Singaporean pirates

Since I live in Singapore, right now, I have been talking about Singaporean pirates with my friends... you know I think the first movie of Pirates of the Caribbean was censored here so nobody seemed to remember the line: clearly you've never been to Singapore (or something like that)... pronounced by Jack Sparrow in the first movie after he saves the horrible Elizabeth Swan (die, girl, die!).

Most of them thought it was funny to see Singaporean pirates in the other movie and thought it was a fake.

No. The fact is: they were not in majority Chinese (Chinese pirates lurked elsewhere in the Yellow Sea) but the straits of Malacca and Malaysia (not to mention Singapore) were infested by Malay pirates up until the 19th century.

Then I finally found this blog which quotes many good sources and draws some interesting conclusion on the phenomenon (some of them are still cultural related / i.e.: about the fancy dressing.... yeah, pirates would dress fancily and richly... but they were fancy and dirty).
Read through it, it's a very nice article!

To deny that Pirates did infest these waters means to say that Emilio Salgari was tripping the whole time, when he wrote about Sandokan and the whole Tigers of Mompracem saga.
Which he did not!
I grew up reading those books and to me they were as real as real could be!

Emilio Salgari got information and inspiration for his books from actual news!
There is no way you could come up with something like: tactics, relationships, rules and stuff so detailed if you hadn't read about it.
He was fascinated with this side of the world but never did leave his home Country: Italy.
So he read many many books - no internet back then - written by travelers who did journey to the East and depicted its many wonders.

Dear Emilio,
some of the stuff you described, really is here... just the way you described it. I saw it with my own eyes and almost wept, so moved I was by the fact that you never lied to me.
You were an amazing writer... one of those guys who could entertain and spread culture at the same time.

My goal in life, by doing this, now... is the same: I want to entertain (make it a weird slice of life following Wodehouse's sense of humor) and I want to spread culture and information about history and pirates and my areas through a silly comic.
Is that bad? ;D

I'll die poor like Salgari, I know...

Famous Illustrators - NC Wyeth

Here's another illustrator that made pirates what they are known to be today, with their romanticism and colorful adventures.

N.C. Wyeth. He was another famous American illustrator and probably the best at illustrating Stevenson's Treasure Island. He is probably most famous for illustrating Robin Hood and giving him the famous green tights hahahaha. He also depicted a wonderful King Arthur... ah, so romantic!

What I actually like about his illustrations is the atmosphere... the dramatic light... the way he creates the perspective sense of distance.

I'll show you some example of my favorite Pirate Pieces (although I recommend you to check out his Robin Hood stuff, it's just brilliant).

Pretty powerful eh?

B. Bones is my very favorite. To me it embodies the way I've always imagined Long Johns Silver, before he lost his leg. So massive and sturdy!

But he is not Silver... in fact this guy here is Long John Silver!

And now some samples of that dramatic light I was talking about.

Look at the cast shadows! They determine so strongly how the figure stand out against the background. They work, dark against light, to enhance the focal point and help you see things clearly.

Even if you don't love Jim you ought to love him here. His gesture of surprise, the face hidden by the hair, shows simply by the simple movement of his hand letting the coins slide from the palm to the sack!

And now.... Pirate Fight! LOL

These are very old, traditional looking illustrations... but we owe them a lot.

I hope you enjoy looking at them with me! ^__^/

Famous Illustrators - Howard Pyle

I finished the clean up and will start rendering today - after work.

I am sorry for Foxy, Josh and Castalia's fans but I will have to keep you waiting for their paper dolls since I need to work on the comic first and scanning the drawings takes a while.

So, since I don't have a drawing for you to play with, today... I want to talk about my favorite Pirate Illustrators.

I'll start by taking a distance by a certain type of art... not because I'm snob or deem myself cooler... It's just that when you'll see the Origin of Love it's hard to accept surrogates.

The web is full of pirate illustrations as the sea is full of fishes.

His blog has a cute take on illustrations! (Aside from the fact he starts off with a Pierre Alary's drawing: lads, there's no competition there) - Lol he made a top ten pirate movie list too! XD

These dudes instead list what I would never pick... I honestly don't really like any of the illustrations posted (except the chubby pirate at the bottom that is super adorable and the one at the top that looks like a European comic - the animals are interesting too, nice shot.) because they look "been there, seen that already" and/or "I can't live without my smudge tool" digital. Objectively : they are all nicely done, wonderful drawings with effective stands and cool characters... Personally: I don't think they look so original... they are something else's echo... in fact they all look the same to me (colors, faces, poses, looks) it's an after image effect, post Johnny Depp shining appearance - that's why my eyes scroll and don't stop.

