Captain Blood-Comic

#1

Publisher: SLG Publishing.

B&W

Captain Blood is Rafael Sabatini's classic tale of Peter Blood's transformation from English country doctor to slave to pirate captain.

Put it up there with Traesure Island.

Surprisingly, this is the first ever comic adaptation of this novel.

The debut issue introduces us to the hero by finding him already enslaved.
His back story is related to us by way of flashback.
The good doctor, during the Monmouth Rebellion, makes the grave mistake of providing succor to a wounded combatant on the wrong side of the fight.
He is tried and sentenced to death. But before he can be hanged, he is ordered as a slave to the Caribbean plantations.
Here, he is purchased by the brutally sadistic Kent.

Fortunately for our hero, the Spanish attack the English colony. An event exploited by Blood and his fellow slaves to effect an escape by capturing the victorious Spanish ship of Don Diego.

Thus the scene is set for high seas adventure.

Writer Matt Shepherd handles the adaptation perfectly, setting just the right pace for the drama and adventure.
The art by Michael Shoyket is also spot on, rending the people, places and times faithfully.