Shakespeare Comics

Here at The Mouse we love Shakespeare. His plays explore those timeless human emotions such as love (Romeo and Juliet) , jealousy (Othello), ambition (Macbeth) and revenge (Hamlet) in some of the most exciting and beautiful language ever written. The trouble is, Shakespeare wrote those words nearly 400 years ago and language has changed since then. Words and turns of phrase which would have been easily understood by a 17th century audience are often incomprehensible to a 21st century one.

One way to make Shakespeare more accessible to a modern audience is to present the plays in a format with which they are more familiar. In the case of Self Made Heroes publishing house, that means producing Manga versions of Shakespeare. The comics, at the moment just Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, tell the stories using Shakespeare's words and Japanese style comic illustration. They don't use the complete text, but a lot of the meaning is conveyed through the illustration. There are some pages from the comics on their website of Romeo and Juliet here and Hamlet here.

Another new company which produces Shakespeare comics is Classical Comics. They are bring out Henry V in November, with Macbeth coming out in early 2008. The interesting thing about these comics is that they have 3 versions- the original Shakespearean text, a plain text which translates the words into Modern day English and a quick text version which condenses the meaning into as few a words as possible. This version is probably closest to the true graphic novel as you can see more of the artwork, and the image is as important as the words.

The Original Text




















The Plain Text




















And the Quick Text