- please keep in mind that I am not saying this as a fellow artist but as a Universtiy Instructor and that I always recommend my students to be their own voices instead of somebody's echo -

I'll show you the voices who created this echo!

I might be traditional but when I think about pirates... I think of the real deal! I think of someone whose drawings has no parallel, yet... I think of someone whose pirates created a whole generation of pirate artists the cool, professional ones (I am not one of them, unfortunately, I'm just having fun drawing ^^)...

I think of someone whose drawings inspired Pirates of the Caribbean (ride and movies) and Monkey Island.

Me Hearties... let me present you the kings of Pirate Illustrations:

1) His Majesty.... Howard Pyle!

Marooned. Why is the rhum gone? My thought exactly. Look at the composition, how the guy sit alone, on a flat horizon, small against an empty sky... a spot on the sand. Look at his gesture and how desperate he is... left there... with a bullet in his pistol and nothing left to do but die, one way or another...

The True Captain Kidd - Kidd burying his treasure. Here, look at the costumes this man draws on his pirates... you'll see how Barbossa and Jask Sparrow are not figment of sheer imagination... whoever came up with those characters knew his/her Howard Pyle.

Consider that the Red drawing at the top of this post is absolutely the most possible source of inspiration for Disney's Captain Hook.

The Fate of a Treasure Town - An attack on a Galleon.
Are you seeing Master and Commander here? Yes, that's because Master and Commander took inspiration from Pyle's illustration!


















The Ruby of Kisshmoor - Captain Keitt.

The Flying Dutchman. The real deal! Fokke or Van der Decken... who knows? Absolutely not Davy Jones... anyways. We do know, now, that the Flying Dutchman is not a cursed ship but a mirage, like a Fata Morgana, appearing at the horizon due to the refraction of the light in the heat - like a superior image, the ones we see in summer. Back in the days a superior image must have been a superior way of getting scared LOL.


This store sells prints and reproductions of his famous illustrations.
Can't you see how some of them have literally been pillaged by the movies?









Now I am going to show you my very favorite!

Yes, yes! The fakest pirate imagery ever: walk the plank! But, oh, such class!
Look at the composition, this wonderful up-shot and the details! (No sharks in sight, though LOL).
I love this man!

Next time I'll show you NC Wyeth!

Pirate Movies

Okay, how about we talk about pirate movies today?

This is going to be a long post and that is because it took me many days to put it together... so you might want to read it in many days as well, muahahahar ahr ahr! ^_X/

If you click on the above title you'll get to visit the wikipedia page listing all the pirate movies ever made by year.

I never managed to see the ones from the early 1900... so the first one I'll talk about, on the list will be:

The Black Pirate - 1926

with Douglas Fairbanks.

I don't remember much of the movie, except I found it at Blockbuster, thought it was amusing... I remember making up dialogues for it and I really don't remember a girl being in it or doing much. What is stuck to my head is this image of Douglas Fairbanks climbing on the poop castle of the ship, much like Castalia and Cassandra do at the beginning of our story. It was a fantastic scene that left me pondering if they were using a Batman trick (that is, the façade of the castle was actually horizontal) or speeding up the film, or both, or neither and Douglas Fairbanks is a fantastic climber instead! And now you know why Castalia and Cassandra did climb on the poop castle!

Treasure Island in black and white - 1934

I love movies from the 30's! *_* This one was adventurous and honestly I didn't even hate Jim that much!

Captain Blood - 1935

Aaah Peter Peter! *_* How elegant you are, how refined, with you hair nicely combed even when you sweat, are beaten or are taken into slavery! What is you secret, darling Peter!

My friends, you ought to watch Peter Blood in action with Arabella, against Levasseur (my poor, dear Basil Rathbone was always killed with a smile by most beautiful Errol Flynn) and judge for yourself if he is not the most romantic figure of pirate ever! A doctor and a captain, a friend and a fierce enemy, loved by women but in love with only one! MUAHAHAHA! Ideal....

The Sea Hawk - 1940

Is another wonderful Errol Flynn movie. Here we have Elizabethian pirates and Wolfingham acts as a bastard and a traitor. The love story is right at the beginning, then off our hero goes into adventure, to return to the darling of his heart - and gets married - at the end.

Fun fact: it took me years to watch the whole thing. It always shows up on national tv around 3pm and 30 minutes into the movies somebody would show up and tell me: we have to go to the dentist! =_=

The black Swan - 1942

Is a movie with Tyron Power... you know the one with "oooh Jamie boy". Girls get often mistreated here and I don't like when women get slapped for comical purpose, it's not funny.

We then reach the 50's with some more interesting movies. There's a Treasure Island by Disney, you know the one with Bobby Driscoll as Jim (he looks creepy for he looks like a miniature man).

The we return to Errol Flynn and Maureen O'hara with Against all Flags which is funny and adventurous but Flynn is starting to look old - she is a cutie though.

The Crimsom Pirate - 1952

What I remember about this movie... with the most complex plot ever - it was so hard to follow I could spend hours thinking how odd Burt Lancaster's pants looked - was this guy like the Wizard of Oz (a professor) and Burt Lancaster half naked!

Actually some scene were very entertaining and if I am talking about this movie is because Burt Lancaster looks delicious... no... it's because his pants look so weird! Now honestly... they are either too short or look like Obelix's underpants!

Anyways there's action, adventure, some comedy, lot's of stunts and a love story and the main protagonist is naked most of the time! Sounds go to me.

In the 60's there's a bunch of random Adventures of Mary Read, Henry Morgan and the Pirates of Tortuga.... and it's all fuzzy and not so cool, till you get to the Disney movie: Blackbeard's Ghost. Okay, this is not a pirate movie, per say... but you have to admit that Peter Ustinov is fantastic! It's dated 1968.

The 70's open on a Pippi Longstocking movie - pretty funny if you ask me.

We finally get back to a Salgari cult:

The Black Corsair 1976

Yes, it's Kabir Bedi, the guy who did Sandokan and looks all emo and sad with flowy black hair!

The story follows the book and ends with him crying, of course... poor, poor, Emilio.

Anyways... Kabir Bedi in black with flowy hair is something you want to see.

This Black Corsair is not to be mixed up with the Bud Spencer and Terence Hill movie, that's another one!

In fact it is from 1976 too... but it abused the Salgari title and the two famous actors to tell a serious story!

Nothing to do with Emilio, no no... here we have a Captain Blakie, instead, who wants to set free this lady he likes - although she is married - and kills her husband in a duel.

All I remember from this movie was: it wasn't funny and Bud Spencer dies... which turned the whole thing into a big "no no" to me!

Nobody kills Bud Spencer!

Now the 80's were slightly better, when it comes to pirates, as some of my favorite movies came out when I was a kid, lucky me!

Pirates of Penzance 1983

Kevin Kline as the King of Pirates is simply marvelous. Now I'll probably write a long blabber, one day, about this Opera.... and you might want to skip that altogether or decide to fangirl with me over some cool music and libretto.

It is a sort of Musical/Operetta... well it's a Savoy Opera. Let's face it: Gilbert and Sullivan were the Mel Brooks of Opera!

Now you know why I have a king of pirates called Gilbert Sullivan. This movie is hilarious, the story is hilarious, the songs are hilarious... in short!

This is what cracks me up the most recently and it's the kind of sense of humor I prefer and apply to my stories - except with no music, else you'd hate me.

The Goonies 1986

I saw this at the movies when I was 13... and my love for pirates started burning up again.

I don't have to tell how incredibly awesome and funny this movie is. The story is compelling, the jokes are fantastic, the adventure is adventurous!

I had my sister look everywhere for a Uniqlo store in London so that I could get The Goonies t-shirt!

If you don't like the Goonies, you are no friend of mine.

Just kidding, I am not that drastic...

Then again... seriously, no, you have at least know the movie and then I'll grant you access to my heart.

Alright, you guys, we are definitely getting back to the good stuff.

Pirates 1986 by Roman Polanski

This is the most pirateish pirate movie ever!

Pirates like you've never seen them before. Pirates for real!

Walter Matthau as Captain Red is the absolute, perfect compendium of piracy and picaresque spirit!

It has a great sense of humor, it has fantastic scenes and dialogues (I think the part where Red and the Froggy boy were sharing the rat was one of the funniest and most clever thing I have ever seen)

It has a bit of romance, but this is the tough reality so... you have to cope with it, love stories don't always end well when gold is the final prize. It can even get in the way!

An absolute must watch.

For some reasons Wikipedia does not list Princess Bride.

The Princess Bride 1987

I mentioned this title before, in the post about books.

Again, if the book was awesome you cannot imagine how incredibly nice the movie is.

And I am not just saying that Cary Elwes was, back in the days, a very nice sight to see (especially in the front view, not so much in 3/4 view XD)... but this is a story of love and revenge and so many other interesting things. Is this a kissing story? It is!

There's many good reasons to watch this movie, including Billy Crystal as Miracle Max and Peter Cook as the Clergyman. Did I mention the fact that the soundtrack is by Mark Knopfler?

Now, if it were for me I would totally skip the 90's... particularly Cutthroat Island and Hook... if it weren't for the fact that I MUST absolutely mention the Muppet movie.

One should never go without a good dose of Muppet in his/her life.

Did you know? The Muppet Treasure Island and Christmas Carol are most impossible to find in dvd in Italy? If any of you knows of available copies of these two movies, please let me know. I must show them to my sister's kids.

Oh it's 2000 and something already. Yeah, let's skip Treasure Planet and pretend that never happened... and go directly to Pirates of the Caribbean and stop at the first movie (2 and 3 is sci fi).

I've heard, from rumors, that On stranger tides answers to all my prayers... gets rid of Nilly Willy and Elizabeth the Silly and finally focuses on the only 2 cool characters in the story: Sparrow and Barbossa! Apparently we'll see Teach in this movie and Penelope Cruz as his daughter (please don't spoil Jack for me - plus I know people who was hoping for some Yaoi XDD Not me, I want him single!)

In the end, this was shorter than I thought. Probably there are not as many good pirates movies as I thought LOL.

Books about Pirates!

I have been asked if I could suggest any good books about pirates! - aside from history books and non fictional book, of course.
Wikipedia lists these - but for some reason it lists The Count of Montecristo as a pirate book (which is not, although it is one of the coolest adventures ever written, my co-author, Giorgia, agrees with me that Edmond Dantes... is absolutely to be jumped on)!


Well, it might surprise you that I don't have that many novels about pirates in my bookshelf on anobii, that is because I borrowed most part of the things I've read when I lived in San Francisco from the very wonderful San Francisco Public Library (included the now difficult to find "Piracy was business"). Plus I read mostly history books.


<--- Long John Silver, by N.C. Wyeth (this is exactly how I've always imagined this fella).



Let's start with a classic:

Treasure Island (L'isola del Tesoro) by R. L. Stevenson
If I could recommend a version it would be the one illustrated by the amazing N.C. Wyeth.
We all know the story about a boy hunting for a treasure and being tricked by the evil Long John Silver...
Evil?
Oooh, come on, who doesn't love Long John Silver!
I do, I do, hurray for Barbecue!
Enough with the silly stuff. Treasure Island is a great classic, never gets old and is pretty adventurous, plus the relationship amongst characters is amazing!

Captain Blood by Raphael Sabatini

It says here the book is no longer under copyright... that means that you can be a total pirate about it and read it for free here. (God, do I love the project Gutenberg's website it lists something like 3211 pages of books on pirates).
Now, you may know that Peter Blood is like my favorite pirate, lol. I think I mentioned this before.
This is a story of a poor British doctor who's unjustly accused of being a traitor and sent to work as a slave in the colonies' plantations. Once there, Peter is recognized as a talented doctor and is left free to roam around the city of Puerto Royal, for a series of fortunate events (I don't want to spoil this to you) he manages to escape and become a pirate, not without leaving a little bit of his heart behind - for he manages to fall in love with Arabella in the meantime, great gal by the way! - but never leaving behind his sense of justice. A must.

Raphael Sabatini also wrote plenty of other books about pirates. He is a cool author with very compelling stories and characters you can sympathize with. Of course he is very traditional and some things might feel old/odd as the sense of justice was - a few years ago - pretty much different from what we have today.

• Captain Blood (1922) (also known as Captain Blood His Odyssey)
• Captain Blood Returns (also known as The Chronicles of Captain Blood ,1931)
• The Fortunes of Captain Blood (1936)

and:

• The Sea Hawk (1915), a tale of the Spanish Armada and the pirates of the Barbary Coast;

A General History of the Pyrates (Vite di Pirati) by Daniel Defoe











Yes, it's an essay but a very loose one. How do I say this: this man also wrote The King of Pirates and other stories about piracy and he was very fond of Captain Avery, you might want to check his books out to figure out what I keep saying: the pirates of the Caribbean was a short, yet noisy, phase of piracy made famous by Disney and others... most of THE COOL STUFF happened before or after that. I go on and suggest everything by the author here because this man wrote a lot and there are controversies about the fact he did indeed write this or that. Plus, and language is always a plus, his writing is absolutely stunning.

For the same reason it is fun to read The Pirate book by Howard Pyle (the author of the illustrations on the top left cover - I think he is the inventor of Hook's look as Disney was mostly inspired by his red pirates). You need information to understand a phenomenon like piracy and be able to put in a context the novels you read.

The Princess Bride (La Storia Fantastica) by William Goldman
This is not set on the sea and they made a movie out of it - the movie is partially better for it skip some of the useless part and had better ellipses in the story, still Fezzik's story is better in the book.
This is a story of True Love between Westley and Buttercup and how he gets killed by pirates and she ends up engaged to an ugly Prince... until she is kidnapped by Vizzini and his men and rescued by the Dread Pirate Roberts, a masked pirate wearing black, very cultured and very good at sword-fighting. Yup, Westley is Deda's n.2 in her beloved pirate list!
I always recommend this for the sheer brilliancy of the author's sense of humor!


The Black Corsair Saga - La saga de "I pirati delle Antille"

The Black Corsair (Il Corsaro Nero) by the wonderful EMILIO SALGARI (who wrote like a gazillion of stories without ever leaving home and made them feel so real!)

Ah-ha... you thought I was not going to mention my beloved Black Corsair? Hell, no.
You are lucky pirates only show up here and there in Verne's books The Mysterious Island especially - they do show up in Tom Sawyer as well, did you know? (only Wodehouse, I think, left me pirateless).
Well, you better imagine Emilio with Kabir Bedi's face too, while you read this! LOL
This is a story of revenge and passion that meet, in the end, tearing our protagonist's heart into pieces and forcing him to choose one over the other. How romantic!
Halfway to the book Salgari writes his take on piracy, which is really really cute, plus... you gotta love this guy for naming the cool protagonists after himself all the time. Emilio di Ventimiglia is the Black Corsair (if you were to read the Italian Robinsons the cool guy is named Emilio too! XD)
This book has 2 sequels: The Queen of the Caribbean, Yolanda, Daughter of The Black Corsair. Revenge takes very long. There is also The Son of the Red Corsair - now this one meets Pirates of the Caribbean and is a separate story from the previous ones.
Emilio Salgari also wrote other saga about pirates:

Tigers of Malaysia series

Sandokaaaan!!!! Yes!

• The Mystery of the Black Jungle (I Misteri della Jungla Nera, 1895)
• The Tigers of Mompracem (Le tigri di Mompracem, 1900)
• The Pirates of Malaysia (I pirati della Malesia, 1896)
• The Two Tigers (Le due Tigri, 1904)
• The King of the Sea (Il re del mare, 1906)
• Quest for a Throne (Alla conquista di un impero, 1907)
• Sandokan Fights Back (Sandokan alla riscossa, 1907)
• Return to Mompracem (La riconquista di Mompracem, 1908)
• The False Brahman (Il Bramino dell’Assam, 1911)
• An Empire Crumbles (La caduta di un impero, 1911)
• Yanez’ Revenge (La rivincita di Yanez, 1913)

The last two titles were published posthumously.

The Pirates of Bermuda Series

• I corsari delle Bermude (1909)
• La crociera della Tuonante (1910)
• Straordinarie avventure di Testa di Pietra (1915)

See one of Baldassarre's ship is called Thundering - La tuonante! XD Isn't that a cool name for a pirate ship?

Capitan Tempesta

• Capitan Tempesta (1905)
• Il Leone di Damasco (1910)

This is if you want to read all of Salgari's book. I find him very entertaining, easy to understand and absolutely love him for his naivete. I am getting all of his books.

