Kill Bill: Willy D. Shakes to Get Graphic Novel Treatment with a Twist!

Kill Shakespeare is coming! Here's a note from the authors:

“Kill Shakespeare” is going to start as a 12-issue comic-book series. IDW (the third largest comics publisher right now) is publishing the first issue in April. Then we plan to collect the series in two six-issue trades and one “Absolute” collection.

So what is “Kill Shakespeare”? Well think of a “Lord of the Rings” style action-adventure but with The Bard’s characters. In our story Shakespeare’s greatest heroes are pit against his most menacing villains in a race to save, or kill, Shakespeare himself. The short comics pitch is “The Justice League of Shakespeare”, but I prefer “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” meets “Fables” with a dash of “Northlanders” tossed in.

In our story Hamlet is banished from Denmark and the Pirates attack his ship just as they do in the play, but in our world instead of ending up in Elsinore he ends up in another place – one where everyone he meets is a Shakespearean character. There he meets Richard III who makes him a bargain: if the Dane will seek out a reclusive Wizard and take the source of his power, Richard will return Hamlet’s Father from the dead.

The name of this reclusive Wizard? William Shakespeare.

On his journey Hamlet meets Falstaff, Juliet (who has survived her ordeal with Romeo) and Othello (also alive, but Desdemona is dead). They tell him Shakespeare isn’t a Wizard, but the Creator and that Hamlet is fated to meet and save Shakespeare – not kill him (in effect triggering a literary “Second coming”). They tell him that Richard is an oppressive “King” and that Hamlet is their land’s best hope to depose the King and his evil associates – Lady Macbeth and Iago.

Kill a Wizard and save his Father? Or save a God and rescue a land….? (and dare we mention Juliet and Hamlet’s growing love and what happens when Romeo shows up????)

Sounds fun, eh? Publisher's Weekly thinks so too. Of course, the yummy irony is that a project with a murderous title might actually help bring the Bard to life for students.