The Webcomics Weekly is back in your life and bringing us back to the golden age of piracy. Avast ye mateys! It’s the dread pirate BlackSmith and his motley crew of cutthroats, brigands, and, uh, is that a zombie? And a talking statue? What’s with all the ghosts?! I think I need to drink some grog and retire to my cabin.
BlackSmith
‘Book 1 – Episode 1: The Festival’ – ‘Book 3 – Episode 27: Samas’
Updates: Tuesdays
By Boredman
Reviewed by Elias Rosner
I was introduced to the work of Boredman, a French illustrator, thanks to Rocketship’s kickstarter of his first webcomic “UndeadEd,” a four panel comedy about a man who’s a zombie but somehow…not? It was a lot of fun and it led me to go digging into Boredman’s other comics, namely his latest venture: “BlackSmith.” I instantly fell in love with the comic. It takes a couple episodes to get to the pirate part of the pirate story, introducing us to our protagonist Zoa, a youth doing youth things on her isolated island, stealing jade relics from the priestess and being a general smart-ass.
It makes for a nice contrast to where Zoa ends up as a deuteragonist, a bit of a stick in the mud moralist to the pirates’ more…flexible ethics while remaining irreverent and impulsive. One would assume, in any other tale, that she would desire to join the pirates or at the very least fit in with them. It’s a nice change of pace, especially since they do raze her village to the ground and she ends up getting murdered by the titular BlackSmith with the jade idol. Don’t worry. She haunts the “good” captain, quite literally sharing the spotlight (and a body) with him.
Yeah. Spoilers for the central conceit of the story but y’all the hook is too good not to talk about. Book 1 is subtitled “The Death of Zoa,” a subtitle that leads Episode 2. While there’s plenty of excellent pirate fun to be had, including a buck wild cast of characters like Noseless and the Gouverneur and Shi (Shi is SO FUN,) the conflict that arises from the body sharing is what makes the comic so endlessly compelling.
Zoa experiences what amounts to a culture shock when she awakens in BlackSmtih’s body, with him inhabiting the pirate Jiminy Cricket-esque role, yelling at her about all the ways her naivety and moralism will get her, and by extension him, killed. And it’s true! She is naive, which makes for a bad combination with her impulsivity. She has to learn, but so too does Smith. Zoa’s awful crash course teaches her how to deal with a world of slavers, murderers, thieves and self-interested scallywags (the Spanish empire, in particular) and in doing so, shows Smith that his closed-off ways, while protective, are just as naive.
Also she freaks out about the skeleton ghost hands he has. As one does.
I could go on. Boredman packs “BlackSmith” with all sorts of interpersonal relationships like these, even with the comedic side-characters. Bolstering this is his highly expressive style and flair for offbeat design. No same face syndrome going on here. He also will often, very often, remove character’s pupils to allow for a cartoonier expression, usually to sell a joke, though it is also used to enhance the eerier moments.
Episode 5, ‘Little Fish,’ is a great example of this. It’s a scary episode. The pirates are not to be trifled with. Zoa’s desperation seeps off the page and Noseless – my fav character – looks absolutely demonic as she hunts Zoa down. But then we get a close-up of Noseless, pupils and all, and suddenly she becomes a person again, inverting the situation and breaking the tension with levity. I don’t always love this shorthand, with the eyes, as it’s applied inconsistently across the comic. Still, it’s a fun departure from a lot of the usual shorthand I see for comedy.
With the latest updates, we’re nearing the end of this tale. What I described so far is only the tip of the “BlackSmith” iceberg. There’s a Joker pirate, pirate politics, giant sharks, international intrigue, swordfights, slapstick comedy, something you’ll never expect, and a whole lot of yelling about “crab.”
Thanks to this comic, I’ve rediscovered my love of pirate stories. Maybe you will too.
