Reviews

Corto Maltese: The Ballad of the Salt Sea by Hugo Pratt

martahnzm's review against another edition

adventurous emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

vermilious's review

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

ifranckd's review against another edition

5.0

Une excellente BD pour découvrir le personnage complexe de Corto Maltese. Une fois commencée, vous n aurez qu'une hâte-le finir et suivre ses aventures du T2.

Un libro súper interesante para discubrir el personaje de Corto Maltese y su etorno. Una vez haber empiezado el libro, no se puede parar hasta haberlo acabado para comprar y leer sus aventuras en el libro 2.

kulturna_knjiznicarka's review against another edition

5.0

Iako sam do sada samo slušala o Cortu Maltesu, ovo je prvi strip koji sam pročitala. I malo je za reći da sam oduševljena! Sjajna priča i prije svega humoristični prijevod nekih fraza me doveo do suza! Još jednom, oduševljena!

ir85's review against another edition

3.0

Interesting enough to get me to read the next one, but tries to have too many important characters in too few pages, and sometimes gets a bit soap opery... But I'm guessing it's due to Pratt not yet having a clear idea what he wants from the series

woodge's review against another edition

2.0

Hugo Pratt was a popular Italian comic book creator and his Corto Maltese character has a pretty big fan base. (See the Corto Maltese site too.) Corto Maltese is an adventurer, sailor, treasure hunter, sometime pirate. This story begins in 1915 when the Russian pirate Rasputin finds Corto adrift in the South Pacific. But from there the story gets a bit convoluted with a pair of kidnapped kids, Germans, Japanese, and various natives around the area. I enjoyed the artwork and the way the story moved briskly but I didn't get much of a sense of who Corto really was and found the story vague or just not compelling. Also sometimes the translation was a bit shaky. Maybe it's better in Italian but I don't think I'm going to be a Corto Maltese fan.

noysh's review

3.0

This was a fun, high-seas pirate story with an unconventional protagonist. The story meandered in a way that reminded me of older adventure novels. The translation, however, felt pretty clunky and the dialogue was stiff and overly expository. I don't know if this was the case in the original language or not, but I'm of a mind to blame the translation. The art was pretty, but I also got the impression that it was perhaps not up to the quality of the original printings of the story. It looks enough like a photocopy of a photocopy for me to suspect that we might be looking at a second or third generation reproduction of the art.

claudibonini's review

adventurous informative mysterious fast-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Read it in French. I didn't particularly like or hate it, I think it was just ok. It's an adventure/wartime story taking place in the Pacific islands, set in 1914-1915 and written in 1967, so expect rampant racism, racial slurs, and sexist representations (a single female character serving as love interest and has little to no sense of agency). Some of the protagonists acted completely out of character at times, without explanation, so could have done with a bit more character development. Overall, a mediocre graphic novel to pass the time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs and Racism

shardan's review

adventurous tense fast-paced

• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

pelks's review against another edition

5.0

These books are wonderful. I wish they were (/had been) more popular in America.