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...).
Photos from Dubai!
I apologize that these photos are so late - I had hoped to post them earlier this week but things have been quite busy with creative work as well as preparation for our U.K. trip (we head out on Tuesday for two weeks of conventions, signings, meetings, and inspiration in the home of Shakespeare!).
I've posted a number of things about our trip to the Middle East Film and Comic-Con, and a full summary of my time can be found here. But here are some additional photos I haven't posted yet...
C2E2 Camera Connection!
I know that it's been two weeks since C2E2 in Chicago but I'm only now getting around to posting some photos from the trip. I apologize for this - the last two weeks have been quite busy with the Middle East Film & Comic-Con trip, then catching up on everything. I'll also post the Dubai photos later this week.My trip to Chicago was fantastic. It's a great theatre town so obviously there were already a lot of Kill Shakespeare fans there - and we were able to make so many more! My only regret is that our book stock is pretty low so we sold out early Sunday morning.I have a LOT of people to thank for making Chicago so great. I'd like to thank my booth helper for Saturday and Sunday - the fantastic Sarah Hunter. I'd also like to thank Christina Hall and Diego, who helped out for a few hours on Friday evening. I'd like to thank the amazing team at the ALA - especially Tina Coleman - for including us in their scavenger hunt (I'll see you in June at the conference in Anaheim!). Lys Fulda for helping me out with accomodations in the city (go Chinatown!). Jenny and Chris from ReedPop who helped us secure our spot at the show. Everyone who came out to my STANDING ROOM ONLY workshop on pitching and marketing your comic. And finally, the amazing Kate Kotler for helping out through the weekend and serving as a city tour guide (from a remote distance - she was 'M' to my James Bond through the city)...Next year will be even better! I look forward to visiting the city again.Here are some pictures:
Shakespeare Plenary Presentation
Conor and I are currently at the Shakespeare Association of American Annual Conference in Boston and winning over a LOT of people to our series. It's been a great time and the highlight was this morning when Peter Holland (University of Notre Dame) profiled us in his plenary presentation this morning to all delegates. Here is a pic:
More information to come!
Pics from Emerald City
It's pretty late at night and I have to get up uber-early to catch a shuttle to the airport to head back to Toronto... But wanted to relive some of my memories at this past weekend's Emerald City Comic-Con in Seattle. It was a great time and I enjoyed meeting everyone that came to the table, bought books, chatted about Shakespeare and comics and pitching, and everything else.Also thanks to everyone that came out to my How to Pitch and Market Your Comic workshop on Saturday afternoon. It was a packed crowd and it seemed like people really enjoyed the talk. If you missed it... Well, hopefully you'll be able to catch it at another show in the future.Here are a number of pictures from the weekend...
Sunny photos from cloudy Anaheim...
WonderCon 2012 just finished yesterday (Sun, Mar 18/12) and I still haven't wound down from how much fun the event in Anaheim was. As mentioned in an earlier blog post, we launched the first issue of Kill Shakespeare two years ago in San Francisco at the event and it was great to come back to celebrate.Thanks to everyone who came out to see us and those that stopped by our booth. One of the great things about a convention like this is the number of people that walk by, see our banner, and then say to us, "Kill Shakespeare? Why would anyone want to do that?" It's great meeting with fellow Shakespeare fans (Bardolaters), fans of comics, and hanging out with fun people overall.More importantly, thanks to other special people - the team at IDW that helped us out this weekend (Mike, Dirk, Chloe, John, Greg, etc.), the people at WonderCon (thanks for the great booth spot), AdaPia (for connecting us with the right people), Keith and Dave from Avatar (for helping with shipping), and most importantly, Alex Renshaw and Lyz (Lyzard) Reblin for helping out with the booth through the entire weekend. You guys are all great and make all of this possible.Here is a collection of photos from this past weekend...
Photos from Toronto Comic-Con
We took part in the Toronto Comic-Con this past weekend and it was a great time for all. Though not as large as FanExpo (held here in late-August), it was a good show run by the same organizers. Thanks to Kevin and everyone else that invited us and helped us out over the weekend.Highlights included our workshop on Sunday (run amazingly well by Conor and Andy), getting new fans, talking to Shakespeare buffs about its works, being visited by two women who came all the way from Buffalo to see us, and running into old friends. Thanks to Bob, Spencer, Keith and Ben for helping us out over the course of the weekend.Here are some pics from the show:
ShakesGeare in Australia!
