Corto Maltese: The Ballad of the Salt Sea

ADDENDUM (March 20th, 2012): One issue that's come up in some reviews is that the panel layouts have been modified from the original, serialized version of Ballad. These panel layouts were not modified by Universe for this reprint, but by Hugo Pratt and Patrizia Zanotti in 1994. Patrizia Zanotti, having worked with Pratt extensively during his career, is the executor of Pratt's estate and has presided over numerous Corto Maltese reprints from RCM MediaGroup's other publishing arms. She was the co-curator of a Hugo Pratt exhibit in Paris just last year--and she's behind this particular reprint. Zanotti has a tremendous amount of respect for Hugo Pratt and would not put her name on something that would disrespect his work. Originally published in Italy, Corto Maltese has enjoyed an immense amount of popularity in Europe--particularly France--for over 40 years. The series has remained relatively unknown in English countries despite Hugo Pratt's induction into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2005 and a handful of releases in English by NBM and Harvill Press in the 80s and 90s. In the case of Ballad of the Salt Sea, Ian Monk's English translation for the mid-90s Harvill/NBM releases is currently out of print and going for extremely high prices on Amazon and elsewhere. Based on Ballad's lack of availability alone, this new translation by Hall Powell/new release by Universe is very, very, welcome. Of course, there are many more reasons to buy this book: With regard to the physical qualities of the book: it is very nicely bound. It's a softcover that folds into inside flaps when opened, and the binding is such that the panels don't get lost in the gutters while reading. The pages are extremely thick and glossy--the book's subject matter lends itself to more pulpy stock, but the quality of the inking would certainly be diminished by worse-quality paper, so it's a net gain. The cover is quaint, it has these striking reds, light blues and sandy yellows that evoke a maritime quality. That red "Corto Maltese" flag is reflective and smoother than the rest of the cover; Corto's head and Hugo Pratt's signature on the spine are of the same texture. There's praise by Frank Miller and Umberto Eco on the back--they're presented as speech balloons coming out of Pratt's characters, nothing obtrusive. The UPC is over a mostly solid black/red region and is unobtrusive in the sense that it's not covering a significant portion of Pratt's art. In terms of lettering: the book uses the military lettering of the cover for titles, translator, colorist and publishing credits. The rest of the text is in a font that almost evokes bamboo sticks tied together. It's entirely capitalized, stout, sans-serif, with little flourishes--the horizontal lines on the Es extending past the letter's spine, for example--that fit the setting of the story. It's not the hand-lettered NBM version, but it is just a little more charming due to these qualities. For people acquainted with the NBM version, recall that every page had a border on the top, a composite image of certain characters and background elements of the book. Its purpose was to have the book fit on typical comic-book-sized pages without upscaling the art to fit the page. This comic just sticks to a smaller size without the obtrusive border. Ian Monk's translation was very good, very true to the original text, but it exhibited a certain sort of stiffness at points that didn't really detract from the quality of Ballad as a whole, but was still noticeable. Hall Powell's translation is also very true to the original text and exhibits less moments of stiffness--the natives, for example, don't weave in and out of perfect grammar and syntax as they did in the Ian Monk translation--but there are several points in the story where he does not play with the text to effect the charm of the original work. Page 98 of the Hall Powell translation, Corto's remark to another character: "Pretty girl, huh? Too bad the both of us are a bit old to be in the running, don't you think?" The equivalent dialogue in the Ian Monk translation: "Pretty, isn't she? It's a shame we're a bit too long in the tooth to be taken seriously, don't you think?" Both lines say the same thing, but there is a world of difference between them, and a reader comparing the two translations is going to notice a handful of points where the Hall Powell translation lacks invention. Patrizia Zanotti is responsible for the colors--she's an editor who's worked closely with Hugo Pratt in the past and colored some of the Corto Maltese oeuvre. Admittedly, I was a little off-put by the coloring at first, because the more coarser aspects of the art--inconsistent faces, for example--are brought into high relief by the coloring early on. Solid colors are used, for the most part, for characters and foreground details--they're not intense and they have a somewhat muted quality that never detracts from the story and fits the setting. The background colors utilize gradients and have a subtle, more organic quality to them--as if they were painted with watercolors. With regard to the work itself: the art is fantastic on the whole. Hugo Pratt uses a lot of negative space contrast and very bold lines to render his work--it gives off a rough sort of quality that fits the raffish charm of the title character, and the events of the story. Hugo Pratt's draftsmanship is also very impressive in the sense of his technical skill and artistic finesse. In the case of the former, there is a lot of attention given to details, such as uniforms, weaponry, ships, native headwear, et cetera--the accuracy of these details really enhances the story, set in a clearly defined time period (1913-1914). In the case of his artistic finesse: the paneling consists, generally, of variations on six panels (three rows, two columns) per page, with few, if any, splashes. Pratt, however, infuses a lot of depth into these panels--background details and even the placement of characters in a panel are both very important to consider when interpreting the work. For example, a wordless panel on the bottom of page 97 has a girl running into the middle of the background while the faces of Corto and another character are on opposite ends in the foreground; the girl almost splits the panel in half to highlight the very opposite personalities of the two characters in the foreground. There are entire pages where not a single word bubble is used, Pratt instead preferring to encode what he's trying to convey in his art. Action scenes typically use few words, and Pratt's panel progression makes them exude a sort of frantic feeling. This is very clearly an early Corto Maltese work and an early Hugo Pratt work, and there's a noticeable difference in quality between the first twenty pages of Ballad and the last twenty pages of Ballad. Because Ballad was first serialized in an Italian magazine, this difference makes sense: Pratt was probably in the process of refining himself as an artist and his designs as he wrote Ballad. That's not to say that the earlier parts of Ballad are particularly bad--Pratt's draftsmanship is still excellent. The difference in quality mainly arises out of character designs; it isn't until about 60 or 70 pages into Ballad that the title character has a concrete design to the extent where you can visualize him clearly in your mind's eye--but this assumes that one ignores his fully-realized design on the cover. On the other hand, certain characters such as Rasputin are fully-realized and consistent from beginning to end. The change in quality through the course of Ballad is very gradual, and despite the fact that there is a difference between the beginning of Ballad and the end of Ballad, it's not an extremely jarring one and the work remains uniform. The story is fantastic. It is set on the eve of, and then during World War I, in the Pacific Ocean. The story opens with Rasputin, a coarse privateer, coming across two shipwreck survivors--Pandora and Cain, members of a rich family--and immediately plotting to hold them for ransom. Corto Maltese is introduced shortly after as a man tied to a raft by his former crew, he is picked up by Rasputin, and the story goes into a more complicated plot of the movements of a group of pirates and thieves operating in the Pacific. The plot is entwined with the politics of the period--with the tensions between Britain and Germany in the months before World War I. The politics of the story are never the primary focus, they are elements of the setting that drive the events of Ballad and the motivations of the characters--this is very much a high adventure story. Ballad really shines in its characterizations: most characters are introduced such that they can be distilled into particular archetypes. There's the wavering girl; the arrogant boy; the pirate with no regard for other people; the charming, almost-detached drifter; the officer bound to his duty above all else--all of these characters become real through the course of the story, and their motivations, intentions and relationships to one another become very complex. The ending of Ballad is extremely satisfying because a number of the cast reach the end of their development cycle at the same time--and not in a contrived, overbearing way. The ending is worth noting because it's the culmination of having become invested into a lot of these characters, and it makes the optimistic ending--one typical of adventure stories--taste especially sweet. The charming, almost-detached drifter is, of course, Corto Maltese, who becomes less detached and more charming as the story goes on. Save for maybe Rasputin, he is the most complex character in Ballad. He has an air of aloofness at many points in the story, and he is initially depicted as a secondary character in favor of Pandora and Cain. As a secondary character, he's more an observer or commentator, not really driving the plot forward--but he is gradually brought to the forefront as an active character when he becomes sympathetic towards the characters he accompanies. This is a gradual change that feels organic, and not the result of Hugo Pratt trying to refine or get a sense of Corto's characterization--Corto is almost entirely realized as a character from his introduction. To reiterate an earlier point, the art and story engage each other extremely well--Ballad is really enhanced by Pratt's synthesis of the two. The comic book aficionado and the non-comic book reader will both appreciate Ballad as a piece of literature--an unpretentious adventure story that is dense and rich. It certainly has the quality of being a good story when read once, but casting a critical eye on the work during further rereads reveals the extent of Hugo Pratt's skill as a writer and artist. Ballad is a great argument--when addressing the detractors--for comic books as art. At the very least, Universe and Hall Powell have made Corto Maltese accessible for English readers in 2012, but both deserve far more credit for putting together a very good book that does not detract from Hugo Pratt's original work in any significant way. I look forward to more Corto Maltese stories from this publisher and translator.

