Shakespeare in Troy

I entered a portion of Age of Bronze in the Third Graphic Shakespeare Competition, which honors comics adaptations of William Shakespeare's works. When I first heard about this competition, I didn't plan to enter it. I sent an e-mail about it to Nicole Galland, an author I'd met at the Key West Literary Seminar in January 2019. Nicki is a Shakespeare expert and once ran by me the idea of collaborating on Shakespeare comics adaptations. I didn't take her up on that, but thought she might be interested in this Shakespeare comics competition.

She didn't plan to enter, but asked whether I planned to. When I told her "no," she suggested I enter some of the Troilus and Cressida material that I'd adapted from Shakespeare into Age of Bronze.

At first I decided my use of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida transformed the material too radically and incorporated material from too many non-Shakespeare sources to really be called a Shakespeare adaptation. But the rules for the competition didn't specify a rigid adherence to Shakespeare's words. According to the rules, any sort of comics adaptation seemed eligible. In fact, the rules went so far as to specify the eligibility of adaptations using none of Shakespeare's words.

The maximum length for entries was eight pages. I looked over my Age of Bronze scenes featuring Troilus and Cressida's separation and correlated them with scenes from Shakespeare's play. I was surprised to find that I hadn't strayed as far from Shakespeare as I thought I had. I selected some pages, cropped a few panels to fit within the proper length for the competition and sent them in.

After that, I didn't think about the competition for a while. For several reasons, I figured I didn't have much chance of winning. I suspected that calling my work an "adaptation" of Shakespeare stretched the point. Past winners of the competition seemed much more experimental in their cartooning that I usually am in Age of Bronze. And my entry wasn't in color, while past winners made beautiful use of color.

To my surprise I received an e-mail months later informing me that my entry had been chosen as one of the runners up in the "creators over 25" category. I was surprised, to say the least. I was also delighted.

Here are all the awardees:

Over 25 years old category:

Winner:

Edouard Lekston, "Harry and Jack": King Henry IV, Part 1 (Act 2, Scene 4)

Runners Up:

Eric Shanower, "Troilus and Cressida"

Kathryn Briggs, "Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 5"

The 15 to 25 years old category:

Winner:

Naz Baquiran, "Wicked Encounter"

Runners Up:

Annie Holley, "Two Blushing Pilgrims"

Boglarka Littner, "Nostalgia"

The judges were: Paul Gravett, Fionnuala Doran, Harumo Sanazaki, Hu Rong, Jang Hyun Nam, and Ronan Paterson.

One of my pages. Click to enlarge.

The whole shebang was run by Yukari Yoshihara, who did an excellent job in my opinion.

The awards were announced in November 2020 at the 4th Conference of the Asian Shakespeare Association in Seoul, Korea. That was so far away from me that, even if Covid hadn't taken possession of the planet, I had no plans to attend. However, I sent in a short video accepting as a runner up. I thanked Yukari Yoshihara and the judges--as well as Nicki Galland for prompting me to enter in the first place.

The competition published a beautiful, full-color booklet featuring all the winners. You can read the whole book here: http://asianshakespeare.org/2020/11/02/graphic-shakespeare-competition-3/

Copyright © 2021 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Savagery

Back in the late 1960s, cartoonist Gil Kane created the international spy thriller His Name is . . . Savage! A few years ago I was approached to do a cover for a new His Name is . . . Savage! series. The project didn't have a publisher at the time, but eventually, over a year ago, Paper Movies released it.

Although I was told that the project found a publisher, no one told me when it came out. And I've never actually seen it. I did the cover I was contracted for, and was pretty proud of it (below right). But now that I'm trying to catch up on posts detailing recent (and not-so-recent) projects, I thought I ought to mention this Savage project.

I found it for sale online, but it looks as if it was published only in the graphic novel format, not as a comics book series. You can see the published cover to the left. Unfortunately, the book doesn't include my cover. So I've included it here, on the right.