Late last week I received an email from a university friend, Mo Bhamani, who now resides in Australia. Mo, in addition to being one of the funniest guys I know, is a fan of the series and wanted to show his support from the other side of the world. So on Australia Day (January 26th) we strutted around country (okay, Sydney) wearing one of our Kill Shakespeare t-shirts. Here are two shots of his outside the famous opera house...
If you're interested in purchasing some ShakesGeare for yourself, check out our store here.
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?
ShakesGeare Available Online!
I hope that everyone had a great few days of holidays and are still in relaxation mode. And hey, I wouldn't be a good promoter if I didn't remind everyone that with that holiday money you got under the tree you can purchase t-shirts from our ShakesGeare lineup!
Click on the image above to check out the quickly-selling shirts that have out at the moment.
Merchandise now available online!
After receiving many requests over the last couple of months, we have now answered... Our ShakesGeare merchandise is now available online!
These t-shirts have been available at comic conventions over the last couple of months but we are now super-excited to have them available for purchase - just in time for Christmas! You can access the merch site by clicking the image above.
All the stage's our world!
I'm still on a high from this weekend.Still.This past weekend saw two performances of KILL SHAKESPEARE: THE LIVE STAGE READING and they were a smash! Our Saturday night show was standing room only and the crowd loved it. The Sunday matinee show went so incredibly smoothly and was a great way to end our weekend. The fans of Kill Shakespeare were treated to seeing a favourite book of theirs come to life while newcomers to our story became instant fans.
The only shame from this weekend is that we were unable to do any recording of the show - either video or audio. If we could have we would have already posted some images her on our site. Alas, 'twas not to be, and thus I do not have many photos to post here today.I have been working on this project with Conor for almost four years now and it was great to see our entire story come to life like it did. The show I felt when Rick Roberts manned the voice of Falstaff for his first appearance in our story - amazing. The crowd loved him. They laughed along with Falstaff, enjoyed the appearance of someone from Juliet's past, were dazzled by Falstaff and Iago's final appearances, and enjoyed Greg's take on our melancholy Dane.
My favourite moment, though - in both shows - was the balcony scene. This was one of the first ideas for a sequence when we first conceived Kill Shakespeare over eight years ago and in doing all of this work I forgot how cool a sequence it is. When the crowd started to chuckle and then enjoy the romantic moment, all of my original love of the scene came back to me in a big way. THIS moment is really what makes Kill Shakespeare for me.And I'm so glad that the audiences enjoyed it. This is why Conor and I chose to work on this project - to entertain audiences. And this weekend we did.There are so many people to thank. First off, Andy for his fantastic artwork and for putting together all of the slides for the show.
The entire team at the Young Centre and Soulpepper - Claire Sakaki, Liza Paul, Lisa Li, Katie Saunoris, T.J. Tasker - everyone. You were all a treat to work with and oversaw so many things for us.Thanks to those that assisted us this weekend - Ken, Christine, Ben, Christine at Balzac's and Spearhead Beer for sponsoring our premiere party.The actors themselves - Sarah (Lady M), Michelle (Juliet), John (Chorus, Shakespeare), Greg (Hamlet), Brandon (Romeo), Rick (Falstaff/Richard 3), Toby (Iago), Andre (Othello). You guys really brought our characters to life and you will leave a lasting impression on our work moving forward.Toby Malone is the dramaturge at Soulpepper and really helped us fine-tune our script into the 90-minute spectacle that it became. Thanks so much for being a fan of our story before even coming
on board this interpretation and guiding us throughout the process.The director for this show was Derek Boyes, who guided the entire ship with a strong eye and vision throughout. He included us in the entire process and was the one insisting that we be on stage with the entire cast.Thanks to Don Shipley for being the first person to reach out to us and put us in contact with the organizers of the festival.And finally, thanks to Albert Schultz, the artistic director at Soulpepper, for being a driving force in the Word Festival and helping to mentor us. Albert is one of the shining lights in Canadian theatre history (if you ask me) and has always been an inspiration for me; to now have worked with him is something I'm quite proud of.And now we move forward with the project, with many more achievements ahead of us...
Our first Cos-players!
For those of you in the "comics know" you know that nothing says a comic has made it like fans dressing up as your characters.
