New Wave Pirates on the Horizon
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on April 4, 2006 Sign up now!
by Chris Arrant, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 4/4/2006
You can take the pirate out of the fight, but you can't take the fight out of the pirate.
Forgoing the standard pirate trope of tunics, muskets and the occasional "Arrrr!" Becky Cloonan's East Coast Rising takes a decidedly urban approach to the pirate life with a mixture of punk rock, street gangs and a half-submerged wasteland once known as New York. Published by Tokyopop as part of its ambitious OEL manga line, this graphic novel marks the full-length debut of Eisner-nominated artist Cloonan. For longtime fans, it's a book they've heard about for years; for the newcomer, it's an ideal opportunity to discover a cartoonist praised by Entertainment Weekly and the Village Voice as a talent to watch.
The calamitous future of East Coast Rising centers on the crew of the pirate ship La Revancha, as they fight against competing ships and each other in a breakneck search for a relic some say doesn't even exist. Led by the charismatic Cannonball Joe, the crew includes a reformed criminal named Deathsnake, an unassuming cabin boy named Archer and a fishing girl named Abby with a past that won't let go. "The best way to describe them is a gang of vagrant merchants," Cloonan explains. "They don't always get along, but their quick thinking and resourcefulness get them out of sticky situations... a good thing too, since La Revancha doesn't house any weapons!"
Despite their general lack of weapons on the ship, the Revancha crew have managed to hold their own in the rough Atlantic seas against both man and monster. One of their chief foes and competitors is the pirate ship/tank hybrid Hoboken, commandeered by the villainous Lee. The man Deathsnake once called captain, Lee is known for his quick action and quicker temper as he keeps a tight rein on the New Jersey coast. If that isn't enough, there's someone or something out there called the suffocating death. "Legend has it that it's the ghost of a deceased whaler who was beheaded for high treason," Cloonan reveals. "His disembodied head was thrown laughing into the ocean and to this day it still haunts the waves looking for its body. Of course, most people think of the suffocating death as mythological, like the Loch Ness monster and the Rio yeti, but every few years a ship disappears and gives the legend new life and terror."
Spurred on by scraps of information from the newly arrived cabin boy Archer, Cannonball Joe and the crew of La Revancha hope to fend off those who would stand against them in their hunt for a fabled treasure that was thought lost to the ages. "As far as any of the characters know, it's the forgotten treasure of the last mayor of New York City, who had spent years hoarding stolen tax money from the public," says Cloonan. "There are many rumors as to where it's buried and what it contains; some say wealth beyond all imagination, others say it holds the key to immortality."
While the world of East Coast Rising bears some familiar names, like New Jersey and New York, their condition when this book finds them is far different than what you're used to. From the half-water-covered wastelands of New Jersey to the architectural maze of Manhattan's subway tunnels, the world is less glamour and more grime. Why did Cloonan chose this fate for a place she once called home? " I chose New York because I lived there for a while, and I think having familiar landmarks can be a lot of fun in a story; Staten Island is referred to as Shaolin and New Jersey still smells even after being flooded," Cloonan says slyly. "It's also easy to visualize, rather then make up new names and maps. I just use old subway maps and reworked the shoreline to include all of the water. As fun as it might have been, I didn't want East Coast Rising to sound like a role-playing game.".
Scheduled to run for three volumes, East Coast Rising promises a rousing nautical adventure unlike anything that's come before. Inspired by her love for classics such as Treasure Island and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Cloonan brings her own modern influences to make it as captivating as the stories she remembers. "My favorite movie as a child was Jason & the Argonauts [which featured the amazing stop-motion animation of monster-master Ray Harryhausen], so East Coast Rising in a way is an homage to the epic, treasure-hunting, monster fighting, all-ages teamwork survival genre. I updated the story a bit to a flooded, gang-ridden New York, but that's the general idea. I hope my book gives off some of the same feelings I got as a child from old Harryhausen movies."
