Dynamite Entertainment.Written with frequent collaborators Robert Napton and Jamie Nash and drawn by artist Mario Guevara with John Cassaday covers, "Blackbeard" is surely not a horror project like Sanchez and Hale's most famous effort, but rather the biographical story of the legendary 18th Century pirate captain. The book promises unleashes more than a few tantalizing tales of extreme piracy when it ships this October, but the creators were quick to tell CBR News that not all of the worst bits came at the hands of Blackbeard himself."It's a matter of context. Blackbeard was a villain in a world of tyranny," co-writer Jamie Nash told CBR. "During a time of slavery and oppression, Blackbeard employed democracy on his ships, had Africans serve as crewman and even as his quatermasters and right-hand men. Even merchant crews were harshly treated by their captains - often beaten and killed for insubordination - and often forced into service or 'pressed' as it was called. It was so bad, the merchant crews weapons were kept locked away lest they use them against their merciless captains. I think within the context Blackbeard waged his reign of pirating...it's a grayer shade than might be expected."Keeping close to the historical record of the world Blackbeard lived in stands key for the creators, who started their exploration of the pirate's history years ago. "It started with me getting into pirates in general and then finding out more about Blackbeard, in particular," said Hale, who with Sanchez preps early story drafts to be scripted as comics pages by Nash and Napton. "I approached Ed and Jamie about doing a screenplay based on Blackbeard's life and we worked on that for well over a year. We ended up with a 150+ page screenplay that would have easily cost $200 million to produce." "The objective here is to write a great comic," Napton noted. "We aren't writing for a movie - we want the comic to work as a comic and when it finds its way back to a movie, then that will be approached differently I'm sure, but for now, we are taking a great screenplay that had a strong foundation and reinventing that into what we hope will be a great comic."All that prep work went towards divining who the "real" Blackbeard is, both in terms of his methods and manners to the particulars of his years on the seas. As Napton explained, "There is an arc to Edward Teach's life which we dig into in this comic that will reveal a new way of thinking about Blackbeard. He was more than just this guy out for treasure - he had a code and quest, and we get into that subtext in this comic which will create I feel a more three-dimensional view of Blackbeard. Historically, we know that Blackbeard showed mercy on bystanders, he wasn't this blood thirsty savage - he in some ways was the ultimate marketing machine - creating this persona and adding to his legend so he could create fear in his opponents so they might surrender at the sight of him. The legend of the burning rope in the hair and those things are all examples of how he tried to use his persona as an instrument and tool of piracy. So he was a highly intelligent, complex individual.
When Eduardo Sanchez and Gregg Hale helped bring "The Blair Witch Project" to life in 1999, the filmmakers (Sanchez as co-director and Hale as producer) blurred the lines between fiction and reality to create a newer vision of horror than cineplexes had seen in years. A decade later, the pair are aiming to do the same in comics, but rather than push pure fiction into a realistic realm, they're bringing real life into an epic narrative with "Blackbeard: The Legend of the Pyrate King" from"We wanted to go the other way and show the unglamorous side of that period and really get the clothes, buildings, weapons, etc to be period accurate as opposed to this amalgam," Napton added. "We have a research assistant Steve Fussell who put together a ton of reference for us to pass along to Mario - it's really been painstakingly researched and it comes across on the page. We have a brilliant artist in Mario Guevara and he interpreted everything wonderfully with his illustrative style. But it wasn't just to be accurate for history's sake, we wanted to create a sense of a world-the world Edward Teach inhabits. Language became an important factor as well so we created a sort of speak that we felt had the right lingo but also the right sound for a modern audience so it wouldn't get in the way of the storytelling."I saw Mario's work first on 'Lone Ranger and Tonto,' and I really wanted him for this because he has this strong illustrative quality but with a modern appeal, so he really hit the look we needed just with his natural style as an artist. I think his work on 'Lone Ranger and Tonto' and 'Solomon Kane' were great, but I feel this is maybe his best stuff ever, so I'm really excited for people to see what Mario has done."Ultimately, the seven-issue series plans to be just the first step in an in-depth exploration of Blackbeard's life. "This first run of books will take us basically from deciding to be a pirate up to point the Blackbeard personae is born," Hale said. "If the series is successful, there's a ton more stories to tell. Blackbeard's demise is pretty well known but we could have a lot of fun leading up to that including possibly doing more flashbacks depicting events prior to those we see even in the first issue of this series."