Long John Silver: the True and Eventful History of My Life of Liberty and Adventure As a Gentleman of Fortune and Enemy to Mankind by Bjorn Larson
This one was an interesting read. I am not too fond of fan-fictions especially when they turn the characters around to satisfy their fancies or help the plot. I have to confess that Larson did a nice job keeping Silver the way it was, just as Stevenson had imagined him. The first part of the book is very nice and interesting... I have to confess that the second part reminded me a lot of Captain's Blood slavery episode and the meeting with Defoe doesn't help speeding up the process of reading because he repeats what you have read in the Defoe's books with his own words. In the end the story is told in first person, it's a memoir, and Silver keeps on addressing different people in his storytelling, ending up writing directly to Jim. That might stress the reader a bit but you have to understand he is an old man and he is trying to put down on papers his memories. The ending is just glorious.
Except for the Defoe part, it's a very fast read and it's not too descriptive nor annoying about silly details.

Of course we have pirates in Peter Pan but I would not consider that a pirate book especially since the Pan is a pirate killer! (è_é)--> shame on you, Pan!

The Gold Bug by Edgar Alla Poe
is a short novel which I think inspired the Goonies.
It's the story of a treasure hunt and cryptograms. Pretty cool too as insanity of the protagonist is implied all the time.
The Corsair by Lord Byron
Yup, the Corsair himself wrote a poem about a man fighting against society's standards.
I don't know if you are into poems but Conrad is a true romantic hero. Many musicians were inspired by this poem included Verdi and Berlioz.

I am currently looking for The Pirate by Walter Scott. If I managed to read it and find it I'll let you know what I think about it.

Last but not least I think I ought to honor the very queen of Romance Novel: Georgette Heyer.

Beauvallet by Georgette Heyer
Oooh, we are talking Elizabethian pirates here! The ones who invented stuff and made ship-building advance and turned heavy and ugly ship into oceanic vessels.
Now, this is considered an Historical novel, rather than a romance novel, I have to say that Georgette Heyer's writing is a bit bulky for my taste - and I wonder if she was paid by words, still Dumas was paid by words and never used useless ones - so I haven't quite digested the book but its setting is very very interesting. Plus Nicholas does something very similar to Peter Blood: he is very chivalrous - to death - and would risk his life for the girl he loves.
So why do I suggest it? Because maybe you don't mind bulky writing - used to Harry Potter and Twilight (I consider those bulky too) - maybe you find her writing easier to digest, more than I do. And the book is pretty nice, not to mention that she does write nice comedy when she wants to (Devil's cub was really funny and it's about a kidnapping gone wrong).

I'll probably write about movies next, if you are interested.

chapter 3 - work in progress

Okay, pencil drawing for the final part is done!
Now let's do some clean up, rendering, lettering... 7 more days to go. O_o
Do not panic!

Okay panic now!

Capitolo 3B- in Italiano!

Vi costringo a rileggere il capitolo dall'inizio... con l'aggiunta finale delle 8 pagine nuove.

Forse è meglio da un punto di vista narrativo. Se vi scoccia, però, potete sempre scegliere l'opzione di leggervi le 8 pagine da sole su smackjeeves.

Ho messo su l'update con un giorno di anticipo, così ci godiamo tutti Pasqua e Pasquetta!

Buona cioccolata a tutti!

Chapter 3A - curiosities

We have seen a bunch of weird things happen in this chapter.

1) there's a cow on a ship.

2) there are no toilets on a ship.

3) they have warm food on a ship.

4) they are eating sharks.

5) they have wine and play cards.

6) skinny girls are not considered beautiful.

Let's talk about it.

A cow on a ship.

See nowadays they would use these types of ships to transport cuttle from one Country to another... let me tell you these are considered by many environmentalist like a living Hell - for animals die.

Back in the days was even worse.

This is a section of The golden hind sir Francis Drake's ship (you can visit it if you go to London for 6 pounds - I did). Alidivento is halfway between this ship and the Sovereign of the Sea, actually, because it is a razee ship after all. As you can see there are many "floors". On the first floor, on the main deck, I put the kitchen, the storage room on the forecastle and the cabins on the the aftcastle: mess hall, Foxy's cabin and Cat's cabin. Kane's Cabin and sick bay (that's where Westley lodges) are on top, on the poop castle. (that is not where our pirates poop, they go close to the bowsprit as Foxy said.)

Under the main deck there's another floor, it's used for storage, the cannons are there, the crew sleeps there (usually prow, right below the forecastle in the "wedge") and it has many practical uses. There's another store, sometimes below waterline. That depends on how loaded the ship is.