For those of you not in the know - that phenomena of having fans dress up is called "cos-play" (costume play). Kill Shakespeare has been humming along quite nicely but to date we hadn't had anyone so crazy about our concept that they were going to dress up as one (or more) of our characters.Well, that has all changed now because of the awesome sewing talents of Alicia Robichaud and the willing model that is her husband Ken.You see this year at HalCon Ken and Alicia decided to surprise the K.S. team by coming as Lady Macbeth and Richard!!!!I cannot emphasize how amazing it was that this happened. When I first saw them I actually didn't get what they were doing. I THOUGHT that Alicia's outfit looked a lot like Lady Macbeth's in issue #3 but surely nobody was going to take the time to dress like OUR comic.So my mind was pretty blown when Alicia and Ken told me exactly who they were. Andy was also super excited -- it's the first time his designs have been used for a costume and the amount of detail Alicia (who is also a talented photographer -- you can see her work here) put into the costumes is pretty mind-numbing. She even ordered her wig from China!So a hearty Kill Shakespeare salute to Alicia and Ken -- the husband and wife who stole out cos-play virginity.(not that we mind a bit).More photos below:
First Kill Shakespeare Cosplayers!
Andy, Conor and I returned from Halifax on Monday after taking part in the fantastic Hal-Con 2011. I'll have more to post on that later this week (photos!) but in the meantime, I wanted to share a very special moment for us...Our first Kill Shakespeare cosplayers!
Ken and Alicia Robichaud, huge fans of the series, went out of their way to put together elaborate costumes of Richard III and Lady Macbeth to wear to this year's Con. The costumes are amazing but more importantly than that, it was very touching. I couldn't help but reflect upon the fact that a mere two-plus years ago this entire concept was just an idea that Conor and I had, and now not only does our dream fill the pages of comic book issues, will come alive with the stage show at Young Centre for the Performing Arts (and Soulpepper) next week (Nov 26 - 27th) but now we have fans who love the series enough to dress up as their favourite characters.
It's what makes all of the work and long hours worth it.Thanks to Ken and Alicia for brightening our day and putting huge smiles on our faces!
We are Sundance Kids forever
Conor and I returned to Toronto just over a week ago after taking part in the first ever Sundance Institute New Frontier Story Lab. In the past week I've been able to reflect upon my time at the lab, go through the notes I've taken, look through the photos, and I still can't believe how great an experience it was for both of us.
The New Frontier Story Lab is one designed by Sundance to help creators of transmedia projects. By transmedia, we are referring to telling stories and creating worlds that can be told through multiple media, whether they are digital, film, television, stage, game, real-life experience, etc. In a follow-up interview with the Sundance website I answered some questions about my thoughts and experiences with transmedia projects - you can read that interview here.
Conor and I were honoured to be invited to the lab for many reasons. One, it served as a certain validation for us and our efforts to take Kill Shakespeare beyond the comic book page. Secondly, we knew that we would meet a number of professional advisors that would give us notes and thoughts and spur us on to further ideas and ways of telling Kill Shakespeare stories. Thirdly, we were interested to find out what other creators were doing in the transmedia space.
On all three fronts were not disappointed at all. The advisors that sat down with us were top-notch. We met with Marti Noxon, the talented film and television writer (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mad Men, Fright Night), who gave us great notes on our script - and shared with us the ins-and-outs of television writers' rooms and studios. Sue Bonds of 42 Entertainment showed us what can be accomplished with Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) and let us know what the studios and filmmakers today are looking for. Michael Goldenberg (Contact, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Green Lantern) broke down our script for us. Richard
LaGravenese (Oscar-nommed for The Fisher King, Bridges of Madison County, Water for Elephants) served as early inspiration for us in the lab with his honesty and his love of mythology. Wesley Strick (Cape Fear, Wolf, Doom) put everything into perspective for us and challenged us to think big. Transmedia expert Lance Weiler made us really examine Kill Shakespeare as a transmedia franchise and more importantly one that could involve participatory storytelling at its finest. And Nick Fortugno of Playmatics showed us the possibility of games and allowed us to conceive the whole narrative structure within the medium.Just as good as the advisors were the other fellows that attended the lab with us. For the purposes of confidentiality we can't get into describing the projects that each team has been developing but as we move forward we'll aim to do individual spotlights on each
to help out the project. Look out for great projects from Yasmin Elayat and Jigar Mehta (18 Days in Egypt), Brigitte Dale and Robbie Wilkins (Follow Back), Tommy Pallotta and Femke Wolting (The Last Hijack), Chris Johnson, Hank Willis-Thomas and Kamal Sinclair (Question Bridge) and Chris Milk (Rome). Thanks to all of you fantastic storytellers for the inspiration and your thoughts on Kill Shakespeare!
