Classical Comics turned Shakespeare's Macbeth

How Classical Comics turned Shakespeare's Macbeth into a graphic novel
Posted: April 21, 2008, 9:50 PM by Mark Medley






The idea to re-imagine some of William Shakespeare’s best-known works as graphic novels didn’t come to Clive Bryant while he was thumbing through a comic, or at the theatre, or even while he was reading one of the bard’s plays. The idea came, oddly enough, while he was on the train, absorbed in Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point and his discussion of the broken windows theory. He wondered what could be done about issues like falling literacy levels and wondered: how about comics?
“It suddenly struck me: could we make Shakespeare as cool as Spider-Man?” he says. “We could show all the exciting things we know happens in Shakespeare, all of the action that takes place...And that’s why the kids think it’s boring. They don’t get any of the exciting bits. They don’t see the drama acting out. They don’t see the melodrama taking place before them.”
It was July 2006 when inspiration struck. By November 2007 Classical Comics had released its first title: a graphic novel version of Henry V. The company’s second title, Macbeth, came out in February. As it was Bryant’s first venture into comics, he made sure he had the help of an industry veteran. It was at the Birmingham Comic Convention in December 2006 that he met illustrator Jon Haward, who has drawn Marvel characters like Iron Man, Hulk, and X-Men.











“He said ‘How would you fancy drawing Macbeth?’” recalls Haward. “I thought it was a really cool idea.”
Re-imagining or reinterpretations of Shakespeare’s work is nothing new (West Side Story, Baz Lurhmann’s Romeo + Juliet, Akira Kurosawa’s Ran, the teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You) but it presented new challenges for Haward: he was as much a director as an illustrator.
“It’s a huge thing to undertake, doing Shakespeare. At the end of the day everyone knows who William Shakespeare is (and) I think Macbeth is his most famous play,” says Haward. “You got people like Patrick Stewart and Orson Welles playing Macbeth. It’s quite hefty to jump in those shoes and think: how would I portray Macbeth?”
He says he was inspired by the art of Angus McBride and films like Sean Connery’s Zardoz.
“I wanted to grab the kids imagination with the book,” says Haward.
It took him 54 weeks to draw Macbeth. The script was adapted by British novelist John F. McDonald.
There are actually three versions of Macbeth; while the illustrations are the same, it is the language that changes. There’s the unabridged Original Text; the Plain Text version which translates the Shakespearean dialogue into modern English; and a Quick Text version, intended for younger or emerging readers.
“It’s in a language that the modern generation can understand,” says Bryant. “The language is no longer a barrier to comprehension.”











Bryant knows that purists will criticize the series; the books have already been accused of dumbing down Shakespeare.
“We don’t want to replace anything, we want to supplement it. We want to build the enjoyment of classical literature,” says Bryant. “The whole idea of this is to build a positive connotation of Shakespeare.”
The point of offering three versions is so readers can start on the Quick Text and work their way up to the full version, like learning to ride a bike with training wheels.
“I also wanted to enable younger readers to enjoy these stories,” he says. “I wanted to remove those barriers to entry.”
Bryant’s quest to turn the Facebook generation onto classical literature will continue later this year and next; a handful of titles - including The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet - are planned, and the company is branching out to non-Shakespeare works like Great Expectations and Frankenstein. Bryant sees his company as part of a growing trend.
“We’re certainly seeing a movement,” he says, “where graphic novels have been put forward for educational purposes, whereas even two years ago that was largely unheard of.”

Macbeth -- The Graphic Novel: A Comparison
Original Text:






شمـــــــــــــــــــس

ok ok

ثنكس علي الاخر منك يعني ومشكورة علي االمجهود بس كل الكلام هادا طبعا بل اجنبي هههههه