Graphic Novel Review: Kill Shakespeare Vol. 1, by Conor McCreery, Andy Belanger, and Anthony Del Col

I heard about this graphic novel on NPR, which made my responsible adult side feel better about reading graphic novels, and my inner child feel better about listening to NPR. Being what I’d call a casual fan of Shakespeare, it sounded like something that would be right up my alley. After reading through the first volume, I can say that I like it, but it’s not as good as I was hoping it would be.

The story picks up somewhere around the third act of Hamlet, with the Danish prince sailing off into exile rather than being sung to his rest by flights of angels. After being haunted by some familiar witches, he is cast overboard and finds himself on a strange, faraway shore, where he is greeted by everyone’s favorite gruff king with a withered hand. Richard III proclaims Hamlet to be the “Shadow King,” a figure spoken of in legend that is destined to kill a mysterious demigod known as “Shakespeare” and claim the power of his magical quill. Richard promises to bring Hamlet’s father back to him if he fulfills his destiny, but Hamlet eventually finds himself lost and alone in the countryside. A loose band of commoners opposed to Richard’s tyranny (including Falstaff, Othello, and Juliet) try to persuade Hamlet to join them, as Richard conspires with the seductive Lady Macbeth to bring the Shadow King back into his grasp.

So, the riot of Shakespeare characters assuming new personas and taking sides is enough by itself to make this volume worth checking out. I suppose that you could find yourself annoyed by the liberties taken with the Bard’s stories if you were a diehard Shakespeare nut, but I thought the reimagined relationships and alliances were deliciously fun to read. Furthermore, the proper Shakespearean tone has been set; gratuitous violence, sexual innuendo, and bad puns are all firmly in evidence.

Once the initial awesome factor wore off, though, a few things began to bother me. The story moves so quickly that there isn’t a whole lot of time to take anything in. There is a lot of reliance on the numerous cameos to move the story along (I'm not even sure why the scene with Puck was even remotely necessary), and so the plot feels a little clunky and contrived. Not to the point of being bad, but there’s definitely a “serial” feel to the volume.

The biggest problem I had, though, is with the artwork. I don’t usually get hung up on art, being the forgiving guy that I am. But honestly, I had trouble trying to puzzle out exactly what was going on at some points. The flow of the panels will often change unexpectedly, without any particular narrative reason or clearly defined map of the proceedings, forcing me to occasionally reread a few panels after getting lost. Also, abrupt shifts in setting are frequent in each chapter (especially after Hamlet takes up with the Prodigals and the narrative splits off into two branches), making it occasionally hard to figure out what’s happening even when the panel flow stays consistent. Finally, and maybe this is just me: there’s something off about the faces. The expressions are not quite real. The characters are gorgeous, and standard dialogue looks just fine, but every single reaction shot looks waaaaay overdone. As in, giant eyes, gaping mouth, parody-of-an-actual-facial-expression overdone. I feel like I’m being a touch unfair, here, because the art is very good from a technical standpoint; Belanger is no slouch. But something about the expressions just didn’t resonate for me. The characters came off as a little cartoonish, somehow. That normally wouldn’t bother me, but in this instance it just contrasted too much with the Shakespearean motif.

So, chalk this one up as a solid "acceptable," for me. Maybe not fantastic, but still pretty good.

Verdict: 3 / 5