2010 Summer Reading List
Earlier today the site Good Comics for Kids released a 2010 Summer Reading List. And on it, in the Teen category, is Kill Shakespeare! I guess that Kate Dacey (who reviewed our first two issues last month) enjoyed it enough to recommend it for inclusion on a list that includes the final Scott Pilgrim book and the Zuda Comics collection Bayou. Congrats to our team for this honour, and thanks to Good Comics for Kids!The great quote from the blurb (which can be accessed by clicking on the image) is this: "Dynamic art, break-neck pacing, and clever use of the Bard’s own words make this series fun and educational."
Issue #3 Cover Artwork
Here is the cover art for the third issue of Kill Shakespeare, scheduled for release July 7, 2010.The issue is a fun one that puts the fool Falstaff front-and-centre... and so it's only deserving that he is our cover-boy for the issue. Kagan McLeod did a great job on this page and really captured both the playfulness of the issue - as well as the danger...
Sneak Peak! Page 1 of Issue #3
An early look at Issue #3, to be released July 7/10... This is a behind-the-scenes look at the art process behind our first page of the third issue, from the layout stage to the inking stage to the colouring stage. It's a very fascinating process that takes a lot of work - from the scripting to the final product.And yes, that's Falstaff in the bottom panel of the page... You will enjoy his presence in this issue!...
TCAF Photo of Conor and Anthony
Taken by Jordan Sparks, here is a photo of Conor and I at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival...
Issue 3 - Preview Pages
Included here are hi-res JPEG pages from Kill Shakespeare #3 ("The Fool Doth Think He Is Wise"), to be released July 7, 2010... Written by Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col, Artwork by Andy Belanger, Colouring by Ian Herring, Lettering by Chris Mowry.
Is our Hamlet similar to Lost's Jack Shephard?
Our interview from April with Sohaib from Fictional Frontiers has gone live this week (click on the link to go to the interview). Other than the fact that Conor was cut off because of cell phone problems (perhaps it was the construction that you hear in the background), it was one of the interesting and thought-provoking interview we've done thus far. Sohaib pulled out the big guns when he asked me to compare our Hamlet to the Jack Shephard character from Lost (the show had not finished when the interview was done). It was a challenging question but after I finished the interview a dozen other thoughts came to me (this always happens, doesn't it?)...
Sohaib runs a very insightful and analytical show about pop culture, not only discussing the latest news but going deeper to analyze stories, characters and the plot elements of everything. We hope to be on the show with him again sometime very soon!
Just Wiki us!
We are now bonafide! Fan Mark Wickson has put together a Wikipedia page for Kill Shakespeare and it looks pretty good. Mark did a solid job of gathering links and information about us and compiled it together. Feel free to hop onto the page (click the image below) and add any other pertinent information. Which means, I guess, that Conor and I should probably do the same ourselves...
Profile: Jason Chan & Spencer Rysdale
Last week I introduced some of the key members of our team - our PR reps from MDG & Associates and Smith Publicity. This week I wanted to shine a spotlight on two individuals that have made just as big an impact on the early success of Kill Shakespeare - our two marketing interns, Jason Chan and Spencer Rysdale.What can I say about these two? They have gone above and beyond the call of duty for Kill Shakespeare for the last five-plus months. Both are current business students at Ryerson and based on the work they've done with us I expect big things in the future. They've done everything from making phone calls to retailers across North America to doing research for us to posting stuff on Facebook to hanging out with us at signings and conventions. They have been godsends for us.
Jason is our tech go-to guy. Whenever we get proposals or ideas for online or game concepts he's the one that we turn into. He's got a fantastic entrepreneurial drive and is always looking for small niches for his own potential start-ups (he's currently working on a pretty cool idea at the moment through Ryerson's start-up incubator).
Spencer is our pitbull. He's always getting in our faces pushing us to get him more stuff to do. He's even reached to potential academic distributors to make them aware of our series (and they are very interested in it).
These are both players you want on your team. But don't get any ideas - we don't want to lose them...
Our new geek friends from across the pond
Conor and I have both given interviews with the boys at GeekPlanetOnline, based in the U.K. They're a great group of guys and I had an interview with head geek Matt Dillon three weeks ago (you can check it out here). Last week Conor had a three-hour interview with Matt and the rest of the gang (sans Dave, apparently) about a topic very close to our hearts: reimaginings and adaptations. The interview has been broken up into two spots, and you can check out the first interview by clicking on the logo.
He even makes mysterious phone calls to radio call-in shows...
Earlier this week we profiled our Canadian PR firm, MDG & Associates. Today we'd like to focus on the people that make us look good Stateside, Smith Publicity, led by Dan Smith. We were recommended to Smith PR by Debby de Groot at MDG and we've been working well with them since April.Lonnie McCullough, our publicist at the company, has been a Godsend for us thus far. He netted perhaps our biggest media coup - an interview on NPR's Talk of the Nation - in mid-May. This hit has led to a huge increase in awareness for our project. We also joked that, as an actor, he disguised his voice and pretended to be people from various parts of the country during the interview to ask us the challenging questions...Lonnie is now focused on our November release and contacting major mainstream press. He's great a pushing different angles - playing up the literary nature, the sex angle, the business side. We've set aside some big targets for him for this fall and we think he'll be able to hit them all - and then some!
