Comics with a Cause: The Superhero Strategy for Retention by Rachael Connors

This Issue’s Table of Contents
category: Industry News (7 min read)

What started as a single comic concept designed to reinforce diver education has since grown into Oceanic Comics.

by Rachael Connors, Co-Owner, American Dive Zone, MI

In 2024, Rachael & Michael bought a dive shop in Kentwood, MI. Not inherited. Not franchised. Bought it. This is their story.

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IT’S A BIRD, IT’S A PLANE – no, wait… it’s DIVE MAN! Dive Man is coming to DEMA Show 2026, and he’s bringing his superhero crew: Wave Woman, Captain ADZ, Guppie, and Reef Guardian. Their mission? Help dive professionals educate, recruit, and retain divers through something unexpected: a comic book.

Breathing underwater isn’t something humans are built to do, which makes every certified diver a little bit superhuman. As dive industry professionals, we have the privilege of teaching people how to unlock that superpower and explore a world most people never see.

We’re in a service industry where education is fundamental to skill development and safety. So why not bring in some superheroes with familiar faces and memorable stories, to help divers retain what they learn in a way that is fun, unique and engaging? Here’s where Dive Man’s story begins.

Dive Man’s Origin Story

Dive Man is the brainchild of Richard “Rick” Hert, a scuba instructor at American Dive Zone in the Grand Rapids area of Michigan. In May 2026, after the tragic Maldives cave-diving incident claimed the lives of five visiting divers, Rick came into our shop deeply affected by the news.

How could a dive end so tragically? He couldn’t stop thinking about his own students and began looking for a memorable way to reinforce one of diving’s most important lessons: respect your training, respect the environment… and know your limits.

That idea became Dive Man.

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What started as a single comic concept designed to reinforce diver education has since grown into Oceanic Comics, the umbrella brand behind Dive Man and an expanding crew of scuba superheroes. Dive Man teaches safety and good diving practices. Wave Woman uses communication to connect divers with one another and the ocean.

Captain ADZ brings experience and education to the adventure. Reef Guardian champions healthy oceans and conservation. And Guppie,

Dive Man’s young sidekick, represents the next generation of divers; curious, enthusiastic, and learning one skill at a time. Together, they’re helping us explore how comics can give dive professionals another tool to educate, recruit, and retain divers.

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Educate

Oceanic Comics is designed to be agency neutral, with a focus on reinforcing core training principles rather than replacing professional instruction. The comics can serve as a congratulatory gift that instructors and dive shops give students after certification, something tangible that reinforces what they learned while getting them excited about where their diving journey can go next.

Dive Man and his crew tackle subjects such as buoyancy, navigation, wreck diving, gas awareness, underwater communication, dive lights, equipment, conservation, dive travel, and knowing your dive limits. The format allows serious concepts to be presented in an approachable way. A diver may forget a paragraph from a training manual months later, but remembering Dive Man standing outside a wreck saying, “Know your limits,” is a different kind of learning reinforcement.

Beyond skills, the comics also introduce divers to the larger diving lifestyle: continuing education, purchasing and maintaining appropriate equipment, supporting their local dive shop, finding dive buddies, traveling, and exploring new environments. The goal is simple: keep divers learning and keep them excited about diving.

Recruit

For prospective students on the fence, the comics reframe scuba diving as a journey with a story, not just a certification card. The books have opened up conversations with “just browsing” customers in ways that a printed flyer never could. We even set up a couch at the front of the store, in view of the whole sales floor, and placed Oceanic Comics right on the couch cushions. Browsers, parents, or friends waiting for a student’s rental appointment have to pick one up just to sit down. Once they pick it up, they never put it down.

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Retain

What began as an educational idea quickly became a way to solve one of our industry’s biggest challenges: retention. American Dive Zone has spent very little on marketing to get people in the door. Much of our business has grown organically through social media, Google reviews, referrals, and community engagement.

However, we began to notice something familiar to many dive professionals: students complete their Open Water certification, celebrate the accomplishment, and then life gets in the way. They move on to another hobby or simply become too busy to dive. We wanted to change the perception of scuba diving from something you “complete” into something that can become part of your life.

There is always another skill to learn, another local dive to make, another piece of equipment to understand, another destination to explore and another group of divers to meet. This comic book series gives us another way to tell that story. It encourages students to continue growing in their training, participate in local diving, travel with other divers, and remain connected to their dive community.

Put Your Dive Business in the Story

Oceanic Comics is also developing custom editions for dive shops, instructors, training programs, travel operators, conservation organizations, and others in the dive industry who want to be part of the story.

A custom edition can incorporate a dive shop’s people, logo, educational messages, destinations, courses, QR codes, staff members, even a shop mascot, into a comic book your customers will want to read, share and keep. You can even personalize the superhero concept itself: imagine you or your staff becoming Dive Man or Wave Woman. A shop could use a comic to launch an upcoming trip. A conservation organization could use a superhero to teach divers how to treat the underwater world with respect. Instead of handing someone another brochure, you can hand them a story.

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Why Should You Come to the DEMA Session?

This is more than a comic book series, it’s is an experiment in using storytelling, characters, humor, education, and good old-fashioned printed material to create stronger connections between divers and the businesses and professionals who serve them.

At DEMA, we’ll look at practical ways dive businesses can incorporate comics into their own strategies: how to display, promote, bundle, customize, advertise, give away, and sell the books, and how a comic can become part of the relationship between a dive professional and a diver long after a course is over.

The session is designed for dive retailers, instructors, training professionals, travel operators, conservation organizations, dive gear manufacturers, and anyone looking for a fresh, tangible approach to diver education, engagement, and retention.

Our session is sponsored by Shelli Hendricks of Blue Horizon Solutions. Shelli discovered Rick’s comics and saw how the concept aligned with Blue Horizon Solutions’ mission to learn, lead, and leave a legacy.

We are grateful for her support and excited to introduce Dive Man, Wave Woman, Captain ADZ, Guppie, Reef Guardian, and the Oceanic Comics concept to the dive industry.

Stop by booth #716 and join our Exhibitor Sponsored Session on Friday, Nov. 6th at 11:00 a.m. for Comics with a Cause: The Superhero Strategy for Diver Education, Recruitment, and Retention.

Come meet the superheroes, see the comics, and discover how your dive business can become part of the story. Publisher’s note: Rachael and Michael have written many articles about their adventures of buying a dive shop and lifestyle change that ensued. Look for the article Index and enjoy many of their past articles!