The clock is, in fact, ticking.

It’s been 25 days, and the campaign for fund FREE HANDS #2, the second in a six-part pirate adventure comic from myself and Matt Rowe, is coming to a close this Thursday, August 24, at 9pm EST.

And look… the fact is that we are a bit behind. As of this writing, we still have over $1000 to raise in a very short amount of time, so not to put too fine a point on it, if you like the work we do, please consider heading over to KICKSTARTER and backing the book.

We have tiers as low as $5, and both digital and physical editions of not just FREE HANDS #2, but the first issue, as well as every other Wilding/Rowe collaboration.

FREE HANDS is the culmination of almost 20 years of work on a pirate adventure story that blends the actual accounts of multiple 18th century pirates with the neo-noir sensibilities of The Usual Suspects and Alphaville.

How did FREE HANDS happen?

I first came to the seeds of the story in a class on piracy I took at Suffolk University back in 2005. I was particularly interested in Boston’s reputation in the 18th century as a particularly hostile community to pirates, in part because of the interests in puritanical leaders like Cotton Mather in both exposing sinners and “saving” them by making an example of them in front of their congregants.

While seemingly endless numbers of men were persecuted for alleged “piracy”— many of them actually privateers with a legal document issued to them by the government called a “Letter of Marque”—one pirate named William Fly stood outshined the rest of Boston’s condemned men. There was no question he was guilty of piracy and murder, and his mutiny was so vivid and grotesque that it begged for a fantastical story on the high seas to flesh out the historical record.

Fly reportedly led a mutiny with his crew after departing from the Carolinas. The mutiny in the first issue of FREE HANDS was inspired directly by the accounts of it in General History of the Pirates (1724) and The Pirates of the New England Coast (1923), including the severing of the captain’s hand that prompted the first issue’s climax and the subsequent name of the ship “FREE-HAND” in issue #2.

There are so many unbelievable moments in the lives of pirate captains and their crews, and I wanted to create a story that highlighted real events as readers also unravel the story of who the pirate captain Silk and the lone survivor Gregor are.

As the story continues, I look forward to exploring the pirate haven of Port Royale, the relationship between piracy and the Crown, while weaving together some of the most exciting pieces of history related to Black Beard, Black Bart Roberts, the Meermin Slave Mutiny, and more.

I appreciate your coming on the journey with us. So please, if you can, join the crew!

When the campaign is over, I’ll be back with a proper newsletter full of thoughts, book recommendations, and history/museum deep dives. Until then, see you on the high seas!

-MW