As you'll certainly notice in the other reviews, this book suffers from flawed reproduction values. While much of this blame seems to be foisted on the publisher (Universe), I have a number of French and Italian reprints of this series and the format is based on those. The flaws inherent in this edition are inherent in all of the reformatted and colored versions that I have seen, and from what I understand these are the files that the publisher makes available. Some folks argue that one should wait for another edition, one without the flaws. Well, the last time we got English editions of Corto Maltese was when NBM did their run, which was almost thirty years ago. You could wait another thirty years, or you could get this, and hopefully allow Universe the financial go-ahead to release future editions. I would suggest the latter. There are some panels where the art is definitely marred, but I'd say that this is balanced out by the excellent translations. While I've always been a big fan of Pratt's art, I never entirely understood the fanatic love for the character. After reading Hall Powell's take on the dialogue, I finally do. The book reads like a dream, and it is clear why they Europeans equate Pratt's opus with the finest works of literature. The kinship that the book has with some of Pratt's influences - Melville and London especially - is strikingly clear here in a way that I don't feel came across in the NB version. Reading this book gave me that sense of satisfaction that comes too rarely but always from truly fine works that will stay with you. If you're a comic purist, you're gonna be bugged by some of the technical issues. The font, too, is pretty terrible, though purportedly it was the one provided by the European publisher. But the story really overcomes all of these issues. If you haven't read Corto Maltese before, this is an excellent introduction. The best, really, available. If you HAVE, give this one a try. It'll change your take on the character.

