Chapter 7 D - Curiosities

Not many curiosities to talk about in 9 pages...

Except... that Rose is posing as Rose from Titanic for a nude - but looks like a Goya painting instead lol.

When you set a mood for comedy is tough not to laugh at love, even if it's sad.

Unchained Moolody of course spoofed a couple of movies and The Pirate Balthasar itself with the pink factor and the hand factor.

Nothing is sacred!

Castalia dressed as Christopher Columbus seems to have been quite successful... maybe that's the right outfit for her.

Hahahaha... of course if she were Columbus she would proclaim the land San Salvador in the name of God and the King (actually more of the Queen) of Spain.

Sort of a pun played on the fact that Columbus did take off from Portugal instead and its wine, Porto, is sooooo good!

Another touch of color this week... and Botticelli shows up again in Kane's vision... only this time cute, little cupid... is there with an expression that says: gotcha, sucker!

hahahaha

This is La Primavera. It's a gorgeous painting seen up close and from afar. It's huge and so full of details and it might not talk about Spring at all but uses metaphors to depict other things but we won't bother with this.

Stick around for a surprise.

The Pirate Balthasar - Chapter 7D - END OF CHAPTER

As promised... if you click on the title of the post it will take you to SmackJeeves to read from the first page of this release, which is Page 40!

Here are the final 6 pages to the chapter, plus a 3 pages special that's full of bullish*t - but when you'll see the bull you'll know what I am talking about! è_é Bad bull! Bad bull!
As this past week was kind of tiring and stressful - I risked to be put in the looney bin for laughing alone, sitting at my desk, in an office of 9 people... while drawing a holy cow of a flashback - and school starts tomorrow with his hectic schedule... I need to be petted and loved like poor Foxy without a Lio.
But you can be my Lio... so... you can make me happy by spreading the love for The Pirate Balthasar so that our crew can get bigger (and I will go shopping for a bigger ship too) muahahahaha. Spam it around, kidnap people, secretly embed it somewhere and board people's website muahahahahahr!

I will suspend the Pin-up series for a while because I have decided to try and upload the Cat and Feetsie special while working on the comic - if I can manage... on a daily basis would be nice... let's see what I can do! :D

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Chapter 7 C - Curiosities

Welcome back to our usual date with chapter's curiosities.
This release was a little bigger than expected, 17 pages.
Let's analyze a little bit of what happened.
Kane finally explains what the treasure room is for and how pirates go about it (aside from the punishment part).

If fills up with the stuff they pillage, but they don't pillage very often, only when it gets half empty.

For the rest they spend most of the time spending what they pillaged.

In short what you see in movies is the rare events that used to happen once every few months, when the gold and the rum were gone!

Pirates spent most of their daytime sleeping, were awake at nights and did not sail as often as people might think, looking for adventures.

We know that who comes to live on board of a pirate ship is some sort of renegade. Sometimes innocent.

Life is precious and you don't waste it, you don't risk it, you just enjoy it... because you finally have gold and freedom!

Ah, but we finally get to see what attacking a passing ship is all about.

This is Mr. Hamm, Sliced Hamm... from Parma, home of the Prosciutto.

He is an old acquaintance of the guys, apparently... and apparently he is also the one who provides them with prosciutto, scamorza, salame (mind the wikipedia spelling!!! Salami is plural, but the generic name is singular... salame, with an "e" and you read it salamay!) and other preserved meats and cheese.

What is the man saying? I don't know... I actually don't speak that dialect... I think he is cursing them and he cries for his Parsùtt (not prusutt, I made a mistake XDD)... for ever gone with the pirates.

And Cat explains us: no battles, no fights...

Besides... you are merchants why would you put a fight? You just raise the white flag and maybe life sucks so you ask the pirates to join them.

Let's make this clear: you put up a fight against the pirates - and you don't stand a chance to begin with - when they board you they pillage your cargo and sink your ship. You all die!

So... forget the movies! XD

Ah, blood oath!

Apparently Kane does not want problems with women and therefore only hires people with a family to feed (that's probably also a childhood unresolved issue XDDD families first)... but he has 4 exceptions on board: Cat, Foxy, Westley and Quoque Tu.

