Why is there a pirate on every Shonen Jump cover?

The pirate head, eyepatch, beard and skull hat, is the logo of the Jump line, on the magazine since its first issue in 1968 and on the Jump Comics volumes that collect its series. For most of his life he had no name at all. In March 2022 the magazine opened nominations to name him, and the winning name was Journey. Editor in chief Hiroyuki Nakano said the name was fitting because it expresses adventure, like the main character in a Jump manga.

He also has a sister, hidden in plain sight. Turn Journey 90 degrees and the pirate profile resolves into a girl face. That rotated reading became Jamie, created in April 2018 as the mascot for the 25th anniversary of Jump j Books, the Jump novel label, and written as Journey younger sister.

The pirate has had one starring cover era moment of his own: for the 50th anniversary issue, 2018 No.33, every running creator redrew the pirate and hid the redesign somewhere inside their chapter, so the mark appeared across the whole magazine at once. Eiichiro Oda, whose own series is about pirates, put his redesign on a Beasts Pirates scout in One Piece chapter 911. The joke writes itself: the magazine about adventure had a pirate on it eleven years before Luffy existed, and waited fifty four years to name him.