On the Subject of Fletcher Christian

Today's amazing children's book is a marvelous retelling of the harrowing story of the Bounty by Patrick O'Brien: gorgeously painted in this recent edition.

This book makes the most of both the story and the history without watering down its grimmer aspects (no, Fletcher Christian does not sail off into the sunset into a happy freedom). O'Brien, who is a biologist by early education and a naval draftsman by experience includes wonderful details from the age of sails and renders the Bounty inside and out. His attention to detail, in fact, make this fun to revisit again and again since you can overlook nice little nuances in some of his larger panoramas. There are enough dramatic sweeping scenes of the Bounty on the ocean in full sail as well as plenty of action as Christian overtakes the ship and the casts Captain Bligh adrift. I think there is the influence of The Bounty in the artwork here, but you get no objections from me on that note.

I mostly bought this book on a whim because I thought O'Brien's placement of images was really interesting and worth further investigation. He has many a "splash" page, but breaks up numerous other pages with various blocks of sequiential-like art. The narrative remains intact, but dialog is sometimes assigned to an image which helps heighten the dramatic effect (you can see a sample below). I'm considering this as a model for the Eleison series as a nice compromise between the narrative and the sequential.

I don't know, yet, whether it has any implications for Reconstruction yet. I'm still rather attached to my word balloons at the moment. As a random side note, someone once asked me whether naming my protagonist "Fletcher" was influenced by the story of the mutiny on the Bounty. Resoundingly yes.