Cincinnati Magazine
December 14, 2020
Cincinnati processes more than one billion gallons of wastewater every day through more than 10 thousand miles of pipeline. These pipes are woven together like tree roots just beneath our feet. Sewers are essential to our daily lives, yet seldom seen and rarely discussed.
Illustration courtesy of MeSseD Comics
This âignorant dependenceâ is what inspired Jay B. Kalagayan to create the comic book series
MeSseD, whose third installment dropped December 9.
MeSseD tells the story of Lilliput, a Filipino filter workerâor âflusherââwho monitors the Metropolitan Sewer Districtâs (MSD) labyrinthine network of underground pipes, âthe Roots,â with her pet rat Akka. The Roots are home to a delightful array of skittery creatures: gigantic man-eating tubifex worms, forests of fungi, talking insects, a tribe of Allicrocs (alligator-crocodile hybrids), and bacterial colonies known as filaments. Lilliput is als