Here we have the brigs and more storage... slaves were kept there in the days of the trade and so was the cuttle - as traders didn't see the difference between the two ;_; sigh. Of course every ship would have its regulations... sometimes sailors and cuttle and brigs were on the same deck. Imagine the stench... well the cuttle would get used to it after a while, trust me! Hahahahah!

There are no toilets on a ship.

So the girls will have to use a bucket and toss the "stuff" overboard once they are done.

That's because they are girls and are being treated nicely.

The crew would just lean overboard and do it, straight into the sea. Don't ask about wiping and washing hands! You don't wanna go there.

They have warm food on a ship.

Usually they don't!

But Quoque-tu... well, you'll learn more about him and find out why there's warm food on Alidivento.

They are eating sharks

That's also related to Quoque-tu being peculiar... Actually the one thing you might want to know is who "invented/imported" the word shark. John Hawkins did! (He recently inspired a character in the One Piece manga too).

I keep wondering why we always remember Henry Morgan, amongst famous pirates (who was mostly more a thief than a pirate) and nobody ever remembers the cool ones! The wikipedia page is not so bad, in this case, and so you can see that Shark is probably a Mayan word - in Europe sharks are also called dogfishes and each of them has its specific name. You can notice that, amongst other things this guy imported tobacco and one thing Castalia really doesn't like: potatoes!

Still, John Hawkins rocks!

They have wine and play cards.

It would be weird if they didn't.

As Caravaggio shows us here, clearly, playing cards and cheating was already very popular back in the days.

You have to know one thing though: amongst commoners it was not very popular to use the French deck.

In fact our pirates are using something like this: with sticks, swords, cups and golds (and maybe a Sicilian version of the deck).

I wonder if they have the one with the werecat attached to the 3 of sticks: il Gatto Mammone.

Skinny girls are not considered beautiful.

Let's face it. Beauty had different standards back in the days... so as boys were liked girly and with long hair... well girls had to be nice and chubby and have "a lot" to fondle!

Now, Cat is not a big sturdy boy but he is used to carry weights and is pretty strong. Considering how lightly he lifts up Feetsie and how his comments go to the fact these girls look too skinny... they must be considerably too light for their height and age.

I guess dear uncle Aristotle Papadopulos was stingy with the girls but not with his soldiers... let's hope the pirate would feed them better food! :D

Why the long hair?

...and the girly look?

I hate to break it to you but people were just as slave of fashion back in the days as we are right now. If you are good at hinting, by these pictures, I am telling exactly in what time period I've set this thing... although I don't think History will ever show up in a dominant way, I doubt we'll see any in the background either (I usually do hint at History but Piracy was a world of its own and unless History came to Pirates - in the form of a fleet or a battle, like in the Andrea Doria case... - it's very difficult that pirate would care for History!)

The age I have chosen is an age of big economical and political crisis, just like right now!

Piracy was a solution! But now, let's talk about looks:

I have chosen a basic Spanish fashion because the South of Italy and the State of Presidi back then, belonged to the King of Spain and Rome to the Pope.

I have chosen this particular look with the hair split in the middle because it was more popular in Spain and I also chose the one with fringes to the sides (although Cat does have a straight fringe/bangs under his band) like the one these boys have... for this is more of the look you'd see up North.

Well considering that Foxy is emo his bangs cover his eye! That's partially to make him funny and give him character... I also exaggerated his girly features cuz they go well with his hypochondriac syndrome.

You might not believe me, and that's why you'll get to see him... but Westley has this kind of hairdo too, he just keeps his hair braided because he needs to work and hair would go in his way.
His hair is wavy and long kinda like the boy to the right.

As you can see "manly" is not in fashion!
And you may say: what do pirates care about fashion?
They don't but an historical trend is an historical trend and barber and seamstresses and tailors would work according to fashion no matter what.
If you consider these guys wear stuff they steal and do like to go around towns when they have a chance... they like to look normal every once in a while too.

Now Cat and Foxy look like sailors and it's okay but Westley, for example, has to go and shop for medicines and books to the apothecarium store. That is PART of the reason why he dresses normally, almost like this guy to the side (but in a more practical way) even when he is on board and keeps normal clothing.

So now you know why the guys have long hair and, I can tell you, it's not my whim since it's such a pain in the butt having to draw long hair... always swinging and waving around with motion!




Now, for the girls... maybe this cute little girls can tell you where Cassiopea hairdo come from!

She is the only fashionable one! The others don't care very much and soon they would care even less... as something very drastic is going to happen to them!