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The strikingly elegant yet
somehow alluringly naïve artwork of French graphic novelist David B. will be
most familiar to English-speaking readers through his masterful autobiographical
tome, Epileptic, concerning his
malfunctioning brother and their lifelong sibling tug-of-war full of mingled
compassion and disdain. With The
Littlest Pirate King, David B. applies
the same skills and angle of attack that served him so well in a naturalistic,
personal mode to a highly fantastical tale, one in fact penned by another
writer.
The collaborative figure in
this venture—the first in a series of bande dessinée offerings from Fantagraphics—is Pierre Mac Orlan
(1882-1970), a Gallic arch-Bohemian of most impeccable credentials. Besides being a novelist, Mac Orlan was also
a songwriter often found performing at the Lapin Agile, and a penner of
pornography. The text that inspired
David B. is a short story titled "Roi Rose," collected in Mac Orlan's 1927 book
Chronique des jours désespérés. I suspect that a 1956 reprint of the book was
what allowed baby-boomer B. to imprint on the tale.
The story, as you might
deduce from Mac Orlan's curriculum vitae, is weird, gory, mythic, transgressive, surreal,
satirical, anti-bourgeoise and nihilistic.
It is also cute, sentimental, cheery and heartening. This odd melange of effects and attitudes
ensures that this adventure of a young boy mascot among heinously damned
skeletal pirates reads like a ride on a rather bipolar rollercoaster. And so despite the picture-book presentation,
The Littlest Pirate King is probably
not entirely suitable for a ten-year-old conversant only with the Disneyfied
version of this trope.
Mac Orlan's decaying crew of
the Flying Dutchman have no
compunction about slaying innocent victims with bloody sword thrusts. Their plundering is particularly pathetic,
since they can make no use of mortal goods, and end up ditching their booty
overboard in a fit of frustration and anguish.
They long only for true death, but are denied it by a vengeful God. With the arrival of the infant boy midway
through the book, their zombie lives become interspersed with a few moments of
clacking-limbed glee. But the routines
of the Flying Dutchman remain
basically unchanged for another ten years, until the Littlest King meets a
somewhat arbitrary and pathetic fate.
In the end, the
schizophrenic, fractured narrative arc, made over-familiar by more recent Jolly
Roger outings, is the lesser of the two components here. What makes the book an enjoyable success are
David B.'s pinwheeling, vibrant, colorful drawings. Echoing elements from the allied work of
Richard Sala and Tony Millionaire, he creates both intimate moments and big
dramas with eye-catching color, character design and composition. He manages to individuate a group of
skeletons with witty mannerisms and attributes.
His underwater scenes are gorgeous, full of exotic marine life. His page compositions let the story proceed
gracefully. And even given that most of
the scenes take place at night, he cleverly manages to inject brightness and a
wide palette of colors. The true king of
these manic, antic pirates is David B.
Paul Di Filippo's column The Speculator appears monthly in the Barnes & Noble Review. He is the author of several acclaimed novels and story collections, including Fractal Paisleys, Little Doors, Neutrino Drag, and Fuzzy Dice.
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