Lego Pirate Comic

[Toney Talbot]

AhoySome background on this first: nearly nine years ago, LEGO Researcher extraordinaire @Sadie Meowsalot took the initiative to contact the author of the Golden Medallion pirate comic Per Sanderhage and learned a number of interesting things about the early story development for the Pirates theme, including the existence of an entire unreleased sequel comic, the Island of Mist.

One of the other interesting things that came out of these conversations was, essentially, the origin of the pirate characters we know and love, many if not most of which seem to have been the creations of Sanderhage himself. Sadie has since rediscovered some material that was sent on to her that she forgot to include in the initial discussions of the material and asked that I share it here on Eurobricks.

Given that a lot of time has passed and that the original forum discussions occurred many years ago, I'm going to summarize and link to the material originally posted by Sadie (Brickshelf) in addition to the newer material (Flickr) to give context to the material.

The brief to create characters for the Pirate theme was dated 1987 from LEGO Publishing's Preben Dewald and asked for the following elements [translated from Danish]:

"Based on the following briefing paper, LEGO Publishing wants to create a concept on the theme of pirates/captains.

Concept must contain the following: Personal characteristics with associated names.

In the characterization, there must be built-in possibilities for conflicts for use in fiction products. Be it books, comics, games, role-playing games, role-plays, movies. The target group is primarily boys aged 7-12 years, with the main focus being boys 9-11 years old. The personal characteristics must include both physical and psychological characteristics.

It is desired to prepare an environmental characteristic for both the toy range and the fiction programme.

The environmental characteristic must be able to form the framework for the persons' appearance in the "universe". It must form an attractive visual backdrop for all imaginable product types..."

"The backdrop is the Caribbean Sea in the years 1750-1800. This includes a pirate ship of the frigate type, a sea fort, a treasure island, possibly merchant ships and warships. It is important in concept to capture the right atmosphere, and that the character traits do not conflict in any way with the overall objective of the LEGO group."

As of 8/26/1987, the known character types LEGO Publishing requested names and descriptions for were:

-Pirate Captain

-1st Mate

-2nd Mate

-Sailors (Possibly including a female figure)

-Parrot

-Monkey

-Governor

-Governor's second-in-command

-Soldiers

-Civilians, including one female figure

Sanderhage recollects that several artists connected to the Norma agency were given the opportunity to try out for this assignment, and was even able to provide some of these samples. Unfortunately, he did not recall the name of the other artists involved.

One important fact at this early stage was that while the Pirate sets had been designed and were ready to go by 1986, photographs were still in the process of being released to the agency. Thus, not all of the character designs resemble the minifigures and sets. As we'll see, those involved were unsure what style would ultimately be used, so the try-out illustrations cover a wide range of styles from cartoonish to amazingly realistic.

At some point, names began to be assigned to the proposed cast of characters, which had grown to accommodate a band of nastier pirates as well. Per Sanderhage himself wrote the story "bible" for the theme, so it is likely that these were his creations. Some of these were eventually used in the final stories:

Governor Broadside

Martinet, the governor's second-in-command

Camilla, the Governor's Daughter

Spinoza the Monkey

Popsy the Parrot

Culverin, the nasty pirate henchman

Bessie (landlady of the pirate's inn)

Rummy, the first mate

Will appears here as well, though he is unnamed.

Some names appear to have been changed later in development:

Badrich, the nasty pirate captain (Later changed to Captain Foul in English, though the German translations use "Baddog" instead)

Trigger, the cabin boy (later changed to "Jimbo" in English)

Quickladle (later changed to "Flashfork" in English)

Sanderhage has sketch pages of these proposed characters from a Spanish artist, which have been newly provided by Sadie:

Character page one

Character page two

The biggest revelation here is that one of the original names considered for the character we know as Captain Roger/Redbeard was...Captain Ironhook! This name was re-used when a pirate very similar to Redbeard was introduced in the 1992 sets, so it's very interesting to see it used this early in development.

