Another Friday, another Shakespearean Character Spotlight. We previously profiled Jamy, the most Scottish Scotsman to ever Scot, but the subject of today's spotlight gives him a run for his money.
Princes in the Tower
There's no situation so dire that it can't be alleviated by a good knock-knock joke, right?
Oh. Maybe I was wrong.
Consider this a sequel to The Wars of the Roses: Knock Knock Joke Edition.
...I'm terrible at knock-knock jokes. This is what I'm trying to tell you.
Venus and Adonis (in 3 Panels)
As you all know, I've summarized all of Shakespeare's plays in three panels each. Well, that's all well and good, but it criminally ignores Shakespeare's narrative poems. I'm going to try and remedy that.
Wild boars are hard to draw. Uderzo makes it look so easy.
In other news, the fourth issue of The Weekly Tickle Brain e-mail newsletter hits inboxes today! If you haven't subscribed yet and want to see what you're missing, check out the past issues archive... and then sign up, so you'll never miss another issue!
Shakespearean Character Spotlight: Servant
Aha! At last, my first truly and totally insignificant Shakespearean Character Spotlight! Let's meet Servant!
A quick bit of housekeeping. If you've signed up for The Weekly Tickle Brain e-mail newsletter, but haven't been receiving it every Monday, PLEASE CHECK YOUR SPAM FOLDER. My mum and dad both reported that The Weekly Tickle Brain ended up in their spam folders, and if my own parents' e-mail service thinks my newsletter is spam, yours almost certainly does as well. Please add goodticklebrain AT gmail DOT com to your non-spam lists, or what have you.
If you don't, and if you haven't signed up for The Weekly Tickle Brain yet, you're missing exclusive Shakespearean recommendations, social media hijinks, and occasional behind-the-scenes peeks! It's super fun! Sign up today to get the latest issue on Monday.
Overly Literal Hamlet
Sometimes I sit down to draw a comic, and my mind goes totally blank, and then you end up getting a comic like this. Sorry.
A Star-Wars-ian Night's Dream
So, the interwebs have been buzzing with the announcement of George Lucas's upcoming animated film Strange Magic, which is apparently "inspired" by Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. From the scant information that has been released, it seems that the inspiration begins and ends with the concept of there being magical creatures in a woods with a potion of some sort. Still, it's nice to think about what might come from this unlikeliest of mash-ups...
I apologize for the inclusion of Jar-Jar, but really, what Star Wars character better sums up "this is to make an ass of me"?
Shakespearean Character Spotlight: Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester
I started doing these Shakespearean Character Spotlights to cut down my workload. "It'll be easy," I thought. "I'll just randomly pick a character and give people a quick overview of him or her! I won't have to think up jokes or spend a lot of time on it!" I mean, how much time does it really take to profile Third Servant or Soldier?
And then what happens? My random number generator gives me this guy. He's in four plays. Four plays. It's not fair.
The historical Humphrey was a much more troubling person, prone to idiotic warmongering, alienating people and generally being a self-serving prick. But the image that got handed down was of Good Duke Humphrey, and so here we have him.
In other news, I named a papier-mâché spider after Humphrey. He sits on my computer monitor at work and has a tiny top-hat made from a Post-It note. I was going to call him Richard, after the famous bottled spider, but thought that was too obvious, so I cast around for another Duke of Gloucester and settled on Humphrey. It's a very nice name, Humphrey.
Finally... have you signed up for The Weekly Tickle Brain e-mail newsletter yet? It's a super-awesome newsletter that I send out every Monday, and is stuffed with Shakespearean comic goodness, including a digest of weekly comics, a round-up of any extra material I have posted on social media, and an exclusive recommendation section where I rationally inform you about a Shakespearean-related book, film or TV show that I think is worth checking out. Or possibly I just gush about something for a couple paragraphs. In any case, it's SUPER FUN. Well, no one has complained about it yet...
Monty Pericles
Remember Thaisa, from Pericles? She had that public service announcement on Premature Burial. Well, she's back, along with her oblivious husband.
Aaaaand scene.