Wow, we’re having British Day?!
One new UK publishing house, Self Made Hero, is offering “Manga Shakespeare” – cut-down versions of some of the plays, in a Japanese cartoon style.
They are drawn by established manga artists, the characters acquiring the typical big bright eyes and cute little noses of the form.
Its first productions are Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, with Richard III and The Tempest coming this autumn and others to follow.
Romeo and Juliet, the blurb explains, is set in modern-day Japan.
The text is Shakespeare’s, but abridged.
The Prince of Denmark now inhabits the “cyberworld” of 2017, when global climate change has devastated the planet.
Hamlet’s famous soliloquy begins in familiar fashion, “To be or not to be … that is the question”, but then jumps to “To die, to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream…” – completely dropping the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and the sea of troubles.
These cuts were made by series editor Richard Appignanesi, founder of Icon Books who produced the Introducing Freud / Jung / Critical Theory volumes.
(Read the rest of the story here. Oh my.)
Ray’s Take: I really, really, truly wanted to say that the last front of good reading stays in Britain, but darkness comes, and swallows it…BANZAI! BANZAI! BANZAI!
A apocalyptic earthquake just hit where I am…(yeah we just had a real earthquake here in Taipei City, Taiwan)
