Despite accounting for 70% of the surface of the Earth, water is nowhere near as ubiquitous in post-Apocalyptic fiction as, say, zombies or nuclear holocaust or the sun going mental. I know J. G. Ballard had a go with 'The Drowned World', and we got to see Kevin Costner tooling about in a dieselpunk catamaran in 'Waterworld', breathing through his neck and merrily quaffing his own wee. Robbie Morrison (writer of 2000AD's excellent 'Nikolai Dante') and Jim Murray (who provided artwork for Simon Pegg's character in 'Spaced') bring their own vision of the soggy shape of things to come, with 'Drowntown', a futuristic gumshoe-'em-up set in a London around which the sea levels have risen, making it look like a cross between Venice and 'Blade Runner'. Actually, the post-Apocalyptic hat doesn't really fit the world of 'Drowntown'; the seas have risen, yes, but not catastrophically so. If you lived in a first floor flat in the world of 'Drowntown', the worst you'd have to contend with would be the odd patch of rising damp. The rich and powerful (displaying the characteristic survival instinct that'd have a captain of industry on the Titanic blithely karate-chopping a septugenarian nun in the windpipe for her spot in the lifeboats) have bagsied all the highest ground and the damp proletarian masses have to make do with submerged, nominally-watertight social housing. Page one introduces us to Leo Noiret, a lugubrious, down-at-heel PI who looks like a cross between Jean Reno and a walk-in wardrobe wrapped in a parade of surprisingly-tasteful Hawaiian shirts. He strolls though his storyline like a cross between Philip Marlowe and The Dude from 'The Big Lebowski', sporting the kind of arm muscles that would make Popeye look like Oscar Wilde by comparison. Leo's been hired by Alexandria Bastet, a mysterious dame who's forged most of Africa into an alliance that now rivals the U.S.A and China in the old global superpower stakes, which is impressive given that she has no idea who she is, which is why she's hiring Leo to find out. Ironically, I don't remember why. That's not all 'Drowntown' has to offer, though; there are two interwoven story strands, set 17 years apart, and it ratchets backwards and forwards between them like a dipsomaniac Time Lord. The other, older storyline stars Gina, who runs the 'Drowntown' equivalent of a motorcycle courier service, only with a rocket-powered jetski serving as a bike. Too often in works of fiction, the 'Female owner of struggling business' character trait is paired with the 'hard-working single mother' one, but that isn't Gina. She's more like a gender-swapped Han Solo, a cheeky chancer with a nice balance between worldly cynicism and youthful hopefulness, who catches the eye of someone miles above their social station. In Gina's case, it's Viktor Drakenberg, a handsome society heir who looks like Bruce Wayne, but then don't they all? He's clearly up to no good. In fact I might go so far as to speculate that he might be a Cad and a Rotter. It's got a great supporting cast, including a load of bio-engineered animal people who look like they've wandered onto the wrong soundstage on their way to the set of 'Grandville'. The number of Noir detective stories that feature the protagonist being beaten up by a monkey and a panda are depressingly few in number. Robbie Morrison has always had a masterful flair for writing characters, and that really shines throughout 'Drowntown', as does Jim Murray's gorgeous oil-painting-effect artwork (that might actually be oil painting now that I think about it). I spent about ten minutes just taking in the insane amount of detail in the first panel of page one, a head-and-shoulders shot of Leo. About five of those minutes involved counting individual chest hairs. I even thought for a moment that Jim Murray had gone insane and drawn individual pores on the character's skin until I realised I'd focused too far in and was looking at the dots that made up the image. 'Drowntown' is a must-read for fans of great comics, and is undoubtedly going to be regarded as one of the jewels of British comicdom when it's done. I'd put money on there being a film and/or video game adaptation at some point, so take this opportunity to get in on the ground floor. Just be sure to bring a snorkel.