HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANTHONY!
Today, some thirty years ago more or less (well more, but whose REALLY counting?), Anthony Del Col came onto the scene.Please join me in wishing him a wonderfully happy birthday and here's hoping he survivies yet ANOTHER death defying stunt on his big day. The stout-hearted man has taken on sky-diving, bungie cord jumping, working with me, and now he's set to take on another daredevil adventure -- walking the EDGE of the CN TOWER!For a look at what Anthony is going to face watch a few minutes of this video -- I can't wait for the photo of Anthony sitting in thin air.Anthony, you're a great partner, but more importantly than that you bring joy to every room you walk into and a smile to every face.Have a great one - and here is a little birthday song for you!
K.S. Friends, "Bad Kids Go To Hell", Bring Their Film To FanExpo
Going to conventions as much as we do you get the great opportunity to meet other creative entrepreneurs, and one of the real pleasures of the job is being able to share their work with your own fans and supporters.
So without further ado...One of the most interesting events that should be on top of your "things to do at FanExpo", is the Bad Kids Go To Hell screening.Based on the bestselling Bad Kids Go To Hell graphic novel, which is kinda a 'John Hughes meets Halloween' idea, the film is going to premiere at the FanExpo on Saturday night.You can meet Matt and "Bazza" the two creators of the book and film at Booth #802 (they are special guests of the Silver Snail) and see the film at 6:30 PM in room 715. Check the boys' newsletter for a special "Detention Slip" that can get you into the film.
Matt and Barry (Baz's REAL name) are great guys that we met when we first started promoting Kill Shakespeare - their comic-to-screen journey is one we're working hard to emulate - so for any of our fans who also loves a good old-fashioned 80's style sex and scare story you should make a point of checking out the Bad Kids journey.For a better taste - here is the trailer:
Anarchy in the U.K. - Kill Shakespeare style!
Hey all,We've been busy beavering ourselves across the U.K. as the latest stop of our cross the world comic tour. So far we've seen London, Bristol and Oxford with Stratford-Upon-Avon, Manchester and Leeds still to come.
We haven't had as much of a chance to see the country as we'd have liked. The shows and meetings have kept us pinned down (as well as a bit of jet lag those first couple of days) but we have managed to see Big Ben and the Parliment buildings and Anthony did a nice long walk one evening where he took in some of the sights of one of the great cities of the world.
We also were treated to a tour of Orbital Comics which is an amazing shop in the heart of London where we were interviewed by Chris for the store's podcast. We then went out with one of the other manager's Kyle where we sipped pints and chatted comics for hours -- eventually deciding that Reid Fleming - the World's Toughest Milk Man, American Flagg, and Power Man and Iron Fist are all well overdue to have cool movies.
The Bristol Comic Expo was a smaller show but was enthusiastically attended by all involved, despite the fact that the biggest soccer match in arguably 22 years was going down at the same time as the Sunday show.
We were a little bummed when we found out that the copies of Kill Shakespeare Volume 1 were not going to make it to the show in Bristol but the fans shocked us by still clamboring to buy the series even though they could only get Volume 2.We were also blown away by the number of amazing artists we met at the show. It seemed like everyone was landing a deal with Disney, or D.C., or image, or Random House. Clearly the U.K. is still churning out some of the best comic talent in the world.
After Bristol we've been fortunate enough to go to Oxford where we gave a talk at one of the local schools and then were treated to a great tour of the city by the amazing Katie Musgrave. Anthony also did his best master of disguise impression as he impersonated an Oxford student to sneak into C.S. Lewis' old college so he could take in the atmosphere that inspired one of the all time great fantasy series - The Chronicles of Narnia.Tonight we grab a few hours sleep and then we're off to the den of Shakespeare itself -- Stratford-Upon-Avon. We'll be meeting with reps from the Royal Shakespeare Company as well as people from the Shakespeare Birthright Trust -- both of them being excellent opportunities to win people over in helping us with our little plot of Bardicide (or they'll kick us out of the Bard's birthplace so fast our heads will spin... GRIN).