This recent iteration of Kane's His Name is . . . Savage! boasts a script by Steven Grant and art by Jesus Antonio Hernandez Portaveritas. I read the whole project as background for creating my cover, and I really liked it. I've long admired Steven Grant's comics stories. This one thrills as much as his work has ever done. So I'm disappointed the book doesn't even print my cover in a gallery of covers in the back of the book. I mean, they paid me for it AND the book has a blank page at the end.

Copyright © 2021 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Classic Comedy Teams

Which classic movie comedy team do you like better? Laurel and Hardy? Or the Three Stooges?

Well, you don't have to choose in Laurel and Hardy Meet the Three Stooges #1 from American Mythology. I drew the cover for this mash-up of these screwballs.

That's not the only cover I've drawn for either of these comedy teams. How about Laurel and Hardy's Christmas Follies #1? And then there's The Three Stooges Thru the Ages #1.

Cover art has never been my strong point. I think I'm far better at panel-to-panel story-telling than I am at creating splashy single images. But I've had fun drawing these. On the whole I like the way they turned out, particularly the first two. The stylization the colorist introduced into the Christmas image was a pleasant surprise.

The Stooges covers don't end here. I've drawn several more since these issues were published. They've got a couple special twists to them. One twist is that they're all parodies of well-know super-hero comic book covers. I'll show them to you when they're published.

Copyright © 2021 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

 

Amateur Status

I haven't posted any news in a while. Stuff has been piling up to announce. Within the next several weeks or so, I plan to post about a backlog of projects and announce upcoming projects, too.

I drew a few jobs for Shelly Bond when she was an editor at DC under that publisher's Vertigo imprint. More recently Shelly became an editor at IDW. Hey, Amateur! is the result of her idea for a wide range of cartoonists, who happen to also be experts in a variety of disciplines, to pass on their specialized knowledge in a collection of single-page comics stories.

Shelly asked me to contribute. I wracked my brain to come up with something to communicate that seemed visual (it would be a comics story, after all) and that I could write about with some modicum of authority. Most of my life has been dedicated to writing and drawing. I don't think I'm particularly limited in my experiences outside of those creative efforts, but I wasn't sure I could speak with as an expert about much.

One panel from my story.

I threw a few ideas at Shelly. She picked "How to Perform an En Dehors Pirouette."

I'm no dance expert, but it's one of my hobbies. So that was it. My story for Hey, Amateur! explains in detail the pirouette "to the outside."

The book also explains how to accomplish approximately twelve dozen other tasks, such as decorating a cake, keeping a band together forever, making a proper cup of tea, and surviving in the woods with a knife and a rabbit. All these concepts are detailed and drawn by "your favorite" cartoonists, including Michael Allred, Gene Ha, Peter Bagge, Paul Pope, Simon Bisley--the list goes on.

Hey, Amateur! is published by Black Crown and distributed by IDW and Penguin Random House.

Copyright © 2021 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.

Draw Drink'n Podcast - Round Two

So fun the first time, we're doing it again!

Join Jamie Jones and me, with our host Alex Morrissey for a second round on Draw Drink'n Podcast. Mark your calendar now for Tuesday, September 29, 9 PM EST (that's 6 PM on the west coast of North America).

We plan to discuss Age of Bronze and the techniques of making comics. But who knows where else we'll go?

Watch the episode live on Youtube in the comfort of your own home--or watch later at your convenience. Here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmtaRwbGDW2PWW702K24i1w

Festival of Books on Saturday

 

Attend the Festival of Books on Saturday, August 29, 2020. The event is online. Authors from around the world are participating in a variety of ways.

I did two recorded video interviews for the festival. Both will be available for your listening and viewing pleasure.

Follow the link to register: sdfestivalofbooks.com

See you there!

Guest on Draw Drink'n Podcast

I'll be a guest of the Draw Drink'n Podcast on Tuesday, August 4th, at 9 pm Eastern (6 pm Pacific).

Alex Morrissey hosts as everyone drinks, draws, and laughs. I don't have any idea yet what I'll be trying to draw as everyone watches, so you'll be as surprised as I am to see what happens. It's sure to be a fun time.

The podcast streams on Youtube and Facebook. You can watch and join in the chat here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wMrticUZo4