Shakespeare's Missing Mothers, part 1

The number of Shakespearean characters who have a father but are, for some usually unspoken reason, missing a mother is often commented on. This isn't to say that there aren't any mothers in Shakespeare.... there are just a lot of missing ones. Let's see what happens when we put some of them back. 

Queen Lear would have SHUT THAT THING DOWN. 

Guffaw and Order: Dogberry

Shakespeare's clowns have a reputation, founded or unfounded, for being extremely challenging for modern audiences to digest. In this week's comics, we take a closer look at one particularly egregious offender: Dogberry.

Poor old Dogberry... Nobody understands him.

...no, I mean, seriously... nobody understands a word he's saying...

In case you missed it, Good Tickle Brain is now on Patreon! Help support my work creating stick figure Shakespeare comics and get fun rewards, like bonus comics and video drawing tutorials!

All You Need To Know About Much Ado About Nothing

Tomorrow the RSC is live-broadcasting their production of Much Ado About Nothing! (They're calling it Love's Labour's Won and are presenting it as a sequel to Love's Labour's Lost, but it's still definitely Much Ado About Nothing.) To celebrate, here's a guide to all you need to know about the play! 

Check out my other All You Need To Know About [Insert Play Here] guides! 

Shakespearean Character Spotlight: Hero

The random number generator has finally hit upon a major character for our third Shakespearean Character Spotlight installment! Today we'll be taking a closer look at Hero:

I'm probably being a bit harsh to poor Hero. She doesn't do anything wrong and weathers her trials and tribulations with good grace and dignity. But really... everybody agrees that the play should have ended like this:

(Historical note: I drew that comic before I started this website. As you can see, I quickly discovered that I could save a lot of time by not fully drawing arms, bodies and clothes. You might call it laziness. I call it streamlining.)

Premature Burial

So, this is a recurring issue in the Shakespearean canon:

I know Elizabethan medicine wasn't exactly state-of-the-art, but I'm constantly appalled at how readily people jump to conclusion of "Oh no, she's dead, let's dump the body somewhere" after someone falls over. Then again, these are the same people who say "You know, it's remarkable how you, a boy, look exactly like a girl, but are, in fact, totally a boy".

What I'm saying is that Shakespeare's characters are criminally unobservant. That's what I'm saying. 

The Adventures of Lego Shakespeare, part 1

A little bit of a lazy post from me today, whilst I prepare myself to tackle King Lear next month. If you follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, you'll know that one of my friends recently acquired a Lego Shakespeare mini-figure for me, after much trial, error, and cunning. Naturally, I was really excited to see what sort of antics Lego Shakespeare could get up to, and have been posting the results sporadically on my various social media outlets. So, for those of you too wise and sensible to be on Twitter and Facebook, here are the results so far:

Lego Shakespeare's debut! Of course there had to be a bear involved. There always has to be a bear involved. 

I woke up one morning to find that The Globe, Hollow Crown Fans, and various other prominent Shakespearean Twitter accounts were encouraging people to post photos of their Shakespeare books. Decades ago, I had bought a very tiny copy of Henry V - my favorite play - which I used to carry around with me as a sort of Shakespearean security blanket. I managed to find it and had Lego Shakespeare pose for a photo with it, for scale.

I quickly discovered a challenging aspect of setting up Lego Shakespeare photo-shoots: finding things for him to interact with that aren't too big for the frame. I originally staged this with a paring knife, but it was so big that only the handle itself fit into the frame and you couldn't really tell what it was. So I substituted a teaspoon instead. The end result was funnier, because anything involving the word "spoon" is automatically funny. 

This has been the never-ending winter here in the Midwest (and across most of North America). So when I woke up to another four inches of freshly-fallen snow, I though it was the ideal time to take Lego Shakespeare outdoors. Unfortunately, Lego Shakespeare is not four inches tall, and was quickly overwhelmed.

Undaunted, Lego Shakespeare commandeered a T-47 snowspeeder and returned to the great icy wilderness. (In case you're wondering, the original quote is "Hath no man's dagger here a point for me?" See, "hath" sounds like the ice planet "Hoth" from Star Wars, so... hey, I said it was a terrible pun.)

This is my favorite Lego Shakespeare installment so far. I posted it, appropriately enough, on the Ides of March. It still makes me giggle, which probably says a bit too much about my psyche. (Also, note the stealth pun in "severity"... I'm quite proud of that one.)

These little tiny eranthis are always the first flowers to emerge at the beginning of spring, often coming up under the snow. Sure enough, when the snow around here finally started to melt, I spotted lots of squished-looked eranthis buds bravely poking up through the leaf cover. HOPE. That's what it is. 

Also, I am going to make a bold statement and say that nobody can sing "Hey ding a ding ding" without sounding incredibly silly. Anyone want to debate that point with me?

That's it from me today! My apologies to my Twitter and Facebook followers for not having anything new and exciting today. Tune in again next week, when "new and exciting" will be back on the menu, possibly featuring some more Shakespearean Selfies! 

Three-Panel Plays, part 12

Up to a full dozen of Three-Panel Plays now, with two more comedies.

I am well aware of my limitations as an artist, but I'm still unfathomably pleased with how Bottom eventually turned out. I went through several stick-figure donkey-head drafts, with most of them looking like a demented rabbit or particularly ill-favored rat. 

I've previously taken issue with Claudio in this strip. I mean, OK, you can't really blame a guy for being a gullible idiot, but that hardly excuses his behavior at the wedding. 

Check back on Wednesday, when I'll be reducing Othello and the ever-popular Pericles, Prince of Tyre to their barest elements!

See all Three-Panel Plays here!