Images of Fire on the Water"

Scott MacGregor, illustrated Gary Dumm | Fire on the Water | Abrams ComicArts | May 2020 | 228 Pages

Fire on the Water, the first illustrated account of the 1916 Waterworks Tunnel Disaster, which killed twenty Clevelanders in a tunnel explosion under Lake Erie, is also lifelong Clevelander Scott MacGregor’s first full-length graphic novel. Illustrated by Gary Dumm, another Cleveland lifer, this new Abrams ComicArts volume is a captivating chronicle of a neglected tragedy in the city’s history. As the press describes the book:

This original graphic novel imagines the lives of blue-collar workers involved in the real-life Lake Erie tunnel disaster of 1916 in Cleveland. Author Scott MacGregor and illustrator Gary Dumm tell the intersecting stories of a brilliant African American inventor, Ben Beltran (based on the real-life Garrett Morgan, Sr.), desperate immigrants tunneling beneath Lake Erie, and corrupt overseers who risk countless lives for profit. As historical fiction, Fire on the Water sheds light not only on one of America’s earliest man-made ecological disasters but also on racism and the economic disparity between classes in the Midwest at the turn of the century.

The editors of the Cleveland Review of Books expect that this six-page excerpt will educate readers about the Disaster and, hopefully, encourage readers to support these Cleveland artists by purchasing the book.

—Jacob Bruggeman

Credit: Fire on the Water, by Scott MacGregor and illustrated by Gary Dumm © Abrams ComicArts, 2020.