"Dirty Is Only Skin Deep" is a comic book that takes place in Book Two: Earth, originally released by Nick Magazine. It was later recycled for Free Comic Book Day 2011, then was finally re-released by Dark Horse Comics in Avatar: The Last Airbender — The Lost Adventures.
While bathing herself and cleaning her clothes in a lagoon with Aang and Sokka, Katara offers for Toph, who is stomping around in the dirt and singing to Momo, to join them in the water. Despite criticism from Sokka, Toph insists that having the dirt cover her is beneficial to her earthbending. Katara responds by pulling Toph along herself into the water, but the earthbender refuses. In a last-ditch effort, Katara carries Toph into the air with her waterbending and drops her into the lagoon. However, Toph no longer protests as she had before and instead flails in the shallow water, believing that she is drowning. Pitifully, Katara parts the water so that Toph will end her anxiety attack. Falling into the mud that lay at the bottom of the lagoon, dirt flies onto the clothes that Team Avatar just cleaned as well as Toph's friends. Although Aang tries to infuse humor by mentioning their "protective layers of earth", Sokka mentions how the Fire Nation won't be deterred by mud in their eyes.
This comic was originally released in Nickelodeon Magazine, but was later re-released in 2011 in honor of Free Comic Book Day. It was one of the first in a new collaboration between Dark Horse Comics and the Avatar: The Last Airbender team, which eventually led to a new comic series, The Promise, detailing the characters' lives after the Hundred Year War.
Edit
