#1: Startling Comics Vol. 5 #2 (1942)
#2: Jungle Comics #29 (1942)
#3: Jungle Comics #150 (1952)
#4: Jungle Comics #151 (1952)
#5: Jungle Comics #153 (1952)
#6: Jungle Comics #6 (1940)
#7: Tarzan (1951)
#8: Batman #283 (1976)
#9: Poison Ivy: Cycle of Life and Death #1 (2016)
#10: Swamp Thing #19 (2001)
#11: Thrilling Comics #1 (1999)
#12: It Really Happened #4 (1944)
#13: Insiders Vol. 1: Chechen Gurrilla (2002)
#14: Njinga Mbandi, Queen of Ndongo and Matamba (2014)
#15: Black Jack (2010)
#16: Startling Comics Vol. 2 #1 (1940)
#17: Startling Comics Vol. 2 #3 (1941)
#18: Marauders #20 (2021)
#19: Alter Ego (2015)
#20: From Slavery to Freedom (1976)
This time I'm looking at a recent 2022 publication: an adaptation of Jules Verne's 1878 novel Un Capitaine de Quinze Ans (published in English as Dick Sand, a Captain at Fifteen). The novel in question was part of Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires series, to which 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth and others belonged to.
The adaptation was published by Vent D'Ouest in two volumes; the story was adapted by writer Frederic Brremaud and artist Christophe Picaud. At this stage it's only available in French but there will probably be an English version at some later date.
If you're not familiar with the story, this one is an adventure concerning Dick Sand, a 15-year old serving aboard a whaling ship in the Pacific. When the entire crew is lost during a whale hunt except for Dick (and the ship's Portuguese cook Negoro). Dick assumes command of the ship (there are several passengers, including African-American survivors of a shipwreck) but Dick is... well... a 15-year old captain. Negoro successfully alters the compass to trick Dick into sailing all the way to Angola. Hence why I'm including this adaptation!
The adaptation takes some liberties with Verne's text; Negoro's villainy is made apparent to Dick and the others much earlier as Negoro assaults Dick at one point and steers the ship himself. It is pretty difficult to think that even a novice navigator like Dick could be so easily fooled into sailing all the way across the Atlantic.
The adaptation tries to make Dick a bit more heroic; in the book, most of the heroics belong to Hercule, one of the African-American men - he ends up saving most of the cast in the book's climax not just once but several times. Hercule still plays a pivotal part in saving everyone in the adaptation but Dick is given a bit more agency, spending less time as a prisoner than he did in the original book. He is, after all, the titular protagonist (even though one suspects a better book might be titled: Hercule, a Fighter at Any Age).
It's nice to see one of Verne's lesser-known books given such a lush teatment; Picaud's artwork is very fine, rendering the characters and the environments with vivacity. As one of the few works of classical literature involving Angola, I'm certainly happy to see this adaptation.
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