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Note: This is spoiler free, however it's also long, ranty and I kinda descend into madness.
Me before reading: A graphic novel about a pirate queen and VENGEANCE? What's not to like!
Me after reading: “Welcome to the sea of disappointment.”
So what went wrong? Well, I've separated my complaints into two categories, “legit problems” and “I'm feeling petty today.”
Legit problems:
1)The use of many words in different languages with no translations (including some French, Spanish, and Dutch). Some of these are simple words that a lot of people would know like: “oui”, however most of them aren't. Sometimes there will be entire short sentences in French, and really, who wants to use a translator and interrupt their reading?
2)Freed slaves were common among pirates, and later in the book some ex-slaves join the crew. Nothing wrong with that, until one of the white crew members (who is blind) calls them “Heathen savages”. And I'm just like: “Don't you just love when one marginalized group makes fun of another marginalized group?” Then the lady captain just continues the conversation like nothing happened, she doesn't tell him that's rude or not to say that... she just ignores it. Obviously people were SUPER racist back in 1687, but one would hope that these two people from marginalized groups of the time (a blind man and a woman) would not be assholes to other minorities.
3)The characters are very one dimensional and I can't name consistent traits for any of them.
4)The plot is very by the numbers and predictable.
5)A male captain seems surprised at the idea of a lady pirate, which makes no sense as they were actually decently common.
I'm Feeling Petty Today:
1)Remember the racist blind man? That's not actually established until about a ⅓ of the way through the book, and even then it's in a throwaway bit of dialogue that's real easy to miss. From a writing perspective, it should have been established WAAYYYY earlier, say when they introduced the character. His opening line shouldn't be “yo I'm blind BTW” but it still needs to be introduced.
2)Some of the characters have a strange tendency to speak in rhyme of occasion-and it reminded me of something...
2.5)This one dude when dying says, “She's killed me lads!” and I was reminded of how in Shakespeare plays people talk in rhyme and say “Oh dear, I'm dead now.” when killed. Then I got pissed at all my english teachers for making me read Shakespeare, and at this book for reminding me of that dark place.
3)So thanks to the little monologue bit at the start we know this story starts on December 10th 1687. That wouldn't annoy me if the little expository spiel at the beginning didn't say: “these are the final days of the Golden age of Piracy.” If by “final days” you mean the next 15, 351 days (or 42 years + the last 21 days of December) since the Golden age of Piracy actually ended in the 1730's.
4)There's a sentence during that exposition that goes like this: “Villainous craft (being the pirate ships) crewed by traitors, deserters, thieves, freed slaves, and worse...” I know it's probably not the intention, but by putting freed slaves as the last on that list, it seems like they're trying to make them look worse than the others. “Freed slaves! Ah yes, truly the worst humanity has to offer.”
5)AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST. Since this comic series was cancelled before it had a chance to finish it's story we're left with several cliffhangers, will Lady Sin get her revenge? Will (oh wait, that's a spoiler)? And will (maybe I should stop)? BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, the last line of the book is: “Do you by chance, speak Latin?” AND WE WILL NEVER GET TO KNOW IF HARRY SPEAKS LATIN. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING AND I NEED TO KNOW. #DoesCapnHarrySpeakLatin?
(This is where is gets vaguely not really spoilery, and I've given up and am just shouting into the void)
1)Just replace Batman with Lady Sin, “WHY DOESN'T BATMAN JUST KILL THE CRIMINALS HE CATCHES? THEY JUST SWEAR VENGEANCE AND BREAK OUT AND KILL MORE PEOPLE.”
2)A genuine reaction from me, “Wait, why does the governor hold his finger under his nose like he's drawn a mustache on it? If it smells bad in the prison that's not going to help...maybe he just needs to sneeze...”
3)A quote from Lady Sin: “We must needs go ashore.” AH YES I CAN PROPER ENGLISH
To conclude, this is kind of fun bad if you're making jokes with it, if it had kept running I would have given it a second chance even with this rocky start, MOSTLY BECAUSE I WANT TO KNOW IF CAPTAIN HARRY SPEAKS LATIN. (Mostly joking there...mostly.)
