Long John Silver, Book 1 – Lady Vivian Hastings
Long John Silver, Book 1 – Lady Vivian Hastings, By Xavier Dorison & Mathhieu Lauffray, Cinebook
FOR THOSE of us who have not read Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island since we were kids, we still have overwhelming memories of Wallace Beery playing the Long John Silver role in the Hollywood movie. As off-kilter as that transposition of character may have been, it was enough to convince us for the rest of our lives that the sea-cook and pirate was one of the principle baddies of our whole darned historic culture, high or low!
Long John Silver appeals to the working classes more than Fu Manchu, Dr. No or even Lex Luthor ever will. There’s something about him we admire: a character possibly forced by time and circumstance to commit the acts he does.
So a book, no a series, dedicated to the character offers great potential... and with as sombre a debut cover as this as readers the mood is set for us for a truly engrossing work, that might quite possibly outstrip its source as far as this reader’s concerned.
In fact the character with his head reversed from us staring towards the rain is not Silver at all but Lord Byron Hastings, an English gentleman who’s spent years searching for Guiana-Capac, an Amazonian city of gold and now needs money to complete his quest.
Hastings is the absent husband of Lady Vivian, from whom this book takes its subheading: the money he needs can only be sought by the sale of his mansion, since all the goods within have been sold already to keep his wife in the opulent manner she’s become used to – or at least that’s how it reads initially...
Lady Vivian’s a first rate bitch, a conniving, twisted-minded little she-devil with a heart colder than ice and looks as sexy as Hell itself... Lord Hasting’s been gone three years, with him legally declared she can marry Lord Prisham, but only because he’s got money, so conning him into bed then making him think he’s going to be a father is child’s play to her. When her brother-in-law arrives with news that her husband’s alive but wants what’s left financially to purchase a ship and crew to complete his quest her plans are turned upside down – But she’s not beaten down. If there’s gold she wants in on it, she deserves her share as far as she’s concerned, and if by any chance her husband doesn’t survive in some far-off land what the hell...
Enter Long John, after a little more circumnavigation of dubious and highly moral characters alike; she hires him and he gets her a crew, of his own cut-throats – he and she both know the score, or appear to.
As the story progresses we find, our working class affections for the rogue that is Silver are extended to Lady Vivian, a woman coerced by fortune and cruel fate to lead the life she now does (and let us not forgive completely, for she enjoys its rich fruits too).
There is depth, emotion and personality running throughout this book - The narrative language of the captions is delicious, evoking period drama while using the comics medium to visually counterpoint or trump the statements and inferences issued. Male and female readers alike will find much to value, and even despise, in this adventure.
The beautiful art is like some synergistic combination of American masters Joe Kubert and the late Tom Sutton, while calling to mind England’s own John M. Burns, but all allowed to spread out and enjoy the expanse of the page reminiscent of Neal Adams or Alan Davies. Just great stuff.
There’s meat on the skull and crossbones of the epic that is Long John Silver so we’re in for a hearty meal because Lady Vivian Hastings is just the hors d'œuvre.
Sponsored by Target Media.
