Calamity Jack

Creation

Calamity Jack is the sequel to Shannon and Dean Hale’s ever popular classic Rapunzel’s Revenge and this graphic novel is a retelling of the classic fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk. His first appearance asJack was in Rapunzel's Revenge #1 August 2008. He is now in his own series named Calamity Jack which is also published by Bloomsbury.

History

Ever since Jack was a little child, he would always scheme to take other people’s possessions to the distress of his hardworking mother. One day, however, a giant named Blunderboar came in to Jack’s mother’s store and while he brought some bread from her, his head smashes the top of the doorway to the store, which upset both Jack and his mother since Blunderboar refused to pay for the damage and Jack and his mother did not have enough money to fix it.

Jack came up with what he thought was a fail safe plan. He would sneak into Blunderboar’s penthouse to steal his goose to get back at Blunderboar, unfortunately Jack does not know how to get into Blunderboar’s penthouse. So, Jack buys some magic beans from a mysterious person and when Jack threw the beans into the ground, they grew into a beanstalk and Jack was able to climb onto the beanstalk and get inside Blunderboar’s penthouse and steal the goose that laid the golden eggs. Unfortunately, the beanstalk ending up uprooting Blunderboar’s penthouse and Jack accidentally killed one of Blunderboar’s henchmen when he was trying to cut down the beanstalk to stop it from uprooting Blunderboar’s penthouse. Jack goes into hiding from the giants to the West, and waits for the useless goose to lay those damned golden eggs so that he can return home and pay for the rebuilding of his mother's bakery.

Now that Jack has met up with Rapunzel in the last book, he and Rapunzel go back to Jack’s hometown and they discovered that Blunderboar has taken over the city while vicious ant people terrorize the citizens. Along with Pru the pixie, Rapunzel the long-haired cowgirl, and his new ally, Freddie the mechanic and Journalist.

Together they join forces to search & rescue of Jack's mother, who was the baker of the town, taken away and lock up to back human-bone-bread for Blunderboar. Jack tries to save the people from Blunderboar’s evil rule. At the end, Rapunzel and Jack takes down Blunderboar, who was on his run. into the sea and once again, become heroes.

Skills and Abilities

He's mischievous, tricky, and a lot less devious than he thinks he is. He fancies himself a bit of a criminal genius, but he's rather a bit more of a bumbler, who sometimes gets lucky.

Weapons and Paraphernalia

Jack carries an array of tools and gadgets on his person almost at all times. He also has a pistol and is a good marksman. Jack uses a magic bean to grow a huge stalk in the past when needing to.