The artists were also given a comic scene to illustrate as part of the process. It appears that the storyline for the comic book had likely been written at this point, as these included scenes with very specific story beats that would ultimately appear in The Golden Medallion. These included the taking of Governor Broadside's cargo vessel:

Incredibly realistic version, featuring Redbeard, Will, Spinoza, and Camilla

Final version for comparison (via @jodawill) Page 1, Page 2

Foul and Culverin forcing Will and Redbeard to walk the plank:

Version from the same Spanish artist who provided the character sketch pages, new image via Sadie (note the half medallion here)

Final version for comparison

Another comic scene is completely original to this pitch, as far as I'm aware. In this scene, a young boy with a treasure map for Redbeard is being chased by an angry pirate. He ends up meeting Redbeard and Will outside the Keg & Cutlass inn, one of the major locations in the comic.

It's tempting to read this as an early introduction for Captain Foul and the cabin boy character Jimbo, but Spinoza the monkey (introduced in the Golden Medallion and seen in the other pitches) is already here. This may be an early idea for a sequel comic, or a different take on the story's opening before the golden medallion element came into play. Some of the characters have design elements seen on the minifigures, so the artists have probably had a chance to see photographs of the toys here.

This cartoonish example brings to mind the approach to the earlier Jim Spaceborn comics

This sample dials Redbeard's size up to an amusing degree

This page presents Redbeard as an older pirate, and seems to briefly flash to another pirate (who may just be an imagined version of Redbeard.) There's also a funny gag involving a stand that sells treasure maps, which I've also seen done a few times in videos and MOCs.

Per Sanderhage wasn't just looking to write the comic story, he made sure to throw his hat in the ring to be the artist as well:

Sanderhage didn't end up getting the artist job, which instead went to the Spanish artist Vincente Vano Ibarra. But his tryout pages seem to have influenced the look of the characters in the final comic more than any other artist. He seems to have been more informed about the design of the minifigures and accessories compared to the other artists; having already worked with LEGO Publishing on the Castle Kids: Robber Baron comic may have given him a leg up here. (Scans via @jamesster, give that a look if you haven't already, it's every bit as good as the Golden Medallion and possibly funnier!)

New from Sadie: Sanderhage's first attempt at a cover image for the comic. This includes Will appearing basically the same as his final version, along with a map very similar to the printed element from the sets. There are characters that appear to be a mashup of Redbeard, Foul, and Culverin. Sanderhage explains:

"I made a very fast sketch for a cover, just for Preben to have something to show his bosses. The anatomy of the characters is all wrong, but at the time we weren't sure whether to go for a cartoon look or a more realistic one, so this is something in-between. Obviously not working at all, but part of the ground work."

-Per Sanderhage

I think Sanderhage may be selling himself short here; I think this and all of his illustrations are pretty fun and dynamic. There's another early version of the comic cover here, in which Redbeard is closer to Sanderhage's other designs.

Here's his version of a slightly more dashing Redbeard, and another page that illustrates Governor Broadside, also very close to the final design but with a neat version of the hat. (Redbeard himself only has crossed cutlasses on his hat in many of these illustrations; LEGO was initially reluctant to feature a skull-and-crossbones design on the Pirate sets until set designer Niels Milan Pedersen pressed the issue.)

One more with Redbeard making off with quite a treasure haul.

Redbeard and Will, here in a slightly different variation with striped pants and a vest.

Finally, here's Sanderhage's take on the unique comic scene we saw earlier; it is quite detailed, complete with dialogue and the closest thing to a "final" version of this lost story that we're likely to get.

I also spoke to Per Sanderhage after Sadie's initial communication, and he was nice enough to provide some insight as to his thoughts on developing the characters, the Golden Medallion story, whether he was involved in the audio dramas (he doesn't remember) and the cancelled follow-ups (one of which was the Island of Mist.)

If you want real traditional heroes/villain -stuff you either must have good guys turn to piracy against their nations enemies (Spain and England have several strips based on this formula... with each other as the bad guys of course). Otherwise it would be navy vs. the evil pirates.

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