Manga: - Manga Shakespeare: Hamlet (Manga Shakespeare)

Manga Shakespeare: Hamlet (Manga Shakespeare) Now presenting Manga Shakespeare?the Bard?s greatest plays in an accessible, lively format for a new generation of readers

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare?s most well-known plays, and this exciting new retelling provides young readers an innovative introduction to ?the melancholy Dane.? Hamlet is your typical angst-ridden teen?he doesn?t know how to deal with his responsibilities, how to treat his girlfriend, or how to react to his father?s death. He has no one to trust, and he even acts crazy so adults will leave him alone. Manga fans?and kids who find Shakespeare intimidating?will be drawn to the style and action of the Manga Shakespeare series, learning that required reading doesn?t have to be boring.
Customer Review: More accurate title: Mangled Shakespeare
The cover of this book is misleading—the size of the wording implies that the text is partly 'manga,' but mostly 'Hamlet.' Sadly, the reality is that the book is 3/4 manga, 1/4 Hamlet.

The problems start with the cutting-edge, futuristic, dystopia setting. I'm not saying that Shakespeare can't be transferred successfully to other settings (because it can and has been done very well), but when people are talking to each through floating, virtual screens on one page, but a guy with a shovel is digging up skulls on another page, it just doesn't sync.

Worse than the problems with setting, this text doesn't seem to have much appreciation or sensitivity to what Shakespeare was actually doing. Huge passages are removed. Important information is elided. Beautiful language is abandoned on the cutting room floor. I'm ranting now, of course, but it just seems that if you're going to do Shakespeare, you should trust him enough to make his material the top-priority. (For a great example of what's possible, check out the Classics Illustrated version of Hamlet with artwork by Tom Mandrake.)

Back to the rant for just a second, using an ellipsis (e.g., "…") in every seventh dialogue balloon is gratuitous and uncalled-for.

With that out of my system, let me say that as far as the artwork goes, the book is great. While the figures are distorted beyond plausibility (a person with proportions of 11-heads tall?! I know that's part of manga-style, but please…), other elements of sequential art are handled very well. The dialogue balloons caught my eye, I think because of the generous white space that helps emphasize the wording. But even more, the background textures and page layouts were wonderful. On several pages I thought, "Aahh, so that's what McCloud was talking about…."

So, taken all in all, this version of Hamlet leaves quite a bit to be desired, but it's a great step towards what sequential art CAN do with sophisticated texts.
Customer Review: Embarrassingly Bad
In theory, the idea of paring illustrations with Shakespeare's text makes sense: his words were, after all, meant to be watched rather than simply read; but this is not the way to do it. Artists like Hayao Miyazaki have demonstrated that Manga has the potential to be a more serious art form than many assume, but projects like this give pause: the juxtaposition of Shakespeare's rich and vibrant language with utterly flat and lifeless illustrations is unsettling, and makes one wonder if there might be inherent limitations to what can be done with the medium.