KILL SHAKESPEARE #2
What did the
iFanboy
community think?
Pulls
Artist: Andy Belanger
Cover: Kagan McLeod
Size: 32 pages
Price: 3.99
I want to rave about this book. I want to be pushing this book at people who love literature but don’t think much of comics.
But I can’t.
More than anything, what makes Shakespeare’s characters some of the best ever written in all of literature is how they talk. The inventive way he used language and how the characters changed each other through dialogue and changed us by exposing us to ideas about humanity that we never quite pondered in the same way as say, Hamlet or even Iago.
This comic is flat because the dialogue is flat. There is nothing in the language that makes any of the characters charismatic or endearing or sinister like the characters in the plays. They all kind of speak the same.
Even characterizations are a little off, Iago does most of his manipulation when he is one-on-one, but in this book he makes a point to emphasize his potential as an honest friend to Hamlet in front of other characters. That is not how Iago operates.
To succeed this book needs to refine the dialogue and take what was most salient about each character through the words they express and play with the language in the spirit of Shakespeare.
I want to like Iago even while I know he is snake. I want to fear Richard III’s cunning political game. I want to be frustrated by Hamlet’s overthinking and doubtfulness even while rooting for him to figure it all out.
I do want to love this book because I love the premise and think it has a lot of potential. I still might check out a trade when it gets collected.
Art: 3 - Good
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Well writ. I only read the first issue, but got the impression that the writers may have read a script or two of Shakespeare’s work in Freshman English, and probably saw a couple of the movies based on his work, but were otherwise unfamiliar with the characters at the heart of their story.
Great review and analysis of why Shakespeare’s characters are so interesting and enduring. It’s all in their language and dialogue and how Shakespeare was inventive and playful with it. Four hundred years later, hey, maybe a new author can’t be as complex or use certain old-fashioned terms – but to remove basically ALL the inventive language basically really does, heh, KILL anything noteworthy in Shakespeare.
Thanks for the feedback.
Glad I wasn’t completely off on an elitist rant.
I used this review to explain why I didn’t enjoy the series to a customer. Because after two years, I’d forgotten . This was a great reference.
hahaha, cool!
Thanks!
I just happened to see this comment on the front page. I don’t think I would have seen it otherwise.
I would still like to read the first trade to see if it got any better . . .