How Evie Wyld, the prize-winning novelist ( ; ), and Joe Sumner, the model-maker and illustrator, found each other is a mystery. Irrespective, theirs is a partnership made in heaven. In , an evocative graphic memoir about Wyld's shark-infested childhood, words and pictures are in perfect harmony.

Sumner works in a mostly monochrome palette, but one that is frequently splashed with the crimson of blood. It's while visiting Australian relatives on the coast of New South Wales that Wyld first falls for all things shark. Her obsession begins with her uncle's fishing stories, but tips into something more passionate when, aged six, she stumbles on a book called . Inside is an account - plus gruesome photographs - of the injuries sustained in 1963 by filmmaker and conservationist Rodney Fox, whose body was ripped open by a great white while he was spear-fishing (miraculously, he survived). First, she takes in the "impossible red sausages" of his guts in a "before" photograph. Then she absorbs the semi-circle of horsehair stitches that form a "cartoon apple bite" in an "after" shot. Finally, she looks at Fox's face: "an expression that said it was just fine".