In fact, so far, the pirates have been talking about their wives and we know from Pea that they are all married... except these 4.

Then Cat says it: we are his brothers! - and shows a scar.

Adelphopoiesis is the Greek word for an actual rite that was called "Brother Making" in latin.

So Cat is trying to explain that they took a blood oath that turned them into Kane's "brothers" and Castalia comes up with the Greek word for it.

Now these rites, at one point, were celebrated officially, outside of churches and male bonding, in the past... were... eer... complicated in fact some gay rights activists states that these ceremonies could be a form of same sex union.

To the girls it's kinda gay, it probably was where they come from too hahaahha. To Cat is a manly thing. Ah, male bonding is something girls don't get!

In a way, what Kane did to these guys is kinda devilish. He binds them by blood: your life and soul belongs to me, now! MUAHAHAHAHAH

I wonder if we'll ever know how and why this came to be.

This is Misery and Nobily by Eduardo Scarpetta.

When it comes to hunger and starvation treated in a comical, Italian way... there's nothing like his play. (CLICK TO SEE THE SPAGHETTI SCENE)

To me it's the most Italian thing in the World hahahaha...

Even though Kane comes out with a complete Yoda line XDD... we get to know these girls have Italian blood too! Mhhh... interesting.

Actually I posted dozens of movies inside the comic, I wonder if you can spot them hehehehe.

It would be a fun game to propose.

This week I introduced two talking paintings! (I am preparing my Art&Film class... it toooootally shows hahahaha)

Lol, sorry Botticelli!

Your guys, here, are saying a bunch of bs' to Castalia... but when Kane vision is turned on... Botticelli imperator mundi (which means... he rules!).

It probably really is Pifo's new diet... but people are getting healthier and most of all the girls are getting nice and plump... and busty and gorgeous and that's enough to drive a poor pirate nuts.

A tonsor is a guy who shaves friars and monks, particularly.

It means barber, yah, but back in the days the trade of barber implied you could do many other things... even be a surgeon at times.

To the doctor, having his hair cut is like receiving and unwanted tonsura but there are other reasons behind his getting upset.

Why would a man of "science" get so worked up about hair... he is definitely not Samson. We'll see...

About Cassandra's ignorance.
She says Dolphin's Syllable for Delphic Sibyl and says Titian for Pythia.

Indeed those oracles, without an H, lived on another Greek island which is Delphi.

Nowadays we would say something like: you know, I don't have a glass ball or a witch ball... when we want to say that we cannot possibly know about things if we are not told about them to begin with.

Is it Kes' fault for not knowing the doctor? No, it's not... and the fact she does not know him leads her also to a lack of patience, not realizing that the fact he ask to be left alone until he calms down is also a form of courtesy: I know, now, I cannot cope with it. Let me calm down and we'll talk about it.

What's spinning in the doctor's head, at this point, is a Dies Irae:

Day of wrath! O day of mourning !
See fulfilled the prophets' warning,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning !

And that's how a Scandinavian piece of hunk goes berserk: you break his face! XDDD

As if it weren't enough... he is taken by the Furies like poor Orestes! <--- if you are wondering if the Oresteia isn't looking a bit too much like Hamlet (actually, the other way around XD)... yes, you got that right! Shakespeare got inspired by many things... taking advantage of the fact that most people, in his times, did not know about the source of inspiration! XDD It happens today, too... but in a bad way! O_o

Gioia mia... is very typical Sicilian expression.

Reason for using this: it means both "my joy" and "my jewel".

Nowadays it's used commonly to talk to people, even if you don't know them: how you doin', gioia?

Almost takes the value away =_= while it's such a precious thing to say...

back when I was young it was mostly used for children and treasured ones.

What Kane is having here is a lapsus, a missed deed... somehow, while taken by the frantic action, he shows his unconscious desire of protecting his treasured one. Someone is getting cute... hee hee hee.

This is it!

Come back for another pin up tonight! :D (and vote for Fickle!)

The Pirate Balthasar - Chapter 7c

This time around if you click on the above title it will lead you directly to page 23... the new page of the update.

I've decided to make your life comfy.

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Chapter 7 B - curiosities

A very good day to you, my dear friends... so, it seems like Pifo is no longer enganged... his second fiancée, Cassandra, apparently has the hots for another guy. That's cheating, you know? And doctor, you too... how could you? Poor Pifo!

Anyways... Pifo seeks love... anyone interested? Write a line here and I'll forward it to him. A Pifo is a good thing to have around the house.

This week's release travels on parallel tracks. This will come to happen more often, from this point on, sometimes I will make it obvious, others... it's diluted and you have to pay attention.

Are you an attentive reader?

So kisses are they unconditional or do you need to put conditions?

Apparently for Castalia, being the transparent girl she is... asking or swapping doesn't work. She tried. She got something out of Kane the first time... she got the treasure room the second time... she got yelled at the third time. So she came to the conclusion: no, kisses have to be spontaneous.

The doctor... he would cheat his ways around.

The kiss has a condition: you kiss me. You lost... the fact that I cheated doesn't make you less of a looser. LOL

Our Smooch sound effects works as a transition between an unconditional kiss and the one with conditions. Keep an eye on the chapters were Kane and Westley are dominating: they walk on parallel paths from now on. They walk in opposite directions.

Wilson Kane is such a bigot and a moralist...

No... he couldn't care less.

What he is saying right there is not for Castalia's sake... it's out of his own selfishness. Castalia needs to be more delicate about certain things.

Come on! The man just told you his mom was a "pro", he just told you that her profession killed her, he just told you he doesn't want another mama in his life...

You offer him something very similar to what he's been staring at for the first 8/9 years of his life. "Sir, could you please help me, my kids are starving?" "In return for...""Myself."

So when he asks Castalia: what do I get in return for helping you out... he is not actually asking for something in return... it's his contorted way for asking: what's in it for me?

His contorted way to tease her, pretend to say no, but then whatever... he is just joking.

He gets the one answer he does not want to get. In a way the most offensive part is... being considered just like his mother's clients!

"Why would I want that? Do you think I would want that? Am I like them? Do you think I'm that kind of person?"

No.

And why do something so offensive right after she threw a curved ball at him, twice! She told him she cares for him and that seeing him upset is enough of a punishment.

Hey, but the girl gets reactions out of him... Wilson Kane is coming to life :D.

Now, onto the actual... useful stuff!

La mano a cuoppo! (the cup shaped hand).

What is he doing indeed with that hand? Shaking it up and down.

A lot of people think that the cuoppo is a very common and generic gesture used by Italians.

If you go to the Northern Regions of Italy you would almost never ever see it (unless the person who uses it has ancestors from the South).

In the South of Italy the cuoppo is very popular. But it is not used randomly... for example, I remember when I lived in the U.s., my friends would shake the cuoppo at me and say: forget about it! Or: How you doing?

The first times I was totally left speechless: O_o what?

The gesture and the messages did not go together. Somehow it's as if someone were to give you the finger and say: lovely weather, today, isn't it?

The cuoppo is a quantifying gesture!

It's used for "what" and "why" and "how much"... consider why to be applied to questions such as: why are you doing this? Which implies the quantity of stupidity contained by your action! XD

Now, not many Italians know this. As the cuoppo is something very instinctive and if you were to ask them: why are you using it?

They would just tell you: it's a random gesture!

Which misleads foreigners all the time! That's why in the end they think that the cuoppo is generic and shake it at you in a very rude manner, without knowing how rude that is.

But consider this... there is no such thing as: Standard Italian and Italians are not very aware of what being Italian is all about (besides most of our traditional culture and language is getting lost at a speed that scares me).

Usually Italians shake the cuoppo with a sort of nervousness and turmoil in their hearts. They are mad, they are describing something that upsets them, they are trying to make a point, they want to convey a message across with strength. It is not a relaxed gesture.

Here, Wilson Kane is imitating his grandpa, Cosimo. And grandpa Cosimo is trying to convince the young Kane that being locked up in the treasure room is for his own good. It will make him stronger. It will give him discipline. The cuoppo gives strength to his words: you'll see how much better you'll turn out if I do this to you. You'll see how much stronger this will make you. You'll see how much of a Balthasar you will become.

