Manga Shakespeare

Friday, 6 February 2009

If you’ve browsed your local bookseller in the past year or so, I’m sure you’ve noticed that Shakespeare has been graphic-novelized. I applaud the effort of these illustrators and layout artists who are attracting new young readers to the classics. For the most part they capture all the story elements. There are three editions from three different publishers which are entirely different:

  • Shakespeare: The Manga Edition
  • Manga Shakespeare
  • No Fear Shakespeare Graphic Novels

Which one is better? It depends what you’re looking for… read them all and post your comments!

Shakespeare: The Manga Edition features a four-page introduction that sets the stage and a text that’s abridged, but retains Shakespeare’s original language, setting, and time. Packed with action and emotion, it is the ideal way to explore Shakespeare’s timeless themes and appreciate his immortal love scenes.

Manga Shakespeare: this adaptation, set in modern-day Tokyo, does a competent job of combining manga-style art and abridged dialogue to immerse the reader in the world of the play. Although the richness of the language may be lost, the script keeps the spirit of the story intact, hitting all the major speeches. — Robin Brenner

No Fear Shakespeare Graphic Novels is a series based on the translated texts of the plays found in No Fear Shakespeare. The original No Fear series made Shakespeare’s plays much easier to read, but these dynamic visual adaptations are impossible to put down. Each of the titles is illustrated in its own unique style, but all are distinctively offbeat, slightly funky, and appealing to teen readers. Each book will feature:

  • Illustrated cast of characters
  • A helpful plot summary
  • Line-by-line translations of the original play
  • Illustrations that show the reader exactly what’s happening in each scene—making the plot and characters even clearer than in the original No Fear Shakespeare books

“Reading a comic adaptation of Shakespeare offers students an opportunity to make sense of the rich language using the illustrations. Shakespeare, after all, was meant to be seen not read. Experiencing Shakespeare as a comic is the best substitute to watching the play itself.” — The Graphic Classroom

Links to each of the available titles:

The entry 'Manga Shakespeare' was posted on February 6th, 2009 at 4:37 pm and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply

«
»