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ealgyldenApparently Crossgen Comics (motto- "Don't drink Mark Alessi's Kool-Aid". I kid, I'm sure they're not really a cult. Honest!) is going to be producing a "high seas pirate adventure" comic. The release date is "this Fall" (thanks, guys) and the only art I've seen is the itty-bitty cover-type pic seen here. The title will be El Cazador (incidentally the name of a real life Spanish Brigantine that wrecked off the coast of Louisiana in 17-I-forget), and it looks like the creative team will be Chuck Dixon, a big-name (usually) DC writer and Steve Epting, who has been pencilling Crossgen's Crux. I'm not really a Dixon fan, and I don't know Epting's work, but come on, it's pirates! I'll have to give it a try. And from the itty-bitty pic, it looks like it might have a lady pirate character, or at least a man with long hair and delicate hands and wrists.
Crossgen is somewhat notorious for having gorgeous art and really slow-moving stories, but one thing they're good at is coopting and reviving a variety of genres from books, movies and older comics. Their core titles are generally fantasy (Meridian, Sojourn, Scion, etc) or scifi (Crux, Negation, Sigil, etc), but they also have titles classed as horror (Route 666), detective stories (Ruse), sword-and-sorcery/barbarian epic (Brath), kung fu/martial arts (Way of the Rat), samurai legend (The Path), and now pirates. All they need is a western and maybe a romance, and they'll have all the classic Boys' (and Girls') Own genres. It's nice to see some variety on the shelves. In full color, no less, to balance all those B&W indie books I read.
I wonder why pirates aren't more popular these days. Conventional wisdom seems to hold that Pirates of the Caribbean will sink, since the last pirate movie to make money probably starred Errol Flynn or Tyrone Power. I'd think in this case that all the hoards of Orli fans would be good insurance (not to discount the Johnny Depp factor), but really, why wouldn't the pirates themselves be enough? Are people today too jaded for the Scourges of the Seven Seas? Are beringed buccaneers too easily linked to romance novels stocked by the grocery checkout line? Does the Black Spot hold no creepy chills? Seriously, I'm a sucker for pirates, both the romantic and louse-free fictional ones and their meaner, scuzzier historical cousins, and it seems sad to me that a new pirate-themed movie, comic, miniseries or whatever would be faced with a world that expects only hokum and trash. Poor pirates. I hope their time hasn’t passed. It hasn’t in my book.
Crossgen is somewhat notorious for having gorgeous art and really slow-moving stories, but one thing they're good at is coopting and reviving a variety of genres from books, movies and older comics. Their core titles are generally fantasy (Meridian, Sojourn, Scion, etc) or scifi (Crux, Negation, Sigil, etc), but they also have titles classed as horror (Route 666), detective stories (Ruse), sword-and-sorcery/barbarian epic (Brath), kung fu/martial arts (Way of the Rat), samurai legend (The Path), and now pirates. All they need is a western and maybe a romance, and they'll have all the classic Boys' (and Girls') Own genres. It's nice to see some variety on the shelves. In full color, no less, to balance all those B&W indie books I read.
I wonder why pirates aren't more popular these days. Conventional wisdom seems to hold that Pirates of the Caribbean will sink, since the last pirate movie to make money probably starred Errol Flynn or Tyrone Power. I'd think in this case that all the hoards of Orli fans would be good insurance (not to discount the Johnny Depp factor), but really, why wouldn't the pirates themselves be enough? Are people today too jaded for the Scourges of the Seven Seas? Are beringed buccaneers too easily linked to romance novels stocked by the grocery checkout line? Does the Black Spot hold no creepy chills? Seriously, I'm a sucker for pirates, both the romantic and louse-free fictional ones and their meaner, scuzzier historical cousins, and it seems sad to me that a new pirate-themed movie, comic, miniseries or whatever would be faced with a world that expects only hokum and trash. Poor pirates. I hope their time hasn’t passed. It hasn’t in my book.
