in a closed ecosystem beneath the caves teeming with life.
Awestruck with a scientific discovery that can change their lives forever, they begin to find out that there is more buried underneath the surface than initially seen, both literally and metaphorically. To talk more about the new edition, I interviewed the creator herself, Der-Shing Helmer!
E.B. HUTCHINS: What inspired the change in the title from Mare Internum to The Internal Sea?
DER-SHING HELMER: The title change hopefully improves readability for a new audience who might not know this story is about planetary sci-fi. “Mare Internum” follows the Latin naming convention for geological features; normally a “mare” describes a lower or relatively darker area on the moon or Mars, but the wink in the comic is that it refers here to a liquid reservoir. A good chunk of my webcomic readers are big ol’ nerds, so no problem there, but hopefully a title refresh will avoid kicking out newer readers (or make them think about horses)!
HUTCHINS: How has making a successful award-winning comic impacted your career for better or for worse?
HELMER: Mostly, the validation has helped me expand my career in comics. Though I’ve been in webcomics since 2006, in my experience there’s a bit of a perception gulf between self-published digital artists versus artists who work in standard publishing. I had no idea if my skills transferred or meant anything outside my digital bubble. But the positive reception helped me build the nerve to apply for the Vault Comics editorial position that I still occupy today, and it’s been hands-down the best experience I’ve had working with other comics professionals and creatives.
HUTCHINS: In an interview with Multiversity Comics in 2020, you discussed how working on The Meek and The Internal Sea helped you channel some of your lighter and darker feelings as well as some of major events. Do you carry that art therapeutic approach (or aspects of it) to your work as a managing editor?
HELMER: Yes, mostly in understanding that the creators I work with all have their stories to tell, and that they’re fighting to tell them via COMICS, i.e. the greatest medium of all time… I love them for that! I feel very lucky to get to be a part of that process in an editorial capacity.
HUTCHINS: Fisher’s story begins at what is supposedly the end of his life when he makes a groundbreaking discovery: that there’s water and life on Mars. Life on other planets has been a fascination of many authors for decades, so why choose Mars? Also, is there another planet that’d you’d be interested in seeing life on and what is it? (Personal fave is Io because I have a love for extremophiles)
HELMER: At the time I was developing this story I was in a sad-sack phase of my life, and Mars shone like a beacon because it’s frankly a SUPER depressing planet, haha. I was quite inspired from a completely pathos-focused direction… we see Mars as it is today as an inert, dusty thing that we know used to have flowing water, used to have a molten heart, used to have a magnetic field… all the things we currently have on our world, but now past its prime, like a flower that has completed its blooming. I still find it incredibly romantic, and the idea of a ghost planet being haunted by its own memories was too good for me to resist. I’m in a different time of my life now, though, and am tinkering on another story with another planet in a very different phase. I’ll keep that secret for now, though!
HUTCHINS: Motherhood is depicted as an ending of her life in Mare for Bex in the same way as the ending of career is for Fisher. As a woman, I deeply appreciate that it’s not depicted as a moral failure to not be overjoyed at the prospect of motherhood. Do you intend to explore more of these ideas in future works?
HELMER: I do intend to, yes… it’s a topic that has been at the fore of my life for the last few years, and it’s been a difficult journey with some harsh realizations along the way. And, honestly, these subjects are very tough to talk about. They’re not always socially acceptable conversations to start, and sometimes it’s easier to communicate those thoughts passively via comics than it is to risk verbalizing them to those who haven’t perhaps lived that experience. I’ve been surprised over and over to hear how much people relate to complex, untidy issues of motherhood and the unbalanced emotional expectations placed on female-presenting folks in general. More importantly, I’m glad that the empathy extended by fictional characters in the comic has allowed some readers to extend that empathy to themselves as well.
HUTCHINS: Are there any themes as of late that you want to explore through any future projects? If so, what are they and how would you approach them?
HELMER: At the moment, my mind is very much turned towards two subjects: the balance of life and death, and the social concept of “fairness”. I lost both of my parents in traumatic ways in the past five years and have been intentionally not distancing myself from engaging with further loss. For example, I started raising poultry for food purposes and have needed to take those lives at times. I’ve been deeply mulling over my instinctual responses towards death and what it means to actively engage in a life that is causes harm to others (as we all must). Of course, I also have a terrible need to make myself laugh, so I’m expecting whatever I make of this thought jumble to be as weird as it usually is.
HUTCHINS: After The Internal Sea, do you have any personal projects lined up? If so, which ones?
HELMER: Comics-wise, I intend to return to my work on my long-form science-fantasy webcomic baby, The Meek, as well as the nascent projects mentioned above. Those will be firstly (like all my other personal work) self-published webcomics posted free-to-read online as long as I can manage to do that, because this medium is the best in the universe and the more who get to participate, the better. Outside of comics, I’m starting a rare plant nursery with my husband (which will probably take up all the rest of the time I’m not spending on my lovely day job of editorial at Vault). Cuz you know, you can’t make good comics without getting your hands a bit dirty.
The Internal Sea is available for preorder from your preferred retailer and available in stores on September 9th!
