EXTRACTS: Pirates! Illustrators Special Edition © 2020 The Book Palace (128 PAGES in Full edition)

22 III: Swashbucklers of the Seven Seas As we have earlier asserted it was the American illustrator, Howard Pyle, who influenced our visual imagination of what pirates should look like. Howard Pyle’s illustrations have been described as “a unique combination of historical accuracy and his own personal vision” and it is that ‘vision’ which has fixed the visual image of the pirate in the public mind all over the world. It was he who created the modern template of pirate fashion. Incorporating elements of gypsy dress, he clothes his sea rogues in romantic, colourful and flamboyant costumes. These visual elements are to be seen in Hollywood pirate movies from the early Douglas Fairbanks silent film, ‘The Black Pirate’, through Errol Flynn’s ‘Captain Blood’, and right down to the present day ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ films star‐ ring Johnny Depp. With the death of Howard Pyle, two of his students, N. C. Wyeth and, particularly, Frank Schoonover, continued his legacy in their own more robust and lusty style. It was in America where the pirate picture strip began early to capture the ABOVE: Hawks of the Seas, pirate newspaper strip by Willis Rensie (Will Eisner spelled backwards) began in 1936 following Burne Hogarth’s ‘Pieces of Eight’, as the first pirate strips in America. Eisner’s version had dialogue balloons as opposed to Hogarth’s that only had text under the drawings in each panel. Unfortunately, ‘Hawks of the Seas’ only lasted a year, but was sold overseas. Later, Eisner turned it into a comics series called ‘The Hawk’.