Joe the Pirate by Hubert and Virginie Augustin is about a totally and completely scandalous individual.
Born Marion Barbara Carstairs (later known as Tuffy), she would become Joe Carstairs. She didn’t want to be a man, just had fun pretending to be one. This started when she was young and having a swinging time in the early 1900’s. The flapping 1920s would see her have affairs with such people as Dolly Wilde, Tallulah Bankhead (who liked to take her dress off and jiggle it in the nude), and many other women (it was reported she had over 120 photographs she kept of former lovers. A few she even liked beyond the sexual romp). She would drink, smoke, dress like a man, drive ambulances, cars and later race speed boats (and win). She would be the darling of the media and society then its scandalous event to shun. She flaunted gender norms, bought an island and treated its people in a patronizing way with her attitudes about black people and her double standard rules of no alcohol and sex. Then there was Lord Tod Wadley, the only companion to last more than a few years. Then again, that could be because he was a doll and always agreed with what Joe said.
Not one to shy away from a tall tale, a chance to be generous with her friends (her lover Marlene Dietrich was gifted a house and the deed to a beach on the island; another lover was gifted a speed boat) or to put her two cents in, Carstairs was an unique woman. Hubert’s story might exaggerate a bit, or maybe things are not exactly as they were, but if half of what she did is true, well, I’m blushing! But I can’t look away. There are images and talk of sexual activity, female nudity, drug and alcohol use, and comments and actions that are racist in tone. The images occasionally also show a stereotypical look to some people of color (yet she would have non-Native lovers who were black and of higher society). As it was an online reader copy that I read, I do not know if the images will be black and white or full color. The majority of illustrations were in black and white and not always totally fleshed out. However, there is a section about Carstairs flying an airplane that is done in soft and romantic colors. 
The end comment is I had never heard of this person before. And now that I have, I know two things: I wouldn’t bring her home to meet the folks or trust a word she said. But I had one hell of a time reading about it.
