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A review by acaskoftroutwine
Corto Maltese: Ballad of the Salty Sea by Hugo Pratt
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I've been hearing about Corto Maltese for years, but I was never able to get my hands on it. There was an older English translation, but it was panned for cutting the larger European page size into the much more cramped American page size, destroying the intended flow of scenes by splitting pages in half. To make matters worse, that translation didn't even cover the whole series.
So when IDW put out this collection, I was excited and then promptly never got around to buying a copy due to the price. More fool me because they seem to be going out of print. I finally got a copy through interlibrary loan.
Taking place around Melanesia, Corto Maltese is a pretty straightforward adventure yarn, and the book is littered with various references to different ocean narratives, from Robinson Crusoe to the voyages of Bougainville. More than just references, however, the idea of these works plays a much bigger role in Corto Maltese, which is in some ways an examination of the tropes of the genre while still playing them mostly straight. Mainly it looks at the Romantic ideals of classic adventure stories and the oftentimes straightforward morality and has those crash against the wall of Modernity represented by the industrial age and the first World War.
Most of the stories conflict is driven by the characters clashing senses of what is moral or honorable conduct (none of which are usually at first apparent to the POV characters Alice and Cain Groovesnore, who see everyone at first as just pirates and brigands) which cause them to double cross or backstab each other when these personal lines are crossed. All of the characters are given depth with hidden ideals or morals under their often brusque or unpleasant behavior. Overhanging all of them is a sense that they're part of an older age, one that's based on ideals and honor, which is rapidly coming to an end before their eyes. One of the last moments of the story is how one person's reputation is posthumously slandered and their conduct is ignored for political convenience, because the ideals that he was operating under don't have a place in the conflict that he was involved in.
The comic also attempts to humanize the indigenous populations of the islands that would usually be ignored or simplified in the adventure novels of the period. Often this is by giving them not just greater character depth and motivation, but also in many cases by showing distinctions between the groups rather than clumping them together, having them make accurate cultural references, and in the character of Skull, anti-colonial political ambitions for a unified Melanesia. Western Europe is portrayed in the story as a colonizing force that is dragging these groups into the first World War for it's own benefit, with the Groovesnore's (the only upper class Western Europeans in the narrative) being shown at first as being rather ignorant (though not bigoted necessarily) toward the people of the South Sea, with Cain Groovesnore in particular basing most of his early relation to Tarao, a young Polynesian sailor, off of characters like Friday and Queequeg, because these are the only knowledge he has of what an indigenous person is like. Part of his character growth is in learning to respect Tarao as one of the most competent characters in the narrative and to see him as a close friend.
However, unfortunately these groups still fill the same narrative roles that indigenous groups often play in these narratives, so it is up to the reader to decide if the comic pulls off the balancing act.
If you're interested in reading this book and you can get your hands on a copy of this edition, I say do it. The art is gorgeous on the page, and the print they worked off of allows you to see the weight of the brush strokes.
6 or 7 out of 10.
So when IDW put out this collection, I was excited and then promptly never got around to buying a copy due to the price. More fool me because they seem to be going out of print. I finally got a copy through interlibrary loan.
Taking place around Melanesia, Corto Maltese is a pretty straightforward adventure yarn, and the book is littered with various references to different ocean narratives, from Robinson Crusoe to the voyages of Bougainville. More than just references, however, the idea of these works plays a much bigger role in Corto Maltese, which is in some ways an examination of the tropes of the genre while still playing them mostly straight. Mainly it looks at the Romantic ideals of classic adventure stories and the oftentimes straightforward morality and has those crash against the wall of Modernity represented by the industrial age and the first World War.
Most of the stories conflict is driven by the characters clashing senses of what is moral or honorable conduct (none of which are usually at first apparent to the POV characters Alice and Cain Groovesnore, who see everyone at first as just pirates and brigands) which cause them to double cross or backstab each other when these personal lines are crossed. All of the characters are given depth with hidden ideals or morals under their often brusque or unpleasant behavior. Overhanging all of them is a sense that they're part of an older age, one that's based on ideals and honor, which is rapidly coming to an end before their eyes. One of the last moments of the story is how one person's reputation is posthumously slandered and their conduct is ignored for political convenience, because the ideals that he was operating under don't have a place in the conflict that he was involved in.
The comic also attempts to humanize the indigenous populations of the islands that would usually be ignored or simplified in the adventure novels of the period. Often this is by giving them not just greater character depth and motivation, but also in many cases by showing distinctions between the groups rather than clumping them together, having them make accurate cultural references, and in the character of Skull, anti-colonial political ambitions for a unified Melanesia. Western Europe is portrayed in the story as a colonizing force that is dragging these groups into the first World War for it's own benefit, with the Groovesnore's (the only upper class Western Europeans in the narrative) being shown at first as being rather ignorant (though not bigoted necessarily) toward the people of the South Sea, with Cain Groovesnore in particular basing most of his early relation to Tarao, a young Polynesian sailor, off of characters like Friday and Queequeg, because these are the only knowledge he has of what an indigenous person is like. Part of his character growth is in learning to respect Tarao as one of the most competent characters in the narrative and to see him as a close friend.
However, unfortunately these groups still fill the same narrative roles that indigenous groups often play in these narratives, so it is up to the reader to decide if the comic pulls off the balancing act.
If you're interested in reading this book and you can get your hands on a copy of this edition, I say do it. The art is gorgeous on the page, and the print they worked off of allows you to see the weight of the brush strokes.
6 or 7 out of 10.