I’ve seen myself in comics before — Calvin & Hobbes, Bloom County, Peanuts, Shoe, Hagar the Horrible, Popeye, and even in an imagined sense in Buz Sawyer, Prince Valiant, and The Phantom — but never so closely as in the image above. This is my dream of glory as a child! And likewise many friends and acquaintances of mine, particularly those who’ve lived lives of real or armchair swashbuckling from childhood onward.

The comic was drawn by William Steig, best-known today for Shrek. However, he drew a series of “Dreams of Glory” comics in the 1940s and 50s (I hope I have the dates correct) for various upscale magazines, primarily The New Yorker. Most if not all of the comics were published in a single volume in 1953.

I’ve updated this…

A vampire — surely Lugosi himself! — riff on Captain Blood, with a Moby Dick reference no less, by friend and arms historian Jim McDougall. 🙂

Is the ship the Arabella, the Pequod, or the Demeter? 🙂

Comic copyright by Jim McDougall, 2021-2022. Blog copyright Benerson Little 2022. First posted October 17, 2021.