# Preview: By Water: The Felix Manz Story

> Plough Publishing House’s new graphic novel By Water: The Felix Manz Story evokes a little-known chapter in the history of Europe’s Reformation.

By Jonathan Foye · 22 March 2023 · News

Canonical: https://insights1.uca.org.au/articles/preview-by-water-the-felix-manz-story/

Plough Publishing House’s new graphic novel *By Water: The Felix Manz Story* evokes a little-known chapter in the history of Europe’s Reformation.

Written by Jason Landsel and featuring art by Sankha Banerjee, *By Water* tells the story of a small group of people standing against the political and religious leaders of their day.

Felix Manz was the son of a Catholic priest who became an unlikely leader and ultimately the very first martyr of the Radical Reformation.

*By Water* chronicles the real life conflict between Felix Manz and his mentor, the establishment reformer Ulrich Zwingli. Manz revered Zwingli as a father figure, but ended up being drowned on Zwingli’s orders for insisting that only believers should be baptised.

It is the first in a trilogy that tells the story of radicals from the Reformation period who tried to build an alternative society inspired by Gutenberg’s Bible and Thomas More’s *Utopia.*

Below is an excerpt from By Water, which is now [**available online.**](https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/anabaptists/by-water)

![](https://www.insights.uca.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/p-50-1024x1024.jpg)

![](https://www.insights.uca.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/p-51-1024x1024.jpg)

![](https://www.insights.uca.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/p-52-1024x1024.jpg)

![](https://www.insights.uca.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/p-53-1024x1024.jpg)

![](https://insights1.uca.org.au/media/tcyhibx5/p-54-1024x1024.jpg)

*By Water: The Felix Manz Story is published by Plough Publishing House and available online **[here](https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/anabaptists/by-water)**. The graphic novel will be followed by subsequent volumes, By Fire and By Sword.*