{"id":16415,"date":"2017-01-25T08:00:15","date_gmt":"2017-01-25T08:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=16415"},"modified":"2017-01-20T16:20:38","modified_gmt":"2017-01-20T16:20:38","slug":"galveston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2017\/01\/25\/galveston\/","title":{"rendered":"Galveston"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Johanna Stokes<\/strong>, Ross Richie<\/strong>, Todd Herman<\/strong> & various (Boom! Studios)
\nISBN: 978-1-93450-668-4<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the 19th<\/sup> century, Jean Baptiste Lafitte<\/em> was a French privateer based in New Orleans – and later Barataria Bay – who famously turned down a huge bribe from the British and instead stood beside the Americans during the War of 1812. His alliance with General Andrew Jackson<\/em> at the Battle of New Orleans is the stuff of American mythology.<\/p>\n

When the victorious Americans then started cracking down on piracy, Jean and his older brother Pierre<\/em> became spies for the Spaniards during the Mexican War of Independence (1810-1821), relocating to Galveston Island, Texas and continuing their trade as freebooting privateers targeting Central American ports.<\/p>\n

They established a pirate colony called Campeche<\/em> to facilitate their maritime activities. Jean died – or at least dropped from sight – sometime around 1823.<\/p>\n

Jim Bowie<\/em> is more myth than man. Born in Kentucky around 1796, he was pioneer, frontiersman, law officer, land speculator and quintessential warrior. After accruing wealth and a certain reputation in New Orleans, he eventually relocated to Texas (whilst it was still part of Mexico), married and settled down.<\/p>\n

Of all the legends surrounding him the two truest are his proficiency with the lethal \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bowie knife\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (created from the fearless fighter’s design by bladesmith James Black) and that he died in Texas at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836.<\/p>\n

With such a historic pedigree and so little verifiable fact, it’s perfectly natural that somebody should place these two bellicose American icons together, and that’s exactly what scripter Johanna Stokes (with input from Ross Richie, Tom Peyer & Mark Rahner) and illustrator Todd Herman – ably assisted by colourists Digikore Studios and Andres Lozano and letterer Marshall Dillon – have done in this light-hearted action-romp which is as much buddy\/road movie as pirate yarn or western\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Originally released as a 4-issue miniseries in 2009, Galveston<\/strong> begins in the Gulf of Mexico in 1817, where the infamous Jean Lafitte’s crew are trying to kill him. It’s not personal: they simply heard that he’s hidden a huge stash of gold donated by the Emperor Napoleon for helping him escape from France.<\/p>\n

Lafitte’s only ally is a wiry American he’d recently befriended: a man named Bowie\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

The greed-inciting gold story was circulated by Cyrus Wesley<\/em>, an old acquaintance from New Orleans and no friend of the pirate captain\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

After escaping certain doom through quick-wittedness and a certain amount of chicanery, Lafitte brings Bowie to the prate colony he built in Galveston, introducing him to the glories of the Maison Rouge<\/em> and the light of his life: a fiery tongued and ferociously independent woman named Madeline Ragaud<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

She seems welcoming but also brings news of a ship full of spies masquerading as traders. All too soon Bowie is experiencing first hand how his pirate pal deals with real threats to his people\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

A bigger worry is Wesley. Acting on behalf of vengeful Louisiana Governor Claiborne<\/em>, the old enemy has brought a small army of bought-&-paid-for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153lawmen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d into the shady new town, ready to deal with Lafitte on the slightest pretext. A man of absolutely no principles, Cyrus is, however, quite prepared to let the mission slide\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 if Lafitte gives him Napoleon’s gold\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

It would be a sound bargain if there actually was any bullion, but Lafitte swears all he got for his services was a couple of ornamental cannon. They don’t even work\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Temporarily escaping his problems, the wily pirate accompanies Bowie on his own mission to set up trading ties with the Commanches, but Cyrus’ threat to harm Madeline lingers, prompting Jean to bicker with his buddy and storm off in a fury. By the time Jean gets back to Galveston the settlement is in flames and Wesley is ensconced aboard a warship in the bay\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

It’s time for old war-hero Lafitte to rally his piratical troops for a showdown, but he might be less fired up if he knew that his aggravating paramour has despatched a message to even the odds. Hopefully Madeline’s young courier can find Bowie and his Indian friends before it’s too late\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Culminating in a classic and epic underdog vs. bad guys showdown and delivering a marvellously traditional twist in the tale, this rowdy, raucous riot of fun is a sheer delight all lovers of straightforward, no-nonsense matinee thrills.
\n\u00c2\u00a9 2009 Boom Entertainment Inc. and Johanna Stokes. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Johanna Stokes, Ross Richie, Todd Herman & various (Boom! Studios) ISBN: 978-1-93450-668-4 At the beginning of the 19th century, Jean Baptiste Lafitte was a French privateer based in New Orleans – and later Barataria Bay – who famously turned down a huge bribe from the British and instead stood beside the Americans during the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Galveston”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[122,132,99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historical","category-older-kids","category-westerns"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-4gL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}