Under the Banner of King Death—a graphic novel about the Atlantic Pirates

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atlantic pirates, book review, david lester, graphic novel, indie, Indie Comics, marcus rediker, paul buhle, piracy, pirates

Under the Banner of King Death is a recent graphic-novel adaptation of one of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors: Villains of All Nations by Marcus Rediker. It takes a few liberties with history but conveys the primary themes of the source material: namely, that Atlantic piracy of the 1600s and 1700s was a labor revolt against intolerable conditions for the working sailor, that the ruling class would rather hang revolutionaries by the neck until they are dead than give up one cent of profit, and that the pirates formed their own democratic, multicultural societies while having no illusions that their pursuit of freedom would not result in their deaths.

Rediker’s introduction to the tale summarizes these main points from his own book—one of many of his works that give greater insights into the values, lives, and torturous working conditions of these historical sailors who were horrifically abused by naval commanders and experienced first-hand the deplorable conditions of the Atlantic slave trade. The afterword by Paul Buhle discusses the depiction of pirates in popular fiction, and I was pleased to see it give several shouts-out to the EC Comics series Piracy I recently reviewed.

Between those pages lies some adventurous artwork that might be too scratchy for mainstream tastes but succeeds in conveying the brutality of the pirates’ lives. David Lester employs a number of techniques to de-glamorize every aspect of piracy that has been “Disney-fied” over the years. For example, he will take an act of violence that could be presented in one panel, but cut the panel into pieces so there’s no way we could think it looks “cool” or “awesome”. Even when he uses traditional panels, they often overlap so that foreground and background bleed into each other, despite panel borders.

The result is a tale that captures both the misery and the nobility of raging against the machine in an age of corporate tyranny where labor is utterly de-valued and profit reigns supreme—an age that in many ways remains unchanged.

My only problem with the tale is its inaccuracies in depicting the life of Mary Read. From all historical accounts, she was indeed a fighter and brawler and one hell of a pirate. Although this story borrows details from her life, she is heavily fictionalized to serve the narrative’s purpose. Her true story is fascinating enough without being substantially altered, and I don’t know why Rediker allowed this adaptation to take such great liberties when his books are noteworthy for their historically accurate accounts.

Still, despite its fictionalization of documented events, Under the Banner of King Death captures the spirit of piracy and the central ideas that Rediker’s books on the subject illuminate in greater detail. As an adaptation, it does a remarkable job of bringing the realities of Atlantic piracy to life.

To a merry life.

Collector’s Guide: This graphic novel is currently available in print at MyComicShop and in print and digital on Amazon

EC Comics: Sagas of the Sea, Ships, Plunder, and PIRACY!

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atlantic pirates, atlantic slave trade, bernard krigstein, book review, crime, EC Comics, EC Comics reprints, piracy, pirates, Wally Wood

Despite my long-standing affection for EC Comics, I was unaware of their pirate stories until I recently read the massive, epic, hardcover tome The Life and Legend of Wallace Wood, Volume 1. Wallace—who apparently hated the nickname “Wally” and preferred for his friends to call him “Woody”—drew two stories for EC’s seven-issue pirate series. Its full title is Sagas of the Sea, Ships, Plunder, and PIRACY!

The title is apropos because not all the stories are about the classic Atlantic Pirates. The gritty tale Nazi U-Boat, for example, features artwork by the legendary Bernard Krigstein, and The Dive depicts a modern man on an ill-advised mission to find a galleon with sunken treasure. Some stories involve the Atlantic slave trade, complete with EC’s editorial insistence on exposing the evils of racism.

By destroying others, you will destroy yourselves!

The result is a spicy mix of seafaring murder and mayhem, mutinies, miscarriages of justice, beatings, bashings, bloodshed, and brutality. On the first page of the first issue, EC’s introduction makes it crystal-clear that these aren’t cuddly, romanticized, Disney-style tales where pirates are glamorous, good-hearted heroes. These adventures are down-and-dirty explorations of dastardly deeds and the depraved depths of an ocean much darker than the sea itself: man’s inhumanity to man. PIRACY promises to present pirates as they really were.

Well, hell yeah, baby! Sign me up! That’s my kind of story!

Man’s inhumanity to man! ‘Tis a sickenin’ and frightenin’ thing!

The collected PIRACY does a damn good job of delivering on that initial promise. The hyper-dramatic prose is among the best I’ve read from EC’s writers, and what stylistic quibbles I have with it as an editor are more than made up for by combining it with consistently awesome artwork. You can get away with a bit too much “telling” in prose when it is married to pictures that do the heavy lifting of “showing”. And even though long-time fans of EC will be able to predict some of the “shock” endings of EC’s often-imitated, last-minute twists, there were many final moments I did not see coming.

Thousands of starving rats!

But as relentlessly unforgiving as these stories tend to be, do they truly show us pirates “as they really were”? The answer is: sometimes. The cliché of “walking the plank” is trotted out several times, but that trope has been discredited in scholarly works such as David Cordingly’s Under the Black Flag.

And the story featuring both Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet is a complete fabrication that absolutely butchers the historical record. Stede Bonnet, whose tale is told at length in the General History of the Pyrates, was a rare exception to a statement I made a couple of years ago: “No one rich ever became a pirate.” The main detail EC got right about Stede is that he was a fairly well-to-do guy who just thought being a pirate would be fun or something. Every other aspect of his collaboration with Blackbeard and eventual death is, in the EC version, totally wrong. The EC version of Jean Laffite is also mostly imaginary, especially regarding the end of his life, despite referencing a few historical events and places.

The decks surged with the violence of combat!

One other curious thing. Despite the gory prose, the illustrations are completely bloodless. People constantly get shot, stabbed, crushed to death, and subjected to all forms of physical horrors, but the illustrations avoid depicting any blood. It’s an odd choice, and not one I understand. Perhaps even EC needed to draw some kind of line to avoid the censorship that would eventually snuff out the company’s life anyway.

The blood-crazed plunderers leaped aboard!

These minor shortcomings in depicting the reality of the classical pirates’ lives don’t make the PIRACY series any less enthralling. The collected volume presents captivating tales of triumph and tragedy with thoughtfully reconstructed colors, and the ebook version will let you zoom in panel-by-panel for a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience.

Collector’s Guide: The print version is currently going for around $100, but you can easily get the digital collection for $14. Hardcore pirates can try collecting the hard-to-find original single issues or plunder the more-often in-stock Gemstone reprints.

The hot lust of greed for comics!

library of female pirates: villains of all nations

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atlantic pirates, atlantic slave trade, book review, caribbean pirates, labor, library of female pirates, marcus rediker, pirates, rebellion, villains of all nations

Marcus Rediker’s Villains of All Nations dedicates a chapter to female pirates. Though his account of Read & Bonny covers familiar factual ground, Rediker adds his thoughts on gender roles of the day, and their relation to the pirate way of life. He writes of other women at sea, for comparison, and analyzes how artwork depicting a female pirate in the frontspiece of Johnson’s General History may have influenced the painting Liberty Leading the People.

On the subject of the Atlantic pirates in general, Rediker examines the working conditions of sailors in those days, and how piracy was a rebellion of oppressed laborers. Rediker is no stranger to the horrors suffered on ships back then. I studied his book on the Atlantic slave trade, and he painted a grim picture of life at sea for not only the captured slaves but for the sailors hired to transport them. Villains of All Nations briefly touches on this slave trade and how the 1720s crackdown on piracy was influenced by pressure to keep slave trade routes open and profitable.

Rediker’s narrative clearly sympathizes with the Atlantic pirates for liberating themselves from intolerable working conditions, and he openly criticizes government campaigns of propaganda and public hangings used to deter piracy. He details the code of collective self-government pirate crews adopted, but he does not unilaterally glamorize them. He does not shy away from their cruelties, nor their increasingly unconscionable violence as the crackdown turned against them.

But in giving a clear picture of the harsh living conditions which compelled them to rise up and resist captains and empires, to form their own multi-ethnic and independent societies, Rediker provides a unique insight into the decision to go “on the account” and become a “man of fortune” in the 1700s. The book is scholarly but never boring, and much of it could be read as the makings of a manifesto in an age where millions of laborers continue to suffer in oppressive conditions around the world.

The Atlantic pirates may not have been the romantic heroes portrayed in theater and fiction, but many of the justifications for their rebellion echo ideas we now consider noble or even take for granted: self-determination, reasonable working conditions, respect for diversity, and a voice in our governments.

 Villains of All Nations is available on Amazon.