A stick-figure Shakespeare comic by Mya Lixian Gosling
I started drawing Shakespeare comics about eight and a half years ago, sharing them privately on Facebook with my friends. One of the first ones that I drew was about Measure for Measure, because why not? It