How much is the key!

I have new Illustrations and Fan Art for you! Stick around. I'll post the first one in a few hours.

The Pirate Balthasar - Chapter 7AB

Here we go! The release is ready!
As you usual you can either read it here, using the issuu reader, or click on the title of the post to reach SmackJeeves.

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Chapter 7 A - curiosities

We start today's curiosities by talking about potatoes and their history.
What Quoque Tu prepared for Castalia is probably a dish like the one to the side: nice juicy potatoes in saffron sauce! I adore it. The use of apricots, sugar, citrus, sweet melons, rice, saffron, raisins, nutmeg, clove, pepper, pine nuts, cinnamon (along with fried preparations) is a sign of Arab influences from the Arab domination of Sicily in the 10th and 11th centuries. (Wikipedia)


Let's go back to our spuds, now!. This thing called potato, arrived in Europe from the New World between 1550 and 1580.
For many many years it was cultivated by botanists out of curiosity. It made cute flowers, sure... but its leaves were considered poisonous and so the whole plant was considered dangerous.
You have to consider what kind of diet people had back in the XVII century, even the poor ones (based on legumes and cereals). You also have to consider the kind of agriculture they had back then. They followed the seasons and they rotated the crops in the fields in order to keep the nutrition in the soil.
Eventually most farmers realized that potatoes, by growing underground, were a safe thing to cultivate and you know why? Because soldiers and bandit invading your village and pillaging crops... would never dig!

Guess where the thing spread the most and in the fastest way too? One of the most invaded and pillaged Countries of all times: Italy.
Now, cultivating potatoes in a large scale where it was not impossible was even prohibited. It would require too much land and there goes the rotation and the whole cultivation system. That's why people would have small patches to grow potatoes and mainly it was not meant to be for humans. Try and feed potatoes to a pig... how they love it!
They grow big and chubby and imagine all the nice little sausages, pancetta, lard and prosciutto you can make out of a chubby pig. Now that stuff would feed you and give you nutrition for a very long time... for carbs... you have bread (we are not talking about white bread, of course).

Eventually very poor farmers and very poor people would adapt to eat potatoes and, little by little, potatoes entered the European food chain.

So what Castalia gets is... pigs food. What Kane gets is... all that his mom could afford to feed him.

One should only be surprised to see him live past his fifth year and manage to enter the statistic that would see him live until his seventies.

But... what is the boy dreaming of? Sesame bread!
Now this bread is made of semolina flour, not white flour. Some people on the web states it can be kept for several days... but it's not true: you have to eat it on the very same day, the day after you'd eat rubber. No matter what they say, fresh is best!
What Kane is looking at are freshly baked Mafaldas and Filoni put in a basket, ready to be delivered door to door. You need to try some of this, when it's warm and freshly baked... it smells fantastic and taste so good (to me it's the best bread in the World).
Even if you love potatoes you'd totally understand what the poor boy is going through when bread smells so delicious!

I stole this picture from Wikipedia...
Again... we see no forks on these pirates' table.
In the packed dinner Cat gives Kane we see a bowl, 4 pieces of focaccia bread (but I think it's Naan) and 2 spoons.
Napkins? Forge about it! Did you know that up until the 1700 people would wipe their mouths on their sleeves or use the tablecloth? Now the tablecloth would touch the floor, where all kinds of little critters could be found, and they would pick the very edge of the tablecloth, the one that touched the ground, and wipe themselves off. They would not change it nor wash it for weeks either. I am not talking about the poor people, I am talking about Marie Antoinette and buddies too!
That kind of people... fancily dressed and heavily perfumed, to cover up the nasty body odors since they almost never bathe, all covered in makeups and with scabs on the palm of their hands.

No fork... again it's something that was born back in the days, disappeared and then came back. The World started using the fork in the 1800 or so. Before that... eh, yeah, Italians were using forks already in the 1600 because it made them look dainty. Now forks, back then, were really like forks... with two points and sharp ones too. Imagine rolling maccheroni with that! Ha ha ha.
Would it surprise you if I told you that the Church condemned the use of forks? Not because it looks like the fork the Devil has (and I am beginning to wonder if that is when the fork became the Devil's most favorite tool LOL)... but because being dainty is sinful.

