Artist: Kate Brown
 |
| via mycomicshop.com |
A Midsummer Night's Dream was the first installment in my 12 Books in 12 Months project a few years back (post here). While I've seen many of Shakespeare's comedies performed on stage or screen, it's the only one I've ever read. The purist in me wants to see the full text in a comic book adaptation as was done here. But if the idea is an accessible intro, I prefer abridgement to the No Fear Shakespeare concept in which the original text is translated into "modern" language.
There's no reason why Shakespeare comics shouldn't work. Theater is, after all, a visual medium and therefore sequential art is an obvious choice for adaptation. The artist, while working in the manga style, is herself British. The character drawings are very manga-esque as are the panel layout and the women running around in their underwear. I would certainly be interested in reading more of this series, particularly the plays I don't know so well.
Great post and I agree. It should work.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kelly!
DeleteIf they can do Lion King on stage with all the props, then Shakespeare should be easy.
ReplyDeleteThere have been Lion King comics, too, come to think of it.
DeleteThe comic book style might be a good way to get a younger generation interested in reading the unabridged works.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely - not quite for little kids, though. Teenagers, maybe.
DeleteOne of my kids is a writer and senior editor with Viz Media --a Japanese company in San Francisco. My Dec. birthday gift from him was their excellent comic book pastiche of Sherlock Holmes meeting Harry Houdini. These forays into what we may remember as "Classics Comics" --from the heydays of companies Elliot, Gilberton and Frawley-- will certainly lure young people into the world of good literature and good minds. Kids have a way of finding the original canons and reading them with flashlights under their blankets when they should be sleeping. Clever kids. Clever parents too, eh?
ReplyDeleteThe company sounded familiar so I looked them up. Indeed, they publish Studio Ghibli's materials - very cool.
DeleteMy first exposure to a lot of the classics was a comic book series, quite probably the one you mention. A lot of the images still come back to me now when I think of, say, Robinson Crusoe or Moby Dick.
Okay, this sounds interesting.
ReplyDeleteIf nothing else, it's an interesting way to bring the material into a new age.
DeleteVery cool. I think my older students would like this a lot.
ReplyDeleteMaybe high school. Some of the illustrations are a bit racy - not dirty, just racy.
Delete