One of our core strategies from the outset has been a major focus on publicity and with people like Smith Publicity, as well as MDG & Associates, we've been able to gather a lot of steam and sell our our first two issues!
(And if you ever talk to Dan, ask him about the tailoring of his pants...)
The nerdcast[5]
We recently answered five good questions about our story and career with website nerdcast online. Fun questions and you can read our responses by clicking on the abbreviated photo below (taken by Jordan Sparks at TCAF this year).
The questions were:1. Who are you and what do you do?2. Who influenced you creatively to get to this point?3. What would you change about your industry and why?4. What books are in your pull-list?5. What is your dream dig?
Perhaps the most valuable members of our team...
One of the things that came out of our meetings two weeks ago at Book Expo America was how impressed everyone (sales reps, retailers, librarians) was with the media coverage that we've been receiving. Yes, we have a very interesting story that media can quickly pick up on - a unique spin on Shakespeare in a different medium, the story of two Canadian entrepreneurs putting this together, etc. However, we would not have been able to get the amount of PR that we have thus far without the great publicity teams that we're working with.
Representing us in Canada is MDG & Associates, a PR firm based in Toronto that specializes in the publishing industry. Working directly with the super-talented Sarah Stevens and Debby de Groot, we've been able to land national media hits in the National Post, the Globe & Mail and CBC Radio 3 (in addition to some other great radio spots). These two wunderkinds are already planning a major media push for us leading up the release of our first trade in November and we look forward to seeing what rabbits they pull out of their hats.Thanks to Sarah and Deb for their great work thus far - and we look forward to some major media hits in the fall!
Shakespearean Insult Contest!
What is the best Shakespearean insult you can come up with?We are running a contest this week and giving people a chance to win autographed copies of Kill Shakespeare #1 and #2. Send us (via email, facebook, twitter, or leaving a comment below) your absolute best (or worst) insult and we'll give copies to the best three entrants.Some of Shakey's best:"(Your) brain is as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage." - As You Like It"Come, you are a tedious fool. To the purpose." - Measure for Measure"Were I like thee I'd throw away myself." - Timon of Athens
Sold Out!
We were informed yesterday by our publisher IDW Publishing that the first two issues of Kill Shakespeare are now sold out! What this means is that there are still copies available in stores but the back-stock is now depleted! Not bad for a new title. Thanks to everyone that has purchased copies and also those that have told others about it!IDW is currently coming up with some cool plans on re-printing the first two issues. Once we get more information on this we will let everyone know. I know that a lot of people - customers, fans and retailers - have been inquiring about getting their hands on copies and hopefully the new ones will be at stores soon.
Fan Apprecation - Toronto this weekend!
We will be appearing at the Toronto Comic-Con Fan Appreciation event this weekend. Open both Saturday and Sunday, we will be set up with our own table and will be selling some copies of Kill Shakespeare and look forward to chatting with people about the project!
This made my week!
Earlier today we received a letter in the mail, unmarked on the envelope. I opened it up and discovered something that blew me away... A personalized letter of congratulations from Tom Stoppard (who we had sent the first issue to)!!!For those that don't know, Sir Tom is the Oscar/Tony/Olivier-Award winning writer of SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE and ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD (amongst many others). These two are inspirations of ours (I personally think that Shakespeare in Love is one of the greatest screenplays of all-time) and to receive a letter from him has definitely made my day, my week and my month!
Kill Shakespeare in One Minute!
This has definitely made my week!A would web guru by the name of Shea at sheakoshan.net has put together a one-minute video of the first issue of Kill Shakespeare #1. It's absolutely fantastic! I love it - a nice combo of summary, synopsis and humour (as well as a Shakespeare quote or two).I hadn't heard of her website but upon taking a look through it think that she's got a good feel for story and also a good sense of humour. You can check out the video below, or the web page directly by clicking on the logo.
Preview art for Issue #3...
Although the release date is over a month away, and also that people are still focused on Issue #2, I thought that we'd publish the official Previews ad for Kill Shakespeare Issue #3... This is the ad that featured in the May issue of Previews magazine (the catalogue that all comic book shops order from) and we've gotten a lot of good reaction from it. The cover is great (by Kagan McLeod) and the issue was a lot of fun to work on.
The League of Ordinary Gentlemen Podcast
A great review of Issues #1 and #2 from The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, a fun group of guys who talk comics and geek stuff on their regular podcast. They praised IDW and the fact that they're publishing this, had trouble pronouncing Andy's last name, and might have been a bit tipsy (no, we didn't bribe them with Canadian beer...). You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the link below.
Scenes from New York (Part 1)...
Conor and I arrived in New York Monday evening to attend Book Expo America (BEA). It's the largest convention in the publishing industry in North America and we're here to prime people for the release of our trade paperback edition in November. Should be an interesting and educational time for us - we're meeting with sales reps, retail buyers, academics, librarians, media, etc. We also get to finally meet our U.S. publicists (Dan and Lonnie from Smith Publicity) in person for the first time!...We stopped by a number of comic book stores today to see how sales are and all stores sold out their initial orders (and only one has copies of the first issue re-ordered remaining in stock). First off, we stopped by Forbidden Planet to visit Jeff Ayers and the team there. It was a great place to hang out and we were able to get a couple new converts to the series right there while hanging out! Thanks to Jeff and everyone for helping to sell Kill Shakespeare - and for allowing us to hang out on a very busy day!