So everybody would either use spoon or hands! Hands were very common for eating meats... honestly I think that table manner still says to use hands for certain types of meats. To me - I am vegetarian - hands must be used for pizza!

Another Italian saying for you, today: Fortunato in amor non giochi a carte!
(if you are lucky with love, don't play card games). Also known as: fortunato al gioco, sfortunato in amore - lucky at cards, unlucky in love (this is used everywhere though).

Hence Cat proposes to find a boyfriend for Kes, so she'll finally stop winning. Ironically enough, when the doctor shows up, she does loose! LOL.
Maybe some sayings are true.


And we find out about another golden rule for pirates: no gambling on board!
Because the problem of gambling is... loosing! Right?
People start a fight and there are problems and then certain things might happen in hot blood and if you are feeling too hot you'd have to go jump jump.
Right?

Before you ask: yes, Kane has a brother, we will see him again very soon.. XD

The Pirate Balthasar - Chapter 7A

A gewdmorning to you, mateys!
Go grab the release before it runs away too fast.
Issuu is here and smack jeeves is just one click away! You only need to click on the title of the post to reach it!
Enjoy!

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coming very very soon!

This image is making me laugh so much on DA.

People are actually answering the question. It's like: sign the petition to have Cassandra kiss the doctor. It's for you future!

Of course it's for my future too!

But... my updates is ready and proofed and, let me tell you, it was a painful delivery.

Such a messy week it was ... some sentences did not make sense at all.

Hopefully you will enjoy this 11 pages and start the countdown to the next issue.

Coming very very soon... it might be a happy saturday, tomorrow.

Since it's ready... why not?

tic tic tac!

Aaaah, I am almost done with rendering.

Part 1 is done, I leave Castalia and Kane behind and go see what the rest of the group is doing... which means: splash of colors!

I have to say that, from this moment on, Wilson Kane will crack me up like there's no tomorrow.

I like how Castalia grows fonder and fonder of him while the poor guy keeps crashing on her unexpectedly.

How much longer can he possibly withstand all these quirks penting up... God knows!

He might blow up, one day.

For being someone who likes to be in control of his own destiny, falling for a person that is most impossible to control must be really tough... she is ignorant... she is a tomboy... she is not completely aware of flowers and bees... doesnt' get things right away and, at times, turns into a ferret and bites.

When she should be mad at him she does not get mad. She does not ask questions either.

Then she says or does something that shows her wisdom, beyond her years and beyond any books he has read... she is street smart, of course. Plus she is a Botticelli with feet!

Oh, the man is going to go nuts.

In the end I found a nice blue/green for the flashback.

This should work...

It looks pretty nice on the page! :D

Now, time to pass to full color... the doctor is going for the girl and finally steps into action.

Chapter 7 - Cover

Goooodmorniiiing, ya scurvy dogs! Ahr ahr ahr!

I gave birth to the cover of chapter 7 yesterday. The butterly effect... you might be able to laugh about after tomorrow's update ha ha ha.

After Love and Hate we MUST see Heaven and Hell, right?
Aaaw, another Kes and Wes cover, then finally Kane comes back to rule on the cover of chapter 8! Yes!

I've had a very Pifoesque dream last night... I shall find a way to put it on paper so we can all laugh about it!

Teaser

Some of you already saw this on DA and Facebook.
I am designing the cover for chapter 7 and this will be the basic drawing.
Then all the purple stuff around I still have to pick.

Cassandra looks scaryyyyyy!
Alright you might notice, pretty soon, that hair is very important in this comic... but particularly for Kes and Wes.
See each couple has some key words.
For example Kane and Castalia have: books, treasure, Fickle.
Cat and Feetsie have: riggings, sweets, sleep.
Kes and wes have: hair, donuts and doors/windows.
Lio and Foxy have: games, tables, hands.

They each have an adjective too XDDD but I don't want to give you all the keys, now, otherwise what should I write about for the next two years?