Teenage Pandora specifically bonds with Maltese, offering an unlikely and unrealized romantic tone to the adventure, one throwback to another era that is admittedly outdated and possibly offensive to some modern readers. Maltese might be a brigand, but he’s a well-humored and honorable one who has earned the respect other sea-faring types, but most of all, the victims of a ransom scheme that he’s embroiled in - the rich Groovesnore cousins, Cain and Pandora. Perhaps that’s what makes their connection an in-joke - they both work for a mysterious smuggler who actually goes by the name The Monk. When we meet Maltese in this book, he is a scurrilous pirate in the Pacific seas of pre World War I, rescued from a sure death onboard a floating raft by his apparently permanent foil, Rasputin, another pirate who greatly resembles the monk of the same name. In chronological terms, The Ballad of the Salty Sea is the second in Pratt’s Corto Maltese series. I took a look at this new edition of The Ballad of the Salty Sea to find out for myself and I’m pleased to say that the reports are correct. By all accounts, the more recent reissues by EuroComics from IDW - there have been three so far - have been just as rousing, and though in black and white, with crisp, pretty flawless production quality that far surpasses the Rizzoli effort, and a new translation by Dean Mullaney and Simone Castaldi.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |