Published Jul 1, 2026, 3:00 AM EDT

New Graphic Novel Reveals the Secret Spy Network That Helped Win the American Revolution

A French playwright and a secret agent sent by Congress form an unlikely alliance to supply the American rebel army with desperately needed supplies.

George Washington’s army had the will to fight. It did not always have the powder, weapons or ammunition needed to survive. That shortage, and the covert effort to solve it before France openly backed the American Revolution, is at the center of Liberty, a new graphic novel from Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner and artists Étienne Le Roux, Loïc Chevallier and Elvire De Cock. Timed to the country’s 250th anniversary, the book looks beyond the familiar battlefield story of the Revolution to the spies, smugglers, secret agents and civilians who helped keep the rebellion alive when its future was anything but certain.

The project, from Oni and Magnetic Press, is set to launch on Kickstarter on July 1. But Mechner told Military.com the story began not with the Founding Fathers or a famous battle, but with a French playwright he thought he already knew. “I happened to pick up a biography of Beaumarchais, whom I knew only as the French playwright who wrote The Marriage of Figaro, my favorite Mozart opera,” Mechner said. “I was fascinated to discover that he’d played a pivotal role in supporting the American rebel army, creating a fictitious company to illegally ship arms from France, in the early days when the revolution’s survival hung by a thread.” Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais is not usually the first name Americans learn when they study the Revolution. Neither is Silas Deane, a Connecticut businessman and secret agent sent by Congress to obtain foreign support. For Mechner, that was part of the appeal. “The more I read, the more I became convinced that Beaumarchais and his partner Silas Deane are two great unsung heroes of the American Revolution,” Mechner said. “I found their story incredibly resonant and relevant to today’s world, and it deserves to be told.”