This book was such a hallmark of its time. I chose to study Hugo Pratt for a class on a whim--and was not disappointed by his work! At first I found it boring, and wondered why it was so heralded by artists...but I had to realize that when it was made, it was the first to do what it was doing. It's a lengthy book and a satisfying read, really deep, with tons of twists--it's essentially graphic literature. Part self-idealization of Pratt and part flighty adventurer, Corto Maltese seems to get swept away without really doing much. The book is as hilarious as it is dramatic at intervals, and the art--though flawed--is pretty gorgeous. And the ending, wow. Pratt doesn't skimp on his research, either. If anyone's not familiar with his work, he visited and extensively studied every location that appears in his books. At the time, he was a forerunner for fixing the blatant racism in comics. I wish I had discovered him before he'd passed away...

Given the lack of options for American readers, I could accept the cropping and the like. It's disappointing, especially since prior to release I didn't know this edition wasn't presenting the art as originally intended, but rather edited (with Hugo Pratt's input), but I really wanted to read Corto Maltese and having not previously had the chance, I could go along with it. Frankly though, the quality of the printing, or the files they're working off of are just not detailed. The lines are pixalated and the art unclear, this is a flat out poor production.

This is an amazing book, I would def buy it off amazon as the retail price isn't quite worth it. the comic pages are not the beautifuly smooth Hugo pratt drawings you've seen on the web. Here they seem to have been given really low res images that they tried to blow up to fit the dimensions of the book, in turn making the images very pixelated. so if your buying this to get into Hugo Pratts awesome art skip it and try to find an old french copy. great read tho.

Look, it's not so much the presentation as the content. I'd never heard of this book before. I thought it was great. All the pedantic comic super critics are bagging and ripping on the publisher like they debauched and defiled the Alamo. Art is subjective. For example: I fully enjoyed all the reprints of old EC Comics by Gladstone. At that time too, there were super anal critics complaining ad nauseum about the quality of those books when compared to the original EC artwork. I guess that if you've ever been exposed to this book then you'd better stay the hell away from it or you'll be mightily displeased. However, if you've never seen it, then check it out and enjoy a nice treat. It is a lovely book with a splendid tale of human endowments of character. To the hyper critics: How about appreciating that you can have a rare collected book and just enjoy it and shut the frick up? In life, there are people out there that'll find fault in a Faberge egg.

Way better than expected, first learned about Corto Maltese on a book and wanted to learn more about him so when I learn that they finally released "Ballad of the Salt Sea" in English I knew I had to buy it and boy I wasn't dissapointed, a real thrilling plot, amazing graphics and a kick-ass character; Corto Maltese is a must for fans of graphic novels! Now I just hope they release the rest of the books in English!

it was great, just great, it was so great that I can't imagine a greater book until I finish rating it and writing this comment...

Yes, I have the last American version of this tale but I bought it again - as much as anything to encourage further volumes! Despite the nonsense published by another reviewer there's nothing wrong with the formatting of this book. It was done sympathetically and by someone well authorised to do so. Beyond that the story is an amazing boys own adventure with remarkable depth. Corto Maltese is the pinnacle of comic art - it is to comics as Moby Dick is to adventure novels. A must read.

An absolute classic