by Ananya Nrusimha
Shakespeare’s plays have been adapted thousands of times for a modern audience. There’s a host of movies, books, and even Japanese manga that have tried to make the Bard more accessible to today’s youth. Of these adaptations, the graphic novel Kill Shakespeare is almost certainly the most unconventional.
The story is set in a universe where most of Shakespeare’s characters coexist. Shakespeare himself is a mysterious sorcerer who has never been seen; many characters believe his existence is a myth. When our protagonist Hamlet is spirited away from his own play and enters this shared world, he is tasked with killing Shakespeare using the dagger that killed Julius Caesar. As he searches for the Bard, he meets a faction called ‘Prodigals’ who support Shakespeare and believe that Hamlet must save him from some sort of calamity. Richard III, Iago, and Lady Macbeth are our principal villains and try to manipulate Hamlet into killing Shakespeare. Juliet, Falstaff, and Othello are the leaders of the Prodigals, and wish to save him.
Kill Shakespeare pits the Bard’s most iconic heroes and his most hated villains against each other with extraordinary consequences. Fans of every genre can find something to like here—there’s adventure, intrigue, drama, and even a little romance. The plot is complex and multilayered, with several threads that occasionally intertwine.
The dialogue is easily the strong point of this story; it’s easy to understand and it almost sounds like something Shakespeare would write. The paneling is nothing short of brilliant, with a lot of creative layouts and an excellent use of background panels. Everything’s easy to see and read thanks to the solid, evocative coloring, which are especially strong in scenes with indoor lighting. Dialogue lettering is well done, though the font for sound effects is often jarring. The art is excellent; it renders all of the characters perfectly and spares no expense for some of the more macabre characters like the fairies and Lady Macbeth’s fellow sorceresses.
All of the characters are intriguing and fun to read. Some of the characters (like Hamlet and Falstaff) retain the roles they hold in their plays. Others take on different roles; Juliet is a warrior here, and Lady Macbeth is a scheming sorceress. Everyone is extremely complex; the character development they receive in their respective plays is only added to as they interact with each other here.
While it certainly helps to be familiar with Shakespeare’s plays, you really don’t need to know anything about them to enjoy the story. Kill Shakespeare is written with both Shakespeare fans and more casual readers in mind. However, some Shakespeare fans might not be fond of the less than flattering portrayal of Shakespeare that appears here.
Unless you absolutely hated Shakespeare in English or you abhor comic books, you should definitely give this book a try.