Until our next update - keep flying'em in the crates they ship'em in (as we've been told British World War I pilots liked to cheers each other -- apparently because the "crates" were more aerodynamic than the actual planes...).
Here come the Aussies to pillage TCAF, Viking-style!
TCAF is always one of our favourite events in the comic's calendar.(and if you haven't gone before then get yourself down to the Toronto Reference Library at Bloor and Yonge this weekend).It is one of the rare places where you can delve deeply into a host of creator owned books as well as read illustrated stories in pretty well any genre under the sun.Organizer Chris Butcher also does an amazing job of bringing in the sort of guests you won't find anywhere else. Guests from all over the world.
One of those exotic guests happens to come from Australia and he happens to know my soon to be sister-in-law, Allison, and so I'm super excited to get to shill for his arrival in Canada.Matt Taylor works in advertising back in Oz (so if you need to hire an amazing concept design firm go here), but he's also a rabid comics fan and creator.He's been crisis-crossing North America as part of the Caravan of Comics, an invasion of sorts of like-minded Aussies with keen wits and pens to match.Matt is a pretty funny dude and he's been kind enough to give the Kill Shakespeare universe a sneak-peak at his book, Lars the Viking.Lars is a perturbed lil' fellow who speaks entirely in verse and mostly is pretty ticked that all the good plundering days seem to have come to an end. It turns out that the Vikings may not be long for this world, and Lars isn't QUITE ready to accept sliding into the dustbin of history.(Oh, and Lars has a pet pig? Did I mention that? A pig who also goes on raids? Yep, a raiding-pig... sweet!)So please enjoy this little gift through K.S. and we hope all of you who are coming to TCAF this weekend will check out our Australian friends as well!Cheers,Conor
We guest blog on Reading With Pictures
Reading With Pictures is a fantastic site and resource for those who want to learn more about the medium of comics and especially for those who are looking to, or already to, teach comics in class.The two of us were honoured then when RWP asked us to contribute some guest blogs to the site.The first blog "Hamlet to Ham Sandwich" is up here. We hope you think it is an interesting take on why the comic medium deserves to be studied, why comics and Shakespeare are a great fit, as well as as why students of all ages respond so well to Shakespeare when he is presented in an accessible way (say, a certain graphic noel you may be familiar with?)Stay tuned as we should have more blogs up for RWP soon.Also we'd love it if you checked out the Kickstarter campaign for a fantastic new textbook that RWP is developing to help make teaching comics easier, and more rewarding than ever.(and some of the rewards for this campaign have GOT to be seen to be believed!)See you all in Dubai!
Pretty in Purple
With Anthony and Conor splitting up to do cross-country coverage of comic-con's (say that five times fast), the press has started to come trickling in.
For those fans newer to the whole Kill Shakespeare "thing" these interviews are a great way to get caught up on what the project is about, what we have done and where we are going for it.In Toronto, at the Fan Appreciation Show, Conor chatted with Adam Donaldson of Press+1 a new, and very slick site that delves into geek culture with reviews, interviews and commentary (they're also going to cover the Junos - Canada's music awards - which I think is pretty cool and innovative).You can check out the interview with Conor here (and leave comments on that snaZZY purple sweater below....).Next stop for the dynamic duo is the Shakespeare Association of America's meeting in Bahstahn, so if anyone has any advice on what to do and where to go this weekend let us know!As Don Draper's wife would say -- Bissous (or is that Zou be Zou be Zou?)
To all our Teacher friends, 'sup!
While Anthony was away in Seattle converting the masses to the joys of Bardicide, Conor was beavering away back in K.S. HQ on a new project that we've hinted at but will be announcing "for realsies" very soon.And while he was procrastinating by checking e-mail a really cool message came in.As many of you know we've got dreams that Kill Shakespeare will be picked up by school systems around the world as either a way to introduce people to the Bard's tropes and tricks or as a tool for deeper analysis of the plays.
