Anne Bonny and Mary Read discovered by their pirate crew in A Man Among Ye #2 preview

(Image credit: Craig Cermak/John Kalisz/Troy Peteri (Image Comics/Top Cow Productions))

The real-life pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read have found a welcome port in comic books thanks to writer Stephanie Phillips and artist Craig Cermak with their creator-owned title A Man Among Ye... but in the just-released preview to this week's second issue, they're finding a bit of strife among their fellow pirates.

"The adventures of pirate queens Anne Bonny and Mary Read might be over before they begin, as a murderous mutiny sweeps 'Calico Jack' Rackham's crew, forcing Anne and Mary to flee for their lives," reads Image Comics/Top Cow's description for this issue. "Can they survive on the high seas long enough to plot their revenge and gather their own crew?"

Here's the preview:

Bonny, Read, and Rackham are historical icons from the bygone age of piracy, but there's more fiction than fact about the trio - something Phillips admits, and plays into for this series.

"I read a lot about this era of piracy. There isn’t very much that exists about Anne Bonny as historical record, but there are certainly a lot of legends and myths," Phillips told Newsarama recently. "I’ve read lots of those. They’re fascinating.

"The story we’re creating is really playing with those stories about Anne Bonny as this kind of larger-than-life figure with red hair and a bad temper," she continued. " A Man Among Ye is not entirely historical record, but a homage to the many accounts of this headstrong, cut-throat pirate that have inspired the many depictions of her across different mediums and genres."

A Man Among Ye #2 goes on sale August 19.

Chris Arrant

Chris Arrant covered comic book news for Newsarama from 2003 to 2022 (and as editor/senior editor from 2015 to 2022) and has also written for USA Today, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, Marvel Entertainment, TOKYOPOP, AdHouse Books, Cartoon Brew, Bleeding Cool, Comic Shop News, and CBR. He is the author of the book Modern: Masters Cliff Chiang, co-authored Art of Spider-Man Classic, and contributed to Dark Horse/Bedside Press' anthology Pros and (Comic) Cons. He has acted as a judge for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the Harvey Awards, and the Stan Lee Awards. Chris is a member of the American Library Association's Graphic Novel & Comics Round Table. (He/him)