George the spiderpirate

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Until a radioactive spider bit him.
George spent three days in his bunk, shivering and fevering, only getting up to throw up and go back to bed.
After three days, George didn’t climb the walls or shoot webs from his hands.
Nor did he put on a red and blue costume and fight crime.
No, George was dying from radiation sickness.
All of his hair fell out, he threw up a lot more, and he lost a lot of weight.
And then he died.
His crewmates threw him overboard.

George and the Sea Panel

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He kept a diary of his adventures, and he turned them into a webcomic.
George wasn’t very good at drawing, but thanks to templates and the creation platform, it didn’t take much to arrange the stock images and then add the text for a decent story.
Creating tavern and beach scenes was easy, but any time he tried to create a comic panel with pirate ships on the sea, the browser window crashed.
“Lousy sea panel!” grumbled George, rebooting his tablet and hoping the system had saved his work.

George is out

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was usually the first pirate to be out when the crew played Simon Says.
He’d sit on the rail and watch the birds while the other pirates kept playing.
Eventually, there’d be a winner, and the group would regather to play another round.
George would lose quickly again, and go back to watching the birds.
“You’re not very good at this, are you?” asked the captain.
“I have no idea,” said George. “I try to lose quickly so I can go back to watching birds.”
And he smiled.

George at the drycleaners

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When the captain demanded that every pirate on his ship wear a uniform, every pirate put them on and stood out on the deck.
Except George.
“They’re too tight, so it’s hard to move and fight in them,” he said. “They’re bright colors, which make it hard for us to sneak around. And they’re dryclean only. Where the hell are we going to find a drycleaners out at sea?”
The captain yelled “KILL THAT REBEL!”
George easily outran them, escaped to Port Royal, and opened a Dry Cleaning shop.

George uses his head

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
This wasn’t for a lack of planning, though.
George made elaborate plans for everything, writing up lists and working out contingency plans should something go wrong.
Of course, if those contingency plans went wrong, he’d have backup plans to those plans, too.
Keeping all of these plans in his head at once got confusing to George, and he’d end up just standing there trying to remember what he was going to do.
“What’s that smell?” said the captain.
Oh, thought George. I was on my way to the head.

George and the Flying Dutchman

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He’d heard tales of The Flying Dutchman, but he never quite understood the concept.
“So, it was a Dutch man who could fly?” asked George.
“No,” said the captain. “It’s a ghost ship that brings bad omens.”
“The ship is a ghost, or is it full of ghosts?” asked George.
“Both,” said the captain.
“Well, can’t ghosts fly?” asked George. “So, really, if the ghosts are Dutch, they’re flying ghosts of Dutch men.”
The captain smacked George’s head with a belaying peg.
“You’re really annoying,” he said. “And stupid.”

George the Brand

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was more into branding himself as an information economy brand than as an actual provider of pirating services.
He had the logo, the website, the social media footprint, but he didn’t follow through with getting the job done.
“I have 15,000 followers and I generate a lot of likes and shares and contacts every day in my network,” said George. “Who needs results?”
The captain angrily ordered George to walk the plank.
As he walked the plank, George posted in Instagram selfie that got 92 likes and shares.

George’s Ark

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
There was the time when his ship ran across a massive wooden ark.
The pirates boarded the vessel, and this old bearded freak was yelling about God’s judgment and other nonsense.
They looked in the cargo hold, and found a zoo’s worth of animals down there.
“Oh good,” said the captain. “We’ve been running low on supplies.”
They cooked and ate the unicorns and dragons.
Around then, George up in the crow’s nest shouted “LAND HO!”
But he turned out to be wrong, so they ate the dinosaurs, too.

George the heavy sleeper dumped overboard

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
His crewmates wrapped him in white rags, and laid his body on a wooden plank.
Then, after a prayer, they tilted the plank and his body slid into the ocean.
“Amen,” they said.
The cold water woke George, and he realized that he’d been dumped overboard.
“Well, that’s nothing new,” he tried to say.
But he couldn’t. Because his mouth was full of water.
And he’d been bound and gagged.
“I hate being a heavy sleeper,” thought George, as he sank deeper and deeper into the water and unconsciousness.

George gets a bath

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Nor was he being given a bath by the cannibal who’d found him washed ashore on the beach.
“This water’s too hot,” complained George, splashing around. “Oh, and I’d like soap and a washcloth.”
Instead, the cannibal dropped in chopped vegetables and herbs.
“I’d rather wait until I’m finished with my bath before I eat,” said George.
Somehow, the fire under the pot ignited the cannibal’s grass skirt, and he ran off screaming.
George got out of the pot, reached in for a vegetable, and sat down to eat.