A Man Among Ye #1
Publisher: Image
Story: Stephanie Phillips
Pencils: Craig Cermak
Inks: Craig Cermak
Colors: Brittany Pezzillo
Letters: Troy Peteri
Covers: Craig Cermak, Stjepan Sejik
An historical-fiction comic of high adventure with a bit of a twist, the first issue of A Man Among Ye goes on sales this Wednesday, June 17th. It’s a fast-paced story full of colorful cinematic layouts and equally colorful pirate characters. The pirates featured herein aren’t the sanitized scoundrels with a heart of gold, ala Disney’s Captain Jack Sparrow, but rather the violent, cruel, and arguably more fascinating characters from real history.
As a child, I loved the Pirates of the Caribbean ride as Disneyland, and I was always fascinated by the portraits of different pirate characters painted on the walls as guests entered the ride: Ned Low, Charles Gibbs, Sir Henry Mainwaring, Francis Verney, and, almost hidden unless you happened to look over your shoulder as you entered, two female characters, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. It was only later that I learned all of these characters, including the two women, were notorious historical pirates.
The first issue of A Man Among Ye jumps immediately into the action, featuring a battle between a pirate crew and English sailors and marines. The main characters of his battle are a striking red-headed woman, Anne Bonny, and her captain, John “Calico Jack” Rackham, both pirates, who violently wield pistol and cutlass as they lead their crew to take over the opposing ship and steal its treasure.
Cermak uses a variety of clever layout techniques throughout the issue, most notably during these opening scenes. The first page features no panels at all; the entire page is devoted to showing the two ships side-by-side, sails billowing in the wind while cannons fire at close range, and smoke pours skyward from the smaller English ship. While the ships are the main focus of this scene, by utilizing the entire page, Cernak is able to depict the wide expanse of the ocean surrounding the two vessels. It’s clear that the ships are alone out here on the sea, and no one will be coming to the rescue of the beleaguered English crew.
This opening shot is followed by a series of wide panels that span the width of the page, giving them an almost film-like quality that propels the action forward in a series of violent confrontations between the two crews. This is then followed by a hero shot of Anny Bonny, high above the action on the ship’s rigging, larger than life, pointing a pistol almost directly at the reader, with a huge grin on her face. She’s not only a capable pirate, sailor, and fighter, but she clearly loves it. By contrast, the panel that introduces the captain of the ship, John Rackham, is a wide shot featuring a variety of both pirates and English sailors dueling together. Rackham might be the captain, but the panel layouts show clearly that Bonny is the main character and hero (or, more appropriately, anti-hero) of the story.
Pezzillo’s coloring also deserves mention, which give Cermak’s art an almost painterly-like quality. The colors are bright, adding to the romanticized depiction piracy in the 1720’s, but the shading adds a huge amount of depth, and is almost exaggerated at times, adding a layer of foreboding to certain scenes. In particular, during the introduction of English governor of the Bahamas, Rogers, his face is often depicted half in shadow, but this technique is not used on any other character in this issue.
The remainder of the issue is mainly given over toward establishing broad-strokes character traits for Bonny, Rackham, and a few of the other crew members, setting up a future conflict Governor Rogers, and introducing a surprise character at the end who stows away on Rackham’s ship after swimming to safety following the burning and sinking of the English ship in the opening scenes. Things move fast during this past of the story, but that’s to be expected, as the main focus of the overall series would appear to be the partnership between Bonny and Read, and exploring the lives of these two infamous female pirates in a world and “career” dominated by men, most of whom viewed having a woman onboard ship to be bad luck.
While actual records do exist regarding both Bonny’s and Read’s time as pirates with Rackham, the records are scant, allowing Phillips leeway with depicting and embellishing the characters. Of note in A Man Among Ye is that the crew of Rackham’s ship all know Bonny is a woman, whereas most historical records seem to indicate she kept her sex hidden from everyone but Rackham. This change, while not necessarily historically accurate, does make for a better story, allowing Bonny to succeed and advance her career even though she’s the only woman aboard an all-male crew. Phillips portrays Bonny as smart, clever, and skilled, outwitting and outfighting several of Rackham’s less capable crew members who resent a woman giving them orders.
Historically, Bonny’s and Read’s time as pirates was successful, but quite short-lived. The opening scene of A Man Among Ye indicates that that the year is 1720; it was in either October or November of that same year that Rackham and his crew were attacked and defeated by a ship under the commission of the Governor of Jamaica. Rackham, Bonny, and Read were all captured and sentenced to hang, but Bonny and Read, due to “extenuating circumstances” were given a short reprieve. While Read’s fate is known, historically it is never reported what happened to Bonny after this point.
The first trade collection for this series has been solicited and contains the first four issues. It will be interesting to see after the first arc if the series continues and whether Phillips chooses to continue embellishing Bonny’s pirate career or sticks closer to the historical, and less fun, records.
A Man Among Ye is rated T+ and has some violent scenes, including a man being burned alive, and other men being shot in the head or stabbed with swords.
Martin Thomas
martin@comicattack.net
