Illustrated Accuracy: The BW Chronicles Tell the True Story

July 14, 2012

The “Blackwater Chronicles” may be the first accurate portrayal of Blackwater’s service in Iraq that has yet been published. But it’s not a story about politics or government contracts or the intricacies of security contracting. It’s a story about the people who served their country through Blackwater. It’s a story about the men who did a dangerous job in a dangerous place and the effect it had on them.

“I’m going to be brutally honest in this book,” says author and artist Billy Tucci. “I’m telling the good, the bad, and the ugly. I’m covering it all.”

The “Blackwater Chronicles,” slated for completion in 2013, will be a series of illustrated books about the Blackwater experience in Iraq. The first in the series, “Blackwater Bridge,” takes place from November 2004 to April 2005 and will be about 48 pages of illustrations. A preview of “Blackwater Bridge” was released this week at Comic-Con International in San Diego.

“The first issue,” says Tucci, “is what it’s like to ride with these guys, fly with these guys, get shot at with these guys. It’s a very personal story.”

It’s also a very true story. From convincing the contractors of the need to share their stories, to talking to the families of the deceased, Tucci went to great lengths to tell the Blackwater story.

At Comic-Con, one of the largest gatherings in the comic book industry, Tucci’s work was well received. This year’s attendance was expected to be about 130,000 visitors and 30,000 exhibitors. And, as usual, anything with the name Blackwater on it makes a splash.

There to support Tucci were two former Blackwater contractors, known as Miyagi and T-Boy. They signed Tucci’s posters and books for the public, and they proudly represented their work for the company, which hasn’t always been a comfortable or easy position.

In some ways, the convention was like a lithmus test to see how the public would receive both the idea of an illustrated account of Blackwater and the men who did the job. In this case, all parties left satisfied.

Illustrated accounts of actual, historical events aren’t common in the US, or for that matter, in the comic industry. Tucci’s work is a different kind of comic–the kind you can actually learn something from.

“The difference between a hack and an artist,” says Robert Young Pelton, whose book “Licensed to Kill” inspired Tucci’s work, “is that a hack publishes Spider Man volume 486, and an artists does something that’s never been done before.”

To show our support for Tucci and the forthcoming “Blackwater Chronicles,” we’ll throw in a Blackwater comic poster with any order off the Blackwater website while supplies last.

The post Illustrated Accuracy: The BW Chronicles Tell the True Story appeared first on Dangerous Magazine.

Comments will be approved before showing up.

Also in Dangerous Magazine

General Dostum and 12 Strong: THE LEGEND OF HEAVY D AND THE BOYS

January 20, 2018

This article on ODA 595, General Dostum, John Walker Lindh and the battle at Qali-i-Jangi was originally published in the March 2002 edition of National Geographic Adventure THE LEGEND OF HEAVY AND THE BOYS By Robert Young Pelton The Regulators flew in from Uzbekistan at night on a blacked-out Chinook helicopter. They landed near a mud-walled compound in the remote Darra-e Suf valley in northern Afghanistan. As they began unloading their gear, they were met by Afghans in turbans, their faces...

The post General Dostum and 12 Strong: THE LEGEND OF HEAVY D AND THE BOYS appeared first on Dangerous Magazine.

Finding Bergdahl – The Final Chapter

October 22, 2017

In the fifth and final chapter of this saga we go deep inside the back room negotiations to release Bergdahl and the controversy that would await him after his release. by Robert Young Pelton By late 2013 Bowe Bergdahl had been a prisoner of the Haqqani’s in Pakistan for almost half a decade. According to Bergdahl’s account, he fought back , he refused to convert, refused to eat cooked food (an insult to Pashtuns) and he refused to bathe. He escaped...

The post Finding Bergdahl – The Final Chapter appeared first on Dangerous Magazine.

Down The Gambia Part One

April 14, 2013

By Will Grant Originally posted on November 10, 2012. In a remote corner of West Africa, the River Gambia remains one of the last major undammed rivers on the continent. Flowing from a small rivulet in the Guinean highlands, known as the Fouta Djallon, the river runs northwest and west for 733 miles to its mouth at the Atlantic Ocean—a six-mile-wide estuary of mangroves, sand bars, and braided streams. In what may be the first source-to-sea descent of the river,...

The post Down The Gambia Part One appeared first on Dangerous Magazine.