Thanks to Lester B. Pearson C.I.!
Conor and I have done a number of talks and presentations at schools and libraries over the last 18 months and today we did the first of (hopefully) many for this year. Today we were at Lester B. Pearson C.I. in Scarborough, where a number of classes came to visit us as we talked about Kill Shakespeare (of course), comics, the Bard, storytelling, entrepreneurship, art... as well as androids, sisters dressing up as brothers, tough exams, and everything in between (thanks to the students for coming up with the last couple of items...).
We really enjoy these talks and thank the students and teachers for a great session today. And special thanks to Miss Serba for organizing the event with us!
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.
What character(s) should we add?
We are currently investigating the possibility of continuing our series based on feedback and support. While we do so, we'd like to pose a question to our followers/fans/readers - what character(s) would you like to see in a continued or future series? We've thrown this question out into the social network sphere but would also like your opinion here. Would it be the wizard Prospero? The battling sweethearts Beatrice and Benedick? A little-known character? A well-known character? We're all ears...
What's the best beer to drink while reading Kill Shakespeare?
It's generally not my policy to post every review we find on Kill Shakespeare - there simply wouldn't be enough space and time for me to post everything. However, there was one posted yesterday that I thought quite funny...
The great iFanboy site has a regular column called Comic Shots. They describe is as such: Each week the iFanStaff passes along a tasty drink recipe and an even tastier comic book recommendation. The cocktail (or beer, or wine, or booze) and the comic can both be enjoyed independently, but they have a common theme and when served together they can make for the perfect reading experience.And this week it was Kill Shakespeare.And the drink? Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout by Rogue.Reviewer Ryan Haupt describes the drink and then gives it a good review. As for the book? As he says, "it... serves as a fine example of what can be accomplished with basic ingredients used in the right way."I'll let you enjoy the article - and perhaps the drink sometime...(Click on the image to read the review of the book and drink.)
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?
Hawaiian Students' Take on Falstaff
A number of months ago I was contacted by Lanaly Cabalo, a teacher from Roosevelt High School in Honolulu. She teaches a number of classes there and introduced some of her students to Kill Shakespeare this past semester and they - along with some other teachers - really took to it and did a number of papers and art projects on the series.
The artwork project above was done by Mehana Verdadero, a junior at the high school. She - quite obviously - really enjoys our take on Falstaff and wrote a paper on him as well. A snippet from her report:"Even though there are many great characters, Falstaff is one of the best. Why? Well, if you love comedy, then you will totally love him. He is the funniest character in all the King Henry plays and The Merry Wives of Windsor... Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col changed him into a man of faith and wisdom, but they didn’t change the fact that he is the funniest character... in their book “Kill Shakespeare.”We love receiving messages and images like this from teachers. So keep up the great work Ms. Cabalo, Mehana, and everyone else in the class. It was a pleasure creating the series and we loved hearing how much your class enjoyed it. And if we find ourselves in that part of the country we'd love to swing by and visit!UPDATE (Jan 4/11): Another student from the class - Simeon Crawford - sent their project to us - it's right here!:
IFC says "Adapt Kill Shakespeare!"
As Conor and I are deeply immersed in the screenwriting of the film version of Kill Shakespeare, it's always great when independent sources (fans, readers, media) talk to us about adapting our project for the screen. It's great to talk about casting possibilities, changes to the story, the hard process of adapting your own work, etc.
One media source that also is looking forward to an adaptation is Rick Marshall from IFC.com. He runs a weekly column looking at comics that would make great screen adaptations and this week he turns his eye to us (two weeks ago it was KS cover artist Kagan McLeod's Infinite Kung Fu). And this week? It's Kill Shakespeare!An interesting quote from the analysis:"Given the size of the world in Kill Shakespeare and the epic nature of the characters' quest, television seems like the right medium to tell McCreery and Del Col's story - especially since there's little need for complicated special effects. The popularity of current shows like "Grimm" and "Once Upon A Time" make it easy to see the possibilities of a "Kill Shakespeare" television series, and if the project receives the sort of nurturing that one of the cable networks like SyFy can provide, the sky's the limit."What do you think?
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.
Shakespeare takes down Marlowe!
Well, at least in illustration form...At our signing at L.A. Mood Comics yesterday in London, ON we chatted with Steven J. Tiampo, a fan of ours who asked Andy Belanger to craft a very interesting illustration this past FanExpo in August. An image of Shakespeare killing Marlowe with a knife in a bar-room brawl! It's an amazing request and a great final product - and here it is!:
Andy B is always looking to do interesting sketches like this so if you're looking for a great Christmas gift you can reach out to us and get him to tailor something for you!
Kill Shakespeare Secret Diaries
As we have mentioned we really get jazzed when we find out that teachers and students are using Kill Shakespeare as a way to explore the Bard.
One of our fave teachers is Deborah Altenbeck who teaches at an institute for gifted children in Essen, Germany. Deborah has been teaching Kill Shakespeare as part of one of her courses.Deborah has generated several cool lesson plans and walked the students through the first few issues of the series.
One of the homework assignments she gave to her class was to take a Kill Shakespeare character and write a "secret" diary for them. The results were a lot of fun and Deborah shared some of them with us and we wanted to pass them on to you.So here you go - this first entry is from Richard III's POV and is done by Luise (and remember English is the second, third or fourth language for these students).Dear diary,We’re gonna stop Shakespeare. He is an evil guy, I know that. And with Hamlet’s help we’re gonna kill him. I hate that Shakespeare guy so much! I also need Lady Macbeth. She’s somehow creepy and seems clever although she’s just a woman. I think I have to be careful with her. Everybody knows what she’d done to her husband. Some even say she killed the English king… If she killed a king once, she can kill one a second time. But I’m much cleverer than her. I mean she’s just a woman!The Syna wrote this diary from Lady M's perspective:Today, everything was just perfect! I persuaded my friendly and thankfully not very intelligent partner to accomplish my plan! I hope he won’t be too awkward, but hopefully, he will appreciate what I want him to do… But all in all, my plan is really delightful – it is just perfect! I really take pride in myself! One day, everything will be wonderful!And finally Jonathan got into the act, also as Richard:Dear diary, Today Hamlet finally got to my land. Yesterday, the stars shone in very strange colors and I hoped that it would mean that the prophecy will be fulfilled. This morning I found the Shadow King, Hamlet, at the beach. I'm very glad that now the prophecy will be fulfilled by him. The only thing I'm depressed about is that Hamlet doesn't want to hear anything about this prophecy and the fact that only he himself can kill Shakespeare. Yours, RichardFor our teacher friends Deborah has shared three of her lesson plans -- given that English is not her students first language I think that the content is probably appropriate for junior high school students. If you are interested let us know as we'd love to share these with you and spread ideas of how you can teach Shakespeare, and Kill Shakespeare, in fun ways.And as always we love to hear how teachers are teaching the Bard in their own classes.All the best,Conor and Anthony
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...
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).
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!
See KILL SHAKESPEARE on Stage!
We are very happy to announce that we have formed a partnership with Toronto's Young Centre for the Performing Arts to present a Live Stage Reading of Kill Shakespeare!
On Sat, Nov 26th (8pm) and Sun, Nov 27th (4:15pm) we will be presenting a live stage reading of our epic story, which will combine comic art, performance and music to bring our comic series to life. The reading will be done by actors from Toronto's Soulpepper Theatre, and feature Andy Belanger's art from the series - and perhaps a cameo by Conor or I!Tickets for each show are $20 (with tax/service fees), or if you'd like to purchase four tickets you can do so for $59 (a 25% savings). You can access the box office here or by calling 416.866.8666.
We're really excited about the show. We did a table read last week with some actors - along with our director Derek Boyes and dramaturge Toby Malone - and it was so invigorating to see our characters and story come to life. It will be a show that Shakespeare fans, comic readers, and everyone else will thoroughly enjoy!
Kill Shakespeare at Outerspeares Conference in Guelph tomorrow
Just finishing off my sojourn in Vancouver and prepping for my return to Ontario... And I will be hitting the ground running as Conor and I travel to Guelph tomorrow (Tuesday, November 1st) to take part in a Shakespeare adaptation conference.
Conor, Andy and I will be keynote speakers and talking about our experiences and interpretations of Shakespeare and his character/plays for a general crowd of Shakespeare fans. The conference is spearheaded by Daniel Fischlin, one of the top Shakespeare academics in Canada. We're quite happy to take part in the conference, which features some other fantastic speakers as well.
We are scheduled to appear from 11:45 - 12:45 so if you're in Guelph and would like to visit we'd be happy to see you!
You can find out more by clicking on the event poster.
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?
Appearance in Salt Lake City this Weekend
Conor and I will be appearing at Night Flight Comics in Salt Lake City this upcoming Saturday (October 22nd). Coming early into Utah to take part in the Sundance Institute's New Frontier Story Lab, we're excited to appear at the two store locations and hang out with Mimi and everyone else.
We will be having a signing/reception at the Library Square location (210 East 400 South) from 1:30 - 3:00 and then the main store (6222 South State Street) from 5:00 - 7:30.If you're in the Salt Lake City area please swing by - we'll love to see you there!
Kill Shakespeare Heads to Sundance
We can now officially announce this bit of news... Conor and I have been selected to take part in the prestigious Sundance Institute's New Frontiers Storytelling Lab! The lab, taking place later this month (Oct 23 - 28th), in Park City, UT, will allow us to develop Kill Shakespeare into other mediums, namely film, video games and other digital technology.
The official press release can be found here and see who some of the advisors and fellow participants are. It states this about the program:"The New Frontier Story Lab will focus on supporting projects that have original stories and engage audiences in innovative ways, across multiple platforms. Organized as an immersive lab experience, activities will include individualized story sessions, conversations about key artistic, design and technology issues, and case study presentations. Drawing talent and expertise from all of Sundance Institute’s creative programs, including Feature Film, Documentary Film, and the Sundance Film Festival, the Lab has been planned under the supervision of Michelle Satter, Director of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program."We're really excited about the opportunity to work with some great creative advisers (including Oscar nominees, writers of blockbuster films, documentarians and game designers) as well as meet some other progressive storytellers.We'll include more about this as we get closer but wanted to share the news with you immediately!
Letters from Germany!
Kill Shakespeare continues to spread around the globe and through schools.We just received this e-mail from a pair of German University students who are studying Kill Shakespeare in one of their seminar courses.Dear Anthony and Conor!Deborah Altenbeck is our teacher in English and we had the topic of Shakespeare.In our English lesson we read your comics and we really enjoyed it! It was so exciting and interesting to see how people deal with Shakespeare in another way.We were surprised how detailed you know each character!In issue four for example we first had problems to understand the complexity but after reading it several times we were very interested how the situation between Othello an Iago is going to develop. And after finding out about Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor we were amused that you also brought the aspects and background information from this play.Best wishes, Antonia and SynaWe love it when we get feedback from our fans, especially international ones - so please if you have any thoughts or comments on the series get a hold of us at lendusyourears@killshakespeare.comAll the best,Conor and Anthony