Jeremy Whitley

I love this graphic novel about young people fucking the patriarchy. A young black princess recruits her female guard dragon to help her break out of her princess tower and rescue her seven sisters from their own towers. And on the way she meets another young girl (who is half dwarf) who is first female blacksmith. And also her brother is bucking the masculinity expected of him by his father by being into poetry instead of fighting. Also it's sarcastic and hilarious. Yes, read it!

I was super excited about this. I am in utter love with the main Princeless series, and loved Raven from Volume 3. Hey, she's a kick-ass pirate princess of Asian descent. Hell yes.

It looks like Raven: the Pirate Princess is for an older audience than the main Princeless title. The artwork reads older, for one, and the violence is more... it seems silly to say violent, but it's true. It's depicted as actual violence instead of something silly. You sometimes see blood, even.

Also, the jokes are show more much more nuanced and subtle. And many of them are extremely meta. I mean, there's a "Not All Men" joke that made me fistpunch the air. And a cameo appearance by some of the most famous contemporary women in comics today (hey, G. Willow Wilson! And Kelly Sue! and Marjorie Liu!). In fact, the entire volume seemed to be a tongue-in-cheek nod to some of the things that women have faced in geekdom in the quest for more diversity, representation, and inclusivity.

I loved that Raven continued what started in Princeless, and introduces readers to strong women of all walks of life, backgrounds, and appearance. It's diversity without hitting you over the head with it, which is awesome. Also, the subtle way Whitley handles the reveal that Raven isn't heterosexual is wonderful. It's not a big deal, there isn't a giant OMG reveal, but it's just handled naturally, as a progression of the story. This is how you handle diversity - it's not a big deal to have non-white and non-straight characters in the story because it's not a big deal in real life.

I'm so looking forward to the the next story arc. This is everything right in graphic novels today. show less

I requested this from the library without reading the description because I'll read most anything by Jeremy Whitley. I was a little taken aback when I opened the front cover and realized this was based on an Xbox game I've never played or even heard of, but I soldiered on and was happy to see that Whitley managed to yet again devise a satisfying pirate yarn with rambunctious action and charismatic characters. (Be sure to check out his "Raven, the Pirate Princess" books.)

Fraternal twins show more DeMarco and Lesedi Singh are bequeathed a treasure map to the buried hoard of their long-missing father, the Pirate Lord. Intense sibling rivalry has them sabotaging each other constantly to prevent the other from reaching the treasure, causing more problems than all the other menaces standing in their way.

Each sibling has their own crew of colorful figures -- a raconteur, a grizzled veteran, a sharpshooter, a pickpocket, a doctor, a naive youth -- to provide comic relief and b-stories.

Since my local library doesn't have any more Sea of Thieves books, I thought this would be the end of the road for me with this storyline, but I discovered that Amazon has a whole bunch of Sea of Thieves comics (spin-offs and prequels?) by Whitley that are priced at $0.00 (free!) so I downloaded them to my Kindle app and will work my way through them in the coming weeks. I'm not sure the same characters are featured, but I'm sure Whitley will make it worth my while.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contains material originally published in single magazine form as Sea of Thieves #1-4.

Contents: Issues #1-4 / Jeremy Whitley, writer; Rhoald Marcellius, illustrator -- Covers Gallery / Rhoald Marcellius, José Carlos Silva, Iolanda Zanfardino, illustrators -- [Character Profiles] -- Creator Bios show less

This was the book that made me fall in love with Princeless. After the set-up in the first volume, Princess Adrienne and Bedelia are off to rescue Adrienne's sister Angelica, who apparently started the whole tower thing because she was so beautiful her father had to lock her up.

I loved that this series is showing different types of princesses. It's okay that Adrienne doesn't want to be the traditional feminine court beauty, but it's also okay that her sister Angelica does. There's not just show more one mold of a strong female character, and this series is showing that wonderfully. show less