Book / Week 31 - Bear Pirate Viking Queen
2024/11/04
Bear Pirate Viking Queen
Written by Sean Lewis
Art by Jonathan Marks Barravecchia
Alright, apologies as I’ve been absent for a month, but I was participating in the annual Inktober drawing challenge, and that tied up my evenings for 31 days straight. In my notes I have uploaded all the drawings, and they’ll also be posted over on my other website: irogan.ca. But with Inktober over, it frees up my evenings again for comics, and writing, and I’ll give my drawing hand a break. Probably for the rest of the year, and start fresh in 2025.
So with that, lets jump into this adventure involving a bear, a pirate, a Viking, and a Queen.
Synopsis:
A tale of the sea, of Pirates, Vikings, Queens and bears, we follow each as they war with each other and try to assert dominance over the past and future of our world.
Pretty straight forward story, but with beautiful art. I can’t even try to match the many different reviewers on the back of the book, who describe the book as beautifully illustrated, a hallucinatory journey, and dreamy and impressionistic.
The book starts from a seaman’s perspective. Captain Paul Reddish of the Queen’s Navy. After getting attacked by pirate bandits, he is thrown overboard and saved by a bear. Realizing that being a Queen’s Man makes you no safer out on the seas, or no richer, he becomes a Pirate. Reddish The Baron. With his new life, and Bear, and his new found crew, he plans on returning home. To rob the Bank of England.
They set a trap for a British convoy, and steal the Bank Ship with money intended for the colonies, and sail off into a storm. They come across a drifting boat with a madman aboard. Thinking its an easy mark, they capture the boat and occupants, and find a monstrous Viking aboard. Maybe he arrived on the storm. The Viking sinks the small schooner, and traps the men and The Baron with no room to escape on the main ship. A quick, violent embrace and the Baron is dead. Sacrificed to the sea. The bear just watches on.
The perspective now switches to the hateful Viking, as he takes the boat to attack England, and the Queen. We get some historical backstory of how the Viking came to be, and we learn his intentions as he is looking for revenge for his people who had been forced out of their homes hundreds of years earlier. He arrives in England and plans his next moves, and tried to find where his original home was. And the bear is along for the whole journey. Maybe its physically there or its imaginary? Just a metaphor? Who knows?
The final chapter is from the Queen’s perspective as she tried to deal with this invading force and as she comes to term with the past finally catching up.
The book feels epic, but the story is not really the point. It has themes about oppression, and revenge. But also about being free and being true to yourself. The writing is raw, like a raving mad man telling a story. Its violent, and jarring, but basic. The art is what you really want to pay attention to. The heavy inks and water colours. The crazy imagery, complimented by the crazy lettering overtop to guide you through each page. Its really quite the piece of work.
I mostly know Sean Lewis from his work in the Spawn Universe, on titles like The Scorched, King Spawn and Monolith. But my first introduction was actually a book called The Few, from 2017, which was like a dystopian sci-fi. Really good art in that one too. Might be worth a re-read as it was really unique. Jonathan Marks Barravecchia is new to me, but has a really interesting art style.
I picked this one up based solely on the cover of the trade paperback, but it was an interesting tale, with crazier art. I’m glad I have this one in my collection.
Next read:
Book 32: Watchmen
Previous read:
Book 30: Far Sector
Book 29: The Roman Stars Vol 1
Book 28: Fatale
Book 27: CHU Vol. 1-2
Book 26: The Hard Switch