And the staff of Sundance was fantastic to us. They really believe in the project and we're so appreciative of their feedback and direction over the course of the week. The staff included Michelle Satter, Keri Putnam, Cara Mertes, Carrie Beck, Cullen Conly and Kristin Feeley. Special thanks to Carrie Beck who served as our liaison with the lab - making us aware of it and prepping us for it once we were selected.And finally, how could I not mention the surroundings? The Sundance Resort, about 45 minutes outside of Salt Lake City, is absolutely gorgeous. Mountains surrounded us each day (which made my morning runs quite the challenge...) and the weather was pretty good throughout. How could you not be inspired by taking a quick hike and seeing the views?I'll be writing more on transmedia moving forward and I look forward to keeping in touch with everyone from the Lab. It was a great experience and I am charged to climb up further mountains with the knowledge gained last week.
Getting Lucky's in Vancouver
Last weekend I spent a fantastic weekend in Vancouver, my first time there. One of the highlights was doing a signing at Lucky's Comics, one of the top comic book stores in the city. It was great to meet some of the customers there, hang out with Gabe, the owner (who loves basketball), and meet up with some old friends (one from high school, one from my stints as a wedding MC)...Lucky's is a pretty cool store with a wide selection of books - everything from Kill Shakespeare to Kate Beaton's Hark, A Vagrant to Bill Simmons' Book of Basketball. If you're looking for a cool selection of graphic novels and book, I highly recommend them.Here are some pics from the event:
Night Flight Comics: One of the best retailers in the U.S.!
Conor and I attended the Sundance New Frontier Story Lab last week and I'll post a lot of content from our time in the next couple of days. But before we took part in the lab, we arranged to fly into Salt Lake City a day early so that we could do some signings at Night Flight Comics (Sat, Oct 22nd).We met Mimi Cruz, the manager/owner of the store back at WonderCon in April, 2010. She was so much fun to hang out with and chat that we immediately wanted to call her up and hang out at her store, if only for some great conversation and laughter with her.Mimi and her co-owner/husband Alan are two of the coolest people you'll ever meet but also quite astute to the comics world and retailing industry. They run two locations in Salt Lake and both do quite well and have a strong customer base. They were so kind to us - picking us up at the airport, taking us on a tour of the city, showing us where Bob Redford eats when he's in town. They've been fans of our series since Day #1 and we really appreciate it.Below are some photos of our signings at the store:
Thanks to Everyone at NYCC!
We arrived back from the New York Comic-Con yesterday and have hit the ground running on a number of things - working out the details (and the script) for our live stage reading next month, prepping for the release of our second trade (also next month), and catching up on sleep (we may have to wait for this until... you guessed it, next month...).The New York Comic-Con was a huge success for us. We sold out of most of our product and (almost) broke our convention record! We met a lot of existing fans and made some new ones. Thanks to everyone who helped out with the show - those that stopped by to say hello, the organizers who did a good job, the artists and business people in our section, and those that put up with us for our times in New York.Here are some various photos from the weekend.
SOME ART FOR YOUR LONG WEEKEND - WELL, FOR CANADIANS ANYWAY (the long weekend, not the art).
It has been a big couple of days here in Kill Shakespeare land.Not only do we have the big Sundance news but I have some great art to share with you from the next generation of Canadian comic talent. AND, here in Canada, it's TURKEY day this weekend -- yep Canadian Thanksgiving is here! Gobble, gobble!(Alright, before I fall into a tryptophan induced coma, I want to share with you some REALLY cool stuff.)The pieces below were sent to us by the awesome comic club at the Ontario College of Art and Design. These lovely ladies and men are all enrolled in one sort of graphic art or another at OCAD, but they still find time to meet twice a month (usually the second Thursday) and share their comic creations as well as talk about the medium we all love.Andy and the ever-talented Ramon Perez went with me to chat with the club last year and in return they sent us their amazing work.Enjoy (click on the images to see them in all their full-sized glory).
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"