So far we've been making steady headway (And later this week Anthony and Conor will both be in Boston for the annual meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America) but the little e-mail we got was from noted academic reviewer Chris Wilson.
Chris is the top dog behind the awesome The Graphic Classroom -- a well-read site chock full of reviews and tools for teachers looking to bring graphic novels into the classroom.
Chris gave Kill Shakespeare a REALLY solid review and called it "highly recommended" for school classrooms.
For our teacher fans we hope this is something you can use to help justify bringing K.S. to your class, and for those of you who have teacher friends this is a fantastic link to help them discover our series, but more importantly graphic novels in general.
Thanks Chris!
Welcome to the Comic Book Laboratory
While Kill Shakespeare is a more than full-time job for Anthony and I, we aren't even close to the only people needed to get the thing out there to you fine readers.
Beyond Andy B.'s awesome art, Ian Herring's great colours, Kagan Mcleod's cool covers and the entire team of amazing people at IDW we also have a crack squad of interns -- all of whom aspire to their own careers in the arts in one flavour or another.So, we're VERY happy to be able to point you in the direction of mega-awesome intern Ben O'Brian's new website.Ben's Comic book laboratory contains Ben's j on-going comic work, several series of art projects (including a great one of Toronto cinema's marquees) and his stand-alone political cartoons.Ben also reviews films for several portals - so he is a real renaissance man -- please check out his work and leave some comments for one of our favourite people!
Help Review us on Amazon!
Have you heard either of our first two graphic novels? Did you like either of them ? Did you not like them? (If you didn't, I'm not really sure why you're checking out this site...) In either case, we'd like to request your help and help post a review on Amazon.com!
It's quite simple - head onto any of the chief Amazon sites and quickly post a quick note on whether you liked the book(s) or not. It'll probably take a couple minutes but would be an IMMENSE help to us!For Volume 2, you can access the site the titles here: United States, Canada and U.K.For Volume 1, you can access the specific title sites here: United States, Canada and U.K.
One-of-a-kind Kill Shakespeare swag!
When we were in Montreal at the Comic-Con we were lucky enough to come across many, many, excellent fans. But two stood out head and shoulders above the rest -- William Dziambor and the lovely Sonia Varin.The couple were new to the whole Kill Shakespeare "thing" but by the end of the Con they had stopped by to chat with us several times, bought the full series and also bought themselves some Kill Shakespeare t-shirts.So when Sonia contacted us this fall to try to find a unique Kill Shakespeare gift for William for Christmas we were somewhat stumped -- I mean they pretty much had most of our stuff.Then Sonia asked us "Well, what about a poster?" We had been wanting to make posters for some time but had struggled with what we should do -- as well as figuring out a way to do them at a low enough cost that they would make sense. Sonia didn't care, she said she would cover the cost of making a one-off poster and man, oh man, does it look good.
The poster turned out really well - Anthony and I almost couldn't bear to send it away. Thanks to Tyrone and the rest of the good people at Guerilla Printing for making the poster so quickly and so affordably.So what do you think everyone? Should we be making Kill Shakespeare posters? If so, what would you want them to be of?
ONE BIZARRE LIFE
One thing we like to do when we get a chance here in the Kill Shakespeare estates (and by estates we mean two painfully small apartment-y type things in the city of Toronto) is to pass on weird, wonderful and interesting work that people share with us at conventions.
Well, earlier this month, (last month by the time most of you see it) we were in Halifax and I struck up a fun conversation with an artist named Bruce Delo. Bruce asked if he could show me his comics and I said 'yes' (being the generally kind and generous soul that I am).So he passed me this bizarre little strip called Life Comix which I flipped through and it was really, really random.And I mean that mostly in a good way. Life Comix seems to be about a group of stoner friends who get up to all sorts of adventures, well they don't get up to a heck of a lot (they ARE stoners), but there is definitely a sweet undercurrent to everything in the strip which appealed to me (as did some of the most random moments like the centipede buddy or the "face-hands" that make apocalyptic predictions).So I told Bruce I'd toss it on our site and that hopefully he and I wouldn't be the only ones with the same odd sense of humour.Life Comix -- it may not be for everyone, but I think there's the seed of something here so I hope you check out his work, and Bruce I hope you keep at it!Enjoy!
