Under the Banner of King Death is a tale of mutiny, bloody battle, and social revolution, bringing to life an itinerant community of outsiders behind today's legends. This graphic novel breaks new ground in our understanding of piracy and pirate culture, giving us real reasons to love the rebellious and stouthearted marauders of the seas.

At the pinnacle of the Golden Age of Atlantic piracy, three unlikely companions are sold into servitude on a merchant ship and thrust into a voyage of rebellion. They are John Gwin, an African American fugitive from bondage in South Carolina; Ruben Dekker, a common seaman from Amsterdam; and Mark (a.k.a. Mary) Reed, an American woman who dresses as a man.

When the crew turn to mutiny, they and the freed slaves establish democracy aboard The Night Rambler. This new dispensation provides radical social benefits, all based on the documented practices of real pirate ships of the era: democratic decision-making, a social security net, health and disability insurance, and an equal distribution of spoils taken from prize ships. But before long the London elites enlist a war-hungry captain to take down The Night Rambler in a war that pitches high society against high-seas freebooters.

Adapted from the scholarship and research of celebrated historian Marcus Rediker, Under the Banner of King Death is an inspiring story of the oppressed steering a course against adversity and injustice.

This is not your conventional story of evil pirates drinking rum and hunting for gold ... [Lester and Rediker] remind us of the revolutionary spirit that the skull and cross bones flag once represented. -- Dominic Davies * The Conversation *

Marcus Rediker is Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh and Senior Research Fellow at the Collège d'études mondiales in Paris. His books have won numerous awards and been translated into fourteen languages. They include The Many-Headed Hydra (Beacon Press, 2000; with Peter Linebaugh), Villains of All Nations (Beacon Press, 2004), The Slave Ship (2007), The Amistad Rebellion (2012), and Outlaws of the Atlantic (Beacon Press, 2015). Rediker is also the producer of the prize-winning documentary film Ghosts of Amistad: In the Footsteps of the Rebels (Tony Buba, director), about the popular memory of the 1839 Amistad rebellion in contemporary Sierra Leone. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

David Lester is the co-creator of the graphic novels The Listener and the award-winning 1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike. His poster of anti-war protester Malachi Ritscher was exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Paul Buhle, a retired senior lecturer at Brown University, is the authorized biographer of C. L. R. James. He has edited more than a dozen nonfiction graphic novels, including Ballad of an American: A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson