A Big Birthday Wish to the Big Guy!
Today (March 30th) is the birthday of the amazing artist of Kill Shakespeare, Andy Belanger. Conor and I have been working with Andy now for almost three years and it's been a complete blast since the very beginning. It was two years ago that we celebrated his birthday with him in San Francisco having some great clam chowda at the Market just before WonderCon, and there have been a lot of great moments since (including the famous April Fool's Day joke that same trip... Ask him about it sometime...)
So feel free to wish Andy a happy birthday (his Facebook page is here and his Twitter feed here)!
Happy Holidays!
As I stay inside my warm, cozy childhood home in Porcupine, Canada (yes, it's actually called Porcupine...) I'd like to take a moment to wish everyone a fantastic holiday season! I'm so fortunate for all of the great things that have happened with Kill Shakespeare over the last twelve months - as well as many personal accomplishments - and I'm enjoying the relaxation found over the holidays. I hope that you do as well.
Happy Holidays from all of us at Kill Shakespeare!
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
The curtain is about to rise...
Conor and I have spent the last two days in rehearsals on the Live Stage Reading which will take place this weekend. The production has really come together and there are some moments in the presentation that are amazing and really make the story and pages come to life! We are excited to be able to see it in front of a live audience.
Again, the times are:Sat, Nov 26th - 8:00pm & Sun, Nov 27th - 4:15pmTickets are still available so if you're in the Toronto area and haven't picked them up please do so. You can order them here or by calling the Young Centre Box Office at 416.866.8666
Stage Show Tickets Still Available!
We begin rehearsals tomorrow (Wednesday) for this weekend's performances of Kill Shakespeare: The Live Stage Reading and we're really excited about it. We've had great response thus far from fans, readers, friends and media for the event and it should be a great time for all!
Tickets are still available for the two shows (Sat, Nov 26 - 8pm) and Sun, Nov 27 - 4:15pm) and you can purchase them by clicking here or calling the box office at 416.866.8666.
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:
Appearance at the BookFest Windsor tomorrow
Conor and I will be appearing tomorrow at the BookFest Windsor tomorrow (Fri, Nov 3rd) to talk about Kill Shakespeare. It's our first time in Windsor so I'm excited to check it out (I've had some friends that have lived there/gone to school).
We are appearing Friday at 4:30 at the Rodzik Gallery, part of the Art Gallery of Windsor. Swing by the free event and see what we have to say about the project.You can access more information by clicking on the Bookfest Windsor image above.
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).
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
Stars of HeroesCon!
I just wanted to take a couple of moments now that the crush of HeroesCon is over and bring you up-to-date on some of the coolest people and things I saw in Charlotte.Teenage Satan: This insidiously amazing idea percolated from the unholy trio of Stephanie Buscema, Marsha Cooke and Candis Cooke. Uh, Satan? In high-school? Yes please! (and these ladies are already scaring the system, the corporate muck-a-mucks made them take down their first trailer).
Ninjasaurus: Written and drawn by my doppelganger, Jason Horn, this web-comic asks what would happen if a dinosaur trained in the blacks arts of Ninjitsu? The answer: Lots of fighting (but surprisingly little biting).All City Studios: I never got a chance to chat with John Hairston, the man who does this amazing work, but his Galactus, Panda's and Shanti Babba-inspired work speaks for itself. If not for a very real fear of being murdered by my fiancee, and a total lack of funds, one of these babies woulda been mine.
Richard Case: A fantastic comic artist who now works primarily in video games, Richard is probably best known for his work on Grant Morrison's run on Doom Patrol. He gave us this awesome sketchbook and was an all-around amazing guy.Jackie Lewis, Noelle Giffin, Jen Keith, Laura Truxillo: These were four lovely ladies we met who are all either in art-school, or just finishing who are working on their own projects. Check out this new talent and see what the next wave of female illustrators and comic artists is up to!
Kill Shakespeare Creators Appear at Boston Comic Con 2011
Andy Belanger and I are driving down to Boston tomorrow (along with friend and entrepreneur Clement Wan) to take part in this weekend's Boston Comic Con. We're really looking forward to the event and meeting some of our readers, making new fans, and trying some New England Clam Chowder (a MUST for Andy). If you're in the Boston area and would like to check out the Con, swing by the Hynes Convention Centre and visit us at our booth. We'd love to meet and chat with everyone.
Here is the official press release that went out earlier today:
Canadians Extend Shakespeare’s Birth/Death Celebrations in Boston!
Fresh from celebrating the anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth and death with the first-ever theatrical presentation of their story, the creators of the IDW Publishing Kill Shakespeare comic book series appear at the 2011 Boston Comic Con this weekend to introduce details of their upcoming issues, recently-secured film development financing, and an exclusive digital promotion. Co-creators Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery worked with Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre to present the first-ever live reading of Kill Shakespeare this past Saturday, April 23rd. Soulpepper, one of the top classic theatre companies in North America, elected to present the work on the 23rd as that day serves as the anniversary of both Shakespeare’s birth and death. “It was incredible to see Kill Shakespeare come alive through the performance of Soulpepper’s exceptional actors,” says co-creator Anthony Del Col. “We have had numerous theatres in the U.S. express interest in doing a stage production of our epic tale and we were glad that it could happen on the Bard’s birth/death day.” In addition, co-creators Del Col and McCreery also received notice late last week that they have received script development funding from The Harold Greenberg Fund. The Fund, which assists Canadian writers in the development of screenplays, is a very prestigious organization that has provided support to filmmakers such as David Cronenberg (The Fly, A History of Violence), Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter) and Vincenzo Natali (Splice) in past rounds. The project has received a great deal of interest from American and international film companies since the debut of its first issue last April. The first ten issues of the series, described by the New York Times as “gripping, violent and dark fun”, have been released to much acclaim and attention. The first trade paperback, released last November, is now in its second printing and Issue #10 was released April 20th. Co-created and co-written by McCreery and Del Col, the artwork is overseen by Andy Belanger. “It’s an exciting time for our series and I’m excited to appear at the Boston Comic Con this weekend,” says Del Col. “With the theatrical and film initiatives, our story is expanding into new mediums and more people are getting excited about our take on Shakespeare.” Del Col will be at the Comic Con all weekend along with series artist Andy Belanger.About the series: Kill Shakespeare is an adventure story that pits all of Shakespeare’s greatest heroes (including Hamlet, Juliet, Falstaff, Othello, Puck) against the Bard’s most menacing villains (including Richard III, Lady Macbeth, Iago) in a quest to track down and kill – or save – a reclusive wizard by the name of William Shakespeare. Called by Aint it Cool News as, “A great read”, the series has been profiled by The New York Times, NPR, BBC, Wired.com, The Globe and Mail and The Washington Post. It also created controversy last year when Shakespearean scholar (and girlfriend of comics legend Frank Miller) Kimberly Cox railed against the title on popular U.K. comic blog BleedingCool.com, while others – such as Des McAnuff (Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Jersey Boys) are fans of it. Both Del Col and Belanger will be available for interviews during Boston Comic Con. More information about the series can be found at www.killshakespeare.com.
The South Street of Philadelphia
Conor, Andy and I returned to Toronto at about 6:30am this morning after driving through the night from Philadelphia. We've already posted a number of entries and photos from our stay in New York but Philly found us at some great places and meeting some cool people.One of the reasons we ventured out to Philly was because of Conor's trip earlier this summer (you can read about it here) where he met Joe Turner at Atomic City Comics, a great comic and pop culture store. We did a signing there on Friday night and then returned for a couple hours the next day to hang out. Joe and the gang there are fantastic and really promoted our stay and introduced us to a number of great people.Photos from our signing(s) are below.
Vote for Kill Shakespeare!
Conor and I have been nominated by the Canadian Youth Business Foundation for their 2010 Chairman's Awards. As a nominee, we are also eligible for their CYBF People's Choice Award. Running from Nov 2 - 19th, we are competing against a number of other Canadian startups that have received funding from CYBF.So what can you do? Well, simply click on the image below and vote for us. Click on our checkbox, then scroll down the finalize the vote.
Vote for us! No attack ads guaranteed!
Going comic shopping in Van-City
The Kill Shakespeare team had a chance to hit the left coast recently and while the trip had us talking to mobile-ap developers, catching films at the Vancouver International Film Festival, and of course eating at White Spot, we also found time to meet some of the local comics merchants and talk to them about Kill Shakespeare.
First, we stopped off at Gotham Collectibles (2676 W 4th Ave - love those evil Cats!) in the ever trendier Kitsilano neighbourhood. Gotham is run by the "she-looks-way-too-young-to-be-running-her-own-business-Monique".Monique is passionate about bringing more women and girls into comics and has big plans to support Kill Shakespeare when the trade debuts on November 9th.Gotham is a small store but jam packed with comics, toys, collectibles, general goth-y fun and my (Conor's) favourite BEARBRICKS!For those of you who don't know these tiny little Japanese toys are designed by some of the top graf artists in the world and also include cute little bears based on some of the horror worlds most notorious characters. So I decided to pick up one that looked like Gizmo from Gremlins.
Gotham is a new store, but with the passionate staff there and the tons and tons of cool stuff you can tell its going to be a great place to buy your favourite stuff.So if you live in Vancouver make sure you head down to this gem and get to know Monique and support her store.
