I hadn’t heard of Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col’s new comic book series Kill Shakespeare until this afternoon, when I heard Neal Conan interview them on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. From the print edition:
In Kill Shakespeare, Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col’s graphic novel, the Bard’s heroes and villains conspire to track down the evil wizard, William Shakespeare.
McCreery says you might be surprised at how big the crossover is between Shakespeare and comic books. “Kill Shakespeare‘s actually really done a nice job of reaching out to … the hard-core comic fan,” he tells NPR’s Neal Conan. “But we’ve also had a lot of first-time readers of comics come in because they’re really interested in this whole mash-up of the Bard we’re doing.”
The series brings all of Shakespeare’s trademarks to its panels — action, drama, lust, violence, double-crossing and cross-dressing.
NPR’s also published an excerpt from Kill Shakespeare.
The series seems appealing, and I’m all for anything that might introduce Shakespeare to a wider audience. At the same time, Kill Shakespeare seems indicative of a larger trend of literary mash-ups–think of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, for instance–and I’m not sure how I feel about all of that. But maybe I should go to my local comic book shop and buy an issue and read one of the damn things, and then, you know, make some kind of informed judgment.
Biblioklept 