Review by Ian Keogh
Redbeard is a long-running saga of 18th century piracy in the Caribbean given a new lease of life by Jean-Charles Kraehn and Stefano Carloni since 2020, and so far theirs are the only adventures translated into English. The Sea Wolves completed their first story, establishing a more realistic tone, feeding in the era’s political concerns and ensuring the cast have greater personalties.
That all continues in Mami Wata, titled after an alleged voodoo goddess who’s spawned her own cult in the area. Several people are very keen to make her acquaintance, including Redbeard and his crew. Kraehn built quite the cast over his first two volumes, and he finds a way of ensuring several are seen here. The most relevant is Concha, a manipulative woman now running a local tavern and well known to Redbeard’s son Eric.
Carloni delvers olden days in infinite detail, which is obviously researched, and doesn’t take the easy shortcuts of closing the viewpoint in or of having no more people than necessary for the dialogue in any scene. The rigging of small ships is convincing, Carloni pays attention to the weather and you can almost smell some of the locations. When visual spectacle is required, Carloni’s art elevates further.
The reason everyone’s interested in Mami Wata is because it’s said she guards the treasure chest of the notorious pirate Morgan, which ought to be of immense value considering his successful career. If Carloni has carried out research for the art, so has Kraehn for what’s fed into his tale, and among other matters you’ll learn the origin of the term ‘buccaneer’ via the footnotes and have an explanation as to voodoo beliefs. One hell of a lot is packed in to Mami Wata, and it features a real page-turning plot making it the best of the series to date.