Then I headed over to downtown Vancouver to check out one of the classic Vancouver shops for comics, Golden Age Collectibles (852 Granville Ave). Golden Age is right in the heart of the theatre district, we actually checked out the store while we were waiting to see an Italian film at VIFF.Golden Age is a big, two-level store that is filled to the brim with comics, graphic novels and indie titles from across B.C. and the country.I chatted with Misty and Hank who both told me they were looking forward to checking out Kill Shakespeare when it becomes a trade and said that they have several customers who have the title as part of their pull list.
For those of you who like an open, airy, clean comics shopping experience then Golden Age is going to be your new favourite shop (if it isn't already). And Hank and Misty really know their stuff so they'll be able to find you your next favourite title - so don't be afraid to ask.
As you can see they also pay proper homage to my fave Canadian comic (aside from perhaps Essex County) with a gigantic Scott Pilgrim mural, so they already had my attention when I walked in the door.So there you have it, two totally different, but equally awesome comic shops that you need to search out if you live in Vancouver or if you are a comics fan who finds yourself visting this world class city.And if you haven't been to Vancouver you really want to get out there - between the mountains, the ocean and the amazing night life you can't do much better.
Stephen Holt Strikes Again!
Our brand-new best friend Stephen Holt has added to his collection of Kill Shakespeare media. This time its in the form of two videos he has posted on his YouTube channel.
Stephen is a passionate cinephile and blogs foir AwardsDaily.com (the site Anthony uses to get the egde on the competition in his Hollywood movie league). We met him at TIFF and he very kindly (and correctly as it turned out) said he thought we would win PITCH THIS! He also does a popular public access show in NYC and agreed to chat with us!You can surf into his channel (unless you get to see his show nin NYC) to watch the first part of the video here and the second part here!We had a great time and we talked about things in this interview that we have NEVER been asked!
Chatting with the boys.
Us, do media? No....Ok, yes... we sat down with the lovely Andrew Ardizzi at FanExpo in Toronto last weekend. Andrew is a general all-around renaissance man and both a senior reporter at Humber college as well as a reporter for COMIC BOOK DAILY!So it was our good fortune to get to sit down with him and chat about FanExpo, drawing horses, and Kill Shakespeare.Listen here! (Yep, that's an order...)
WHAT? Another shameless plug for a talented guy we know?
As you know, we here at the Kill Shakespeare team are shameless self-promoters, but as you are hopefully starting to learn we are also working at shamelessly promoting other SUPER-DUPER talented people that we get to meet in this wonderful world of comics.
Enter Nimit Malavia. A good friend of our cover artist Kagan Mcleod, and in some ways a kindrid creative spirit.
Nimit is one of the most talented illustrators we have had the privielege of meeting and he's also an A-1 guy. I mean, who else would take oodles of photos of US (although, lets face it, we are pretty handsome).
You've seen a few examples of his work in the post but to get more check out his website here or his flicker account here.And next show you're at make sure you stop by and see him, say the Kill Shakespeare boys say "hello". It probably won't get you a discount on that print of his you love, but hey, it can't hurt...
KILL SHAKESPEARE GETS SOME LOVE ON "NATIONAL READ A COMIC IN PUBLIC DAY"
We here on the Kill Shakespeare team are big fans of comics. Not just the super-hero books (tho' we love those too) but the notion that there is a comic for EVERYONE .And one of the ways to show that to people is to read comics -- in public.
I know, I know -- its a scary idea. And, I''ll admit that occasionally the Wednesday books stay in my bag on the TTC in favour of the latest issue of WIRED or a "proper" book -- but the time has come to stand up and unite.Or rather, unknown to me until the day OF, the time ALREADY came.Yes it was National Read A Comic In Public Day on August 28th, and by all accounts it was a screaming success. Some very cool people we have met before in San Francisco were part of the event, and it was spearheaded by Brian Hibbs the accomplished author of Tilting at Windmills (one of the best collections of comic-related essays ever) and owner of the very excellent Comix Experience.So a tip of the hat to Brian, and to everyone AROUND THE GLOBE who went out and read a comic in public, and hopefully inspired someone new to try out this awesome medium of ours.
Graphic Novel Reporter Grills us!
We've always hoped that Kill Shakespeare becomes the sort of comic that people who don't usually read comics can pick up and enjoy. And part of that is getting educators and librarians to see both the value of Kill Shakespeare AND the value of comics as a unique medium that not only spans both literature and art, but also introduces a level of complexity in forcing the reader to work out how those two pieces inform each other.John Hogan is the editor of the very excellent Graphic Novel Reporter who, as part of Bookreporter.com, has an audience that spills nicely into those teachers and librarians.So enjoy our little chat with John, learn about who Anthony DESPERATELY wants to play Hamlet, and watch me use words that I probably don't actually understand ('contextualization?', really Conor?).All the reporter-y goodness can be found here.