PW loves ANDY B.
Publishers Weekly has long been a big supporter of Kill Shakespeare so it is a real pleasure to see them review the second trade collection - THE BLAST OF WAR.The review isn't a stroke job by any measure, but it does single out Andy B. for the fantastic work he put into the trade.Click here to read it.So cheers to Andy B. as he continues to receive the recognition he deserves!
Top o' The Morning
Conor and I appeared on Canada's GlobalTV The Morning Show earlier today to talk about Kill Shakespeare and our Live Stage Reading this weekend (tomorrow and Sunday!) at The Young Centre for the Performing Arts. It was a fun spot - it's rare to be able to have an 8-10 minute conversation on live television like that. Conor and I really enjoyed ourselves and chatting about the book, the reading, Twilight, inspiration, schools and everything else.To watch the interview click on the image below (thanks to Liz Cunha for emailing us some screenshots from her Blackberry).
KILL SHAKESPEARE CRACKS WASHINGTON POST'S "MUST BE MADE INTO A MOVIE" LIST
As many of you know Anthony and I have been working hard at translating our baby to other mediums. Notably we've cast a longing glance at the film and TV industries.Well imagine our happy surprise when the Washington Post's Mike Cavna came knocking on our door and told us we'd made his list of the top 5 comics that need to move to the big (or little) screen.Mike's very fun article can be read here. I think he nailed five pretty amazing books that all of us would want to see on the air one day. Hey, who knows, maybe Anthony and I will show-run Sandman one day?
WORD!
The sun was shining, fans of the written word were laughing and comparing notes on their favourite authors, exotic meats and vegetables were grilling... it was definitely a great Sunday to be at Word on the Street.
And so the Kill Shakespeare team braved this paradise (though we somehow forgot to grab any Tiny Tom donuts -- for shame, what we're we thinking?) to do our second presentation at WOTS - which is a huge honour for us. We love getting the chance to mingle with so many readers and we especially appreciate the chance to try to open people's eyes to the humble comic book.In fact for next year I'm hoping to convince WOTS to give us and a few other creators a panel with some sort of provocative title ("You're dumb if you're not reading comics" ?) in order to really shake up the notion that comics are for kids.But that's enough of my little sideline passion.This post is really about thanking Nicola at WOTS for organizing the event and getting the K.S. boys a panel. And it is about thanking the people who came to hear us speak (standing room only!), and it is about appreciating the passion and energy the entire festival brought to the day. For those of you have not been to a WOTS it is getting bigger and bigger all the time, and the one in Toronto was easily the busiest I'd ever seen. And you don't even have to be in Toronto to enjoy the fun. The Toronto WOTS is held in conjunction with events across the country, including one in Halifax where our dear friend Chris Benjamin was a guest of honour.
It's a great venue for hearing readings, picking up cool books, getting discounted magazine subscriptions (as my fiancee may have done) and mingling. It's also a great venue for kids so we invite all our fans to come down next year to join the party at Queen's Park - and come support the "comics are literature too" movement we'll be trying to drum up.As for the panel itself? Well, first off, we were scheduled to present at the "This is Not the Shakespeare Stage" -- perhaps the greatest literary omen since the 'Ides of March' (although I think our day worked out a LITTLE better than Caesar's). Once we got there we were greeted by a large and enthusiastic crowd and received a wonderful intro from the festival organizers.Then Anthony and I spent an hour going through the "ins and outs" of writing and drawing comics (poor Andy was in NYC and couldn't join us) and providing tips about how to become a creative entrepreneur. As I mentioned above the crowd was fantastic, especially Scott who graciously volunteered to be a guinea pig and talk through a comic book he was working on that had stalled.
