Illustrating Shakespeare With Paper

~ duane ~ 2 Comments

Are traditional paper books dead?  If you’re a publisher like Barnes and Noble, you have to get creative.

They already had the rights to a cheapy paperback version of the plays.  They spot an artist who works in this really cool “paper cut” style and want to work with him.  Bingo bango, a new edition of Shakespeare is born!
I don’t know that this kind of thing would make me run out and get yet another edition of one of the plays — but if I was in the market for one and I saw half a dozen different volumes to choose from?  Something like this might stand out!  (Of course, this does not get into the discussion of which volumes have the best glossary, footnotes, edits and so on…we’re talking entirely about judging a book by its cover, here.  But let’s be real, plenty of people do that.)

Quick Update

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

Been a bit of a busy couple of weeks for me at the day job, and I apologize for the lack of posts. I hope that Blank Verse kept you entertained at least for a little while.

Have a good Father’s Day?  I got Coriolanus on DVD.  I can’t decide whether that would be a more appropriate Mother’s Day gift. 🙂   (Credit to @playsthetart on Twitter for that joke, which I totally didn’t get when she said it).

Amusing update – through a really weird series of coincidences I bumped into the book agent that I worked with back in the late 90’s in the technical field.  He now has his own agency, specializing in non-fiction with focus on humor and pop culture.  So I didn’t miss a beat before pitching him my book idea, compiling all of our best lists and Twitter hashtag games into one humorous volume.  I did not get a happy answer, but I’m quite proud that I didn’t miss the chance to ask.

I think that’s all I’ve got for the moment.  Shakespeare on Boston Common will be coming up soon — Coriolanus.  I’ll have to make sure I watch the movie before I go see the show. 🙂

How’s everybody else been?  Got any summer Shakespeare plans?

My New Project! The Blank Verse Game!

~ duane ~ 6 Comments

Ok, so I haven’t been around much for the last week or so.  That’s because I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my latest project!  I call it Blank Verse, and it’s inspired by a post from just about a year ago, come to think of it.  I probably could have planned to roll that out exactly on the 1 year date.  Oh well.

Of course, when I say “finishing touches” I really mean “Convince myself that any bugs left are not the end of the world, and nobody at all is going to see it if I never hit that Launch button.”  In particular please forgive the coarseness of the design, I’ve got no skills in that area and have been trying to figure out how to improve.

I released the game early to email subscribers so some of you may have already seen it, either there or on Twitter/Facebook as people began sharing their games.  What I’d really like, and maybe some of you can help me out, is for people to hit that Contact button on the game and tell me what worked, what didn’t, what you’d like to see improved.  Anybody can take the game for a spin once and declare it “Meh.”  I want to know what it’ll take to make you want to play it a dozen times and tell all your friends about it on Facebook.

Slings & Arrows to Return?

~ duane ~ 7 Comments

I tweeted yesterday about the rumor going around that a fourth season of Slings & Arrows might be in the works.  Here’s a link to an interview with one of the writers where he says it is, quote “Well, it’s more than a dream, I’ll tell you that much. I’ll stop now, before I’m hoisted by my own petard.

For those that have never seen it, the short-lived Canadian TV series takes place backstage at a fictional Shakespeare theatre festival.  If you’ve not seen it, you must drop everything and go watch all 3 seasons.  This is not just another random drama that happened to throw some Shakespeare into the background.  This is a show *about* Shakespeareans *performing* Shakespeare.  The jokes are Shakespeare jokes.  You’ve got your overly dramatic Ophelia who throws herself into the river when she’s upset.  You’ve got to the bad director who SET THE TEMPEST IN NAZI GERMANY!  You’ve got an insane director who sees ghosts.  And most of that is just in the first season.

If you have seen it, what do you think of a fourth season?  I mean, they kind of swung for the fences in the first three seasons, tackling Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear (with a bit of Romeo and Juliet thrown in for good measure).  How do you follow that up?