FAMILY FEUD THE COMIC BOOK

Family Feud the Comic Book



Family Feud the Comic Book

Introduction

The first two parts of this article surveyed the series that presented Shakespeare comic books from the forties through today, series that include Classics Illustrated (in various incarnations), A Classic in Pictures, Pendulum Illustrated Classics (under several imprints), The Cartoon Shakespeare Series, Livewire Shakespeare (known in the United States as Picture This! Shakespeare), Timber Frame (recently renamed the Shakespeare Comic Book Company), and the books of New South Wales artist David Messer. Not covered were non-series adaptations and two comic books disguised as children's books. We examine these in part three.

A Historical Explanation

Unlike most of the series comics, all but one of the books covered in this part were created for trade sales, and were guided by the artistic visions of the creators who did not tailor these books for educational use. None is more interesting artistically than the least known, Garen Ewing's 1994 adaptation of The Tempest.

Ewing is a commercial British artist, whose book was published independently of comic book companies that would have been reluctant to commit to the project. He began drawing as a child and never stopped, building his portfolio until he could freelance fulltime in 2002. The Tempest was self-published during this apprenticeship, taking Ewing two years to complete. He was not a very accomplished artist when he drew the book. His characters are usually posed stiffly, and his design is cluttered with extraneous texture and detail, preventing Ewing from telling the story as effectively as he should. Recent work posted on his web-site confirms that he is now a first class comic artist. (1) Ewing's achievement is in the way he reimagines the story, creating a subtext quite different from Shakespeare's play, though he basically follows the plot. Just as Shakespeare usually filtered his sources through his own vision, (2) so Ewing filters Shakespeare. His comic book is not as different from The Tempest as Cymbeline is from Holinshed's Chronicles, but the process is similar.

Analysis

Though less impressive than Ewing's book, David J. Verruni's Othello (1993) has much to recommend it. It was published by Tome Press, a division of Caliber. Caliber began publishing in 1989 and lasted into the new century, producing more than 1300 comics before its demise. Unlike the major houses, their books were creator owned; Caliber facilitated publication without a lot of editorial interference.

While Caliber also published standard comics, Tome Press presented literary, historical, a Verruni is an unaccomplished but promising artist with a good feel for the material. Though he skips act one of the play and begins with the arrival at Cyprus (2.1), he gives a fairly full account of the story thereafter. Cutting the first act sacrifices Othello's early trust in Desdemona and the undermining of that trust by her father, which prevents the story from fully paying off, but the book has many plusses.

Shakespeare's dialog is neatly abridged to make it fit into 44 ...