Would you let them raise a baby?



Me neither. This is not going to end well. (I waver on this one. Art? Not my fave. But that ending? Man. Bleak. I love bleak. And I love the damned pirates grappling with the obvious existence of God and His very harsh mercy.) Another one for the 'looks like it is for kids but it is so very not' pile.
( )

This is a slightly (ok, quite disturbingly) creepy graphic novel of a ship of dead skeletal pirates who plunder and wreak havoc on passing ships. One day, after the usual devastation, they find themselves in charge of an orphaned baby boy. They agree to rear him until his First Communion and then slay him to have a dead little cabin boy, but soon they find themselves taking care of him, playing with him, and after a crisis of conscience, deciding to return the boy to the land of the living. But the boy only knows death and dead pirates and does not want to part with the only family he knows. This story is not for the faint of heart or for young children. ( )

This graphic novel is quite clever..a little boy/toddler baby is taken hostage and raised by a bunch of dead pirates who plan to kill him when he's old enough for them to have fun with the whole thing. Meanwhile, the little boy grows up wanting to be dead because that's all he really knows is these dead, and oddly religious, pirates.


It's a creative idea but David B did a much better job with his novel Epileptic. This is quite whimsical in it's fantastical nature and I enjoyed it quite a bit but it's too short and you never know how the little pirate king boy ends up...it's too open ended for me and I could have used another 100 pages to make it more richly satisfying. ( )

The undead and cursed pirates aboard The Flying Dutchman cannot eat, drink, indulge in any pleasure, or die. They sail the seas, plundering any vessel that crosses their path and murdering all who inhabit the ship out of boredom and despair. They try to dash their boat on craggy reefs or get swallowed by tentacled leviathans to end their miserable existences, but to no avail. Then, as fate should have it, a small baby boy is pulled on deck from a shipwreck and after much discussion, the pirates intend to raise him to the age of ten and then kill him, cementing his doom aboard the Dutchman for eternity and granting the cursed pirates a cabin boy to do their bidding. But as the boy grows, the pirates come to love him. Will they be able to complete the task and keep the boy forever? David B. Pierre’s “The Littlest Pirate King” starts out dressed up as a Pirates-of-the-Caribbean-rip-off, but takes a turn when the scallywags acquire the young boy. The storyline, however bizarre, grows on the reader, but disappoints again in the end, where the story is dropped abruptly. Pierre Mac Orlan’s illustrations have the dark, drab coloring of most “Bande Dessinee” comics, which would lend to the overall mood of the plot, but his skeletons look less like undead hellions and more like a children’s rendition of El Dia de los Muertos masks and idols. Word balloons are too large and seem used to give the illustrator a break. The plot refers to sex, murder, and suicide. For ages 15-18. ( )

The Littlest Pirate King is a slight but entertaining work, featuring a short fable of a story paired up with David B's excellent comic artwork. It's a quick read and nothing deep, but (as always) David B's illustrations are so wonderful and rich that the book is well worth a read (or two). ( )