katieellencho's review
4.0
I'm an English teacher and I love nothing more than playing with Shakespeare's characters! I saw this at a comic con and I had to buy it. Some of the stories really made me smile while others made me even look at the text differently, but there were still some clunkers whose writers either read the spark note version of the plays or they just wandered off into tangents and lost the whole point of this anthology. I won't dwell on those but I wanted to mention the stories I really enjoyed...
"The iron tongue of midnight" by Dirk Manning is awesome on many accounts. One, it's written in iambic pentameter and two, it explains why Mercutio acts like an idiot in Act 3 in Romeo and Juliet. Very cool perspective!
"Mantua county" by Erik Radvon has beautiful art and features the background story of the apothecary from Romeo and Juliet. Very bittersweet and it totally makes sense for this small but oddly detailed character from the famous play.
"SHREW" by Sherezada Kent. Taming of the Shrew is always a difficult play because if you take it at face value it's very very sexist. But Kent has fun with it. Kat is a secret weapon assassin type who is too independent and must be broken. Plus Kent has her be broken by another woman for a specific purpose...I wish this one had a sequel!
"Red and Violet" by Jonathan Santana is super trippy. That usually isn't my thing but I loved the way he made it work for Antony and Cleopatra. In the play after all, they manipulate the hell out of each other and happen to fall in love. Santana turns their relationship into a Mr and Mrs Smith type that works so well with the characters!
"No. 31 for love" by Amber Love and Kristen McHugh. This one is based on the famous sonnet 130. I love how the writers took the overall idea and really ran with it as a theme for their own story. Fantastic art too.
"The Play is the thing" by Shaun Noel. This one made me laugh aloud a lot. Others in this anthology tried to do what this one did in integrating a bunch of plays at once. Most if them ended up being jumbled and confusing but this one was clear and had fun with all of the characters. I think this is the story that I will pass on the most to other teachers for a laugh. It's story is about Shakespeare characters who are kids on basketball teams and hilarity ensues. I love that the coach decides to "put in one of the Henrys" and of course there are a ton of them...yay Shakespeare jokes!
Honorable mention: the art work for Ophelia's revenge makes me wanna beg that artist to write a story. How awesome would that be? Beat that emo Hamlet down Ophelia! :)
"The iron tongue of midnight" by Dirk Manning is awesome on many accounts. One, it's written in iambic pentameter and two, it explains why Mercutio acts like an idiot in Act 3 in Romeo and Juliet. Very cool perspective!
"Mantua county" by Erik Radvon has beautiful art and features the background story of the apothecary from Romeo and Juliet. Very bittersweet and it totally makes sense for this small but oddly detailed character from the famous play.
"SHREW" by Sherezada Kent. Taming of the Shrew is always a difficult play because if you take it at face value it's very very sexist. But Kent has fun with it. Kat is a secret weapon assassin type who is too independent and must be broken. Plus Kent has her be broken by another woman for a specific purpose...I wish this one had a sequel!
"Red and Violet" by Jonathan Santana is super trippy. That usually isn't my thing but I loved the way he made it work for Antony and Cleopatra. In the play after all, they manipulate the hell out of each other and happen to fall in love. Santana turns their relationship into a Mr and Mrs Smith type that works so well with the characters!
"No. 31 for love" by Amber Love and Kristen McHugh. This one is based on the famous sonnet 130. I love how the writers took the overall idea and really ran with it as a theme for their own story. Fantastic art too.
"The Play is the thing" by Shaun Noel. This one made me laugh aloud a lot. Others in this anthology tried to do what this one did in integrating a bunch of plays at once. Most if them ended up being jumbled and confusing but this one was clear and had fun with all of the characters. I think this is the story that I will pass on the most to other teachers for a laugh. It's story is about Shakespeare characters who are kids on basketball teams and hilarity ensues. I love that the coach decides to "put in one of the Henrys" and of course there are a ton of them...yay Shakespeare jokes!
Honorable mention: the art work for Ophelia's revenge makes me wanna beg that artist to write a story. How awesome would that be? Beat that emo Hamlet down Ophelia! :)
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