(Full disclosure: I backed the Kickstarter at a level that I'm actually drawn into the book itself.)
Silvani has divided the book up into three sections: History, Piracy 101/How to Pirate, and Individual Pirate Profiles. Not surprisingly, the History section covers the history of piracy dating back to the dinosaurs (well, not quite) and covers piracy all over the world, not just those who sailed in/around the Carribbean in the early 1700s. The Piracy 101 section is all about the day-to-day lives of pirates, mostly relaying how awful everything was and that the only reason a pirate would put up with that was because their other options were even more awful. And the Profiles section, of course, designates a few pages each to several of the most famous pirates throughout history.
The text is largely written independent of the art in a kind of omnsicient narrator approach. But rather than just rattling off dull dates and statistics like Ben Stein, Silvani has a fun, casual style that includes self-corrections, deliberately bad jokes, and a generally satirical tone that often mocks the actions taking place in the art. Art which, in turn, also frequently mocks the narration.
In fact, the style and general approach remind me very much of Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the World books, just with a narrower focus and on much better paper. While we don't see a narrator in the same way Gonick handled his work, there's still the sense of talking to the reader and the 'actors' in the story sometimes recognizing their role and responding to the narrator or the reader. Like Gonick, too, Silvani also includes a variety of gags in the background throughout the book; the racous partying and massive fight scenes in particular lend themselves to any number of visual Wile E. Coyote style jokes.
The actual research here is all solid to boot. I've done more than a little studying of actual piracy, and I was generally impressed with the details Silvani included. If I had to make a criticism of the content, I would say that Profiles section feels a bit too Euro-heavy. Silvani does call out, for example, Zheng Yi Sao in the History section, but she's only given 2/3 of page there and no separate write-up in the back. The Profiles are generally the Carribbean pirates you might already be familiar with: Blackbeard, William Kidd, Anne Bonny, etc. Similarly, other non-European-born pirates are noted in the History section but aren't reflected in the Profiles. No Black Caesar or Diego de Los Reyes, or Ipseiodawas either. Obviously, there wouldn't be enough room to list EVERY pirate and I get that there are many that we simply don't know much about, but while the main book is relatively diverse, that doesn't extend to the Profiles section.
Overall, Pirates: A Graphic History (But Not THAT Kind of Graphic) is a really fun read. Plenty of solid info there if you're not already super-familiar with the topic and it's still handled in a very fun and entertaining way if you are! I'm not sure about the full breadth of distribution, but Silvani is selling the book from his website (signed!) for $30 US if you're interested. I believe all his Kickstarter ones have been sent out, so he should be able to get to 'regular' orders fairly quickly, I should think.
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