'...His lordship re-entered, but this time he was not alone. Behind him advanced a beautiful young woman, at whose appearance Sandokan could not hold back an exclamation of surprise and admiration. She was about seventeen, petite, slender and elegant, with a waist so thin an arm could stretch round it. She had fine delicate features, rosy skin and eyes and blue as the sea. Long blonde hair cascaded down the back of her white dress in soft waves of shimmering gold. At the sight of her, the pirate shook to the very depths of his soul. His heart, which had been beating quickly, now burned, pumping fire through his veins. "Well, my dear prince, what do you think of our lovely young musician?" asked his lordship.'

This tale bears some explaining for American audiences, including myself. Italian author Emilio Salgari (1862-1911) wrote eleven novels about the heroic exploits of the noble pirate Sandokan, "The Tiger of Malaysia," against the imperialist navies of Great Britain. Salgari's adventure stories helped turn pirates into romantic figures and inspired generations of heroic swashbuckler narratives, as well as the cowboy films of Sergio Leone, which often pitted similarly resolute outsiders against corrupt landowners. Over fifty films have been based on the works of Salgari. Even Conan seems descended from this dethroned prince seeking revenge on those who murdered his family.

After fifteen years in Argentina, comic book artist Hugo Pratt (Ugo Prat to his parents) had returned to his native Italy by the early 1960s and was happily transforming nineteenth century pirate stories by Robert Louis Stevenson into comic book form. Sandokan was to be another effort along those lines, adapting various of Salgari's adventure novels, starting with "The Tigers of Mompracem" (serialized 1883-4) from which my page was adapted. However, Pratt's side project about nautical character Corto Maltese saw unexpected success, so Sandokan was abandoned before publication.

Recent decades have seen renewed interest in Pratt's non-Corto work. Sandokan has been published once using collected Xerox copies, while a higher quality collection scanning the original pages is forthcoming. Pratt worked four tiers to the page, and two tiers to each sheet of paper, so that two landscape format sheets made one printed page.

On this sheet (the top half of the intended page 15), Sandokan has been wounded and separated from his pirate fleet. Recovering at a British plantation, he pretends to be a foreign dignitary. He hears guitar music and then meets the musician: Marianna, "Pearl of Labuan," about whose beauty the whole area has been buzzing. The rest of the story concerns his quest to win her to become his pirate queen. The dialogue here is:

"Milord... What's that sound?"

"Why, my dear prince?"

"I don't know... but I would like to see the person playing like this. The music touches my heart... it makes me feel a new inexplicable feeling."

"Wait a moment, your Highness!

"By all the gods... What's happening to me? Am I delusional?"

"Let me introduce you... What's wrong? Are you feeling sick?

I purchased this page from Krazy Art at Lake Como Comic Art Festival 2023. They has dozens of Pratt pages to choose from, and not knowing the story, I didn't realize I had selected its most pivotal moment. I just liked the art. Some was rendered in black marker, which has faded to purple over the decades. Those familiar with Corto Maltese will recognize the stylistic similarity here.

This piece was shown and discussed in my interview with Bill Cox for Comic Arts LIVE on August 14, 2023.

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