Though El Cazador is coming out riding the wave of popularity and interest in pirates that Pirates of the Caribbean has stirred up, when the book was initially conceived, there was no way to know that interest in pirate stories would be at such a height. So I have to give credit to Dixon for pushing for a pirate comic, and even more credit to the folks at Crossgen for agreeing to produce it. I have to give them even more credit for producing a well-researched comic that plays less off the fantasy elements of piracy we're all familiar with and instead off a more realistic, brutal rendition of piracy, especially since this realism doesn't get in the way of an entertaining tale. Given Dixon's emphasis on the storytelling fundamentals, I'm surprised to see this first issue lacking in a couple of important establishing bits of information and motivation, but the creative team does seem to have their act together, and I expect that the trade version of the story will not suffer from the inadequacies of monthly storytelling.
The big attraction for me here is the artwork of Steve Epting, and the work here looks fantastic. His work has a stunning amount of detail, and the coloring techniques by Frank D'Armata suggest even more in the finished product. It's clear that Epting has not skimped on his research either, as the clothes, the ships and the "technology," such as it is, all bring the atmosphere of the time period to life. Epting also has the same expressive, photorealistic style with characters as Crossgen illustrators like Greg Land, and there's really nothing I can find to complain about in this artwork.
I could have used a somewhat clearer, more new reader-friendly introduction to the cast and setting, as Dixon's desire for accuracy sometimes comes with an assumption that the readers are as well-versed in pirate lore as he is. For example, it seemed a little odd that "Lady Sin" turned so quickly to a life of piracy, and we don't really learn enough about her to know what her motivation for that change of lifestyle was. Even the notion that her family has been taken isn't really flat-out stated anywhere except in the interviews that have led up to this series, and that seems a fairly important point to make in the first issue.
However, while Dixon may take the readers' interest in piracy on faith, he certainly portrays a warts and all version of the life of a pirate that makes it clear he wasn't so casual about his own investigation of the pirate trade. I don't know what liberties have been taken for the story, but everything, from the forgotten hostage taking advantage of hung-over pirates after a celebration of taking the ship to little details like a pirate attack taking several days to happen thanks to the long chase times on the open sea.
As you would expect from a Dixon book, this comic is not light on the action. There's a spectacular, if surprisingly brief, opening sequence where the ship that will become the El Cazador is boarded and broken, and an equally brief scene that relies on a little action and a lot of posturing when "Lady Sin" takes over the boat. While the motivations of the characters aren't always as crystal clear as I would have liked, Dixon does make them distinctive and steeped in the tradition of the times, speaking in the accents of pirates from fiction and lending an air of familiarity and veracity, with accented English and untranslated Spanish and French giving the sense of the cultural melting pot of the sea as well as making the world seem all that much more exotic.