We also found time to plug the excellent Kate Beaton and her work Hark, A Vagrant!, to do a little high-fashion runway modelling, and to be COMPLETELY charmed by two adorable moppets in the front row who answered more questions than all the adults in the tent combined.At the end there was nothing left to do but treat the crowd to a brief sneak-preview of "Kill Shakespeare: The Musical" (starring the Bear from 'A Winter's Tale', naturally). We were told it was the first time that someone had ended a WOTS presentation with a soft-shoe routine.We hope that all of you who attended ended up gaining some value from our presentation, and please we'd love to hear feedback so that we can continue to improve our talks. We'd be honoured if something we said or did inspired your own creative spirits.All the best, and thanks again Toronto for the best Word on the Street yet!A smattering of the many photos the lovely Crystal Luxmore, the aforementioned fiancee, took of the day are below.
- Anthony preparing to launch into "Kill Shakespeare: The Musical"
Your chance to own some AWESOME Kill Shakespeare Art
Many of you have commented on the amazing colouring work in Kill Shakespeare and as most of you know the man behind this key part of the comic is Ian Herring.
What you may NOT know is that Ian is an accomplished artist in his own right. Yes our boy Ian is far more than "just" a colourist.Some of you may have read about the piece he did for "Loveable Badass" the art show dedicated to NBA star Ron Artest (and that Ron-Ron was interested in owning it himself).Well Ian is contributing more art to the Kill Shakespeare cause -- he will have one of the guest pin-ups in our second trade "The Blast of War".
But first you can get a print of his AWESOME piece for the first trade by clicking here.To see more of his work, including his awesome homage to both TMNT and Star Fox click here (also check out his awesome CosmoApe).
Just a test
So I'm trying something out here people. Do me a favour and those of you with QR readers help us make sure this code actually takes you to the first issue's online home.
A little product placement for our little book
San Diego Comic-Con becomes a bigger and bigger deal for the "mainstream" media all the time.Earlier this week CTV did a story on San Diego and the record crowds that gathered to attend that Geek-a-palooza. But part of the story focused on an event that's we'll be attending this fall - the Halifax Comic Con!Jen Lambe, who heads up the organizing committee for HalCon, was interviewed by CTV to comment on the rise of Geek culture. And Jen, a big fan of our work, got them to shoot the lead-in to the interview with her reading our book.It made enough of an impression that my fiancee's mother e-mailed us to say she had seen it -- and right now she's living in Dryden, Ontario which is a couple of hours north of Thunder Bay (so it looks like we're going regional, baby!)A big thanks to Jen for giving us another great plug on National T.V.! It means a lot to us that our fans support the book the way you do. So thanks to all of you.Click on the link below to see the lovely Ms. Lambe!CTV Live at 5
Kill Shakespeare Profiled on CBC's The National
We just got back yesterday from a fantastic convention in Calgary where we made a ton of new fans and friends and sold out our books by mid-day Saturday! One of the reasons for our sell-out was the profile on us that ran on CBC's The National with Peter Mansbridge. It was a great almost-four-minute segment that featured interviews with us, Bayside Secondary School teacher Kent Allin, Bayside student Catherine Chokly and Soulpepper Theatre's artistic director Albert Schultz.To watch the clip, click on any of the images below (all taken from the segment) 0r here.
TEENAGE SATAN!
We're very fortunate to know the talented and lovely Marsha Cooke - one of our favourite people in the world of comics. Well, Marsha has given us ANOTHER reason to worship at her temple of awesomeness as she, Stephanie Buscema and Candis Cooke have come together to create the awesome looking Teenage Satan!Check out the trailer below (and because Marsha is so bad-ass, she challenged mighty Warner by using Martin Solveig's "Hello" as this clip's original score. But after 17,000 views they made her pull it down. I get it, but BEWARE Warner - Teenage Satan has you on a list!)I'm also a little jealous that Marsha already has an entire suite of often web-games ready to go... just reminds me we really need get ourselves in gear on that front).Enjoy!