Call Me Bill is a graphic novel by Lynette Richards about Bill Armstrong, a sailor who perished in the wreck of the SS Atlantic off Marrs Island, Nova Scotia on April 1, 1873. When Armstrong’s body was pulled from the shore it was discovered that Bill was a woman. It was a shock to the survivors to learn that their buddy on board was living a secret life. Armstrong had sailed on numerous voyages as Bill but while onboard a ship called the Eskdale he got into a fight. Called before the captain and his wife, Bill could not keep his secret any longer. The captain’s wife recognized immediately that Bill was really a woman, and for the remainder of the time at sea, Bill was forced to live and dress as Maggie, the name he was born with, and do the jobs onboard that the other women did.
In order to create a narrative Richards used newspaper reports about Bill’s experience at sea, as well as a lengthy interview she gave–as Maggie–to Ralph Keeler of the New York Tribune. These were published just months before he died, as Bill, aboard the SS Atlantic. In that interview she stated:
“My name is Maggie Armstrong, though I called myself Billy when I put on pantaloons.”
She revealed that even as a young girl she felt more comfortable wearing boy’s apparel. The death of her brother when she was nine, as well as the death of her mother not long after that, would have devastated her. Double traumas could have affected the young Maggie for the rest of her life. Did these deaths influence her psychologically and contribute to her double identity? Richards did not cast Bill as a transsexual pioneer, and was upfront in her own admission that she did not know how Armstong viewed her own gender identity. Her quote above makes me think she was gender-fluid, using she or he depending on however she chose to dress.
I have not read many graphic novels but all of them had a much neater script. The handwritten dialogue and descriptions in Call Me Bill were sloppy, although Richards was consistent to print the dialogue all in capitals while the descriptions within the images were in lowercase.
I thought one of the drawings of Armstrong, pictured as Maggie being interviewed by Keeler, resembled k. d. lang:
My thanks to the Welland Public Library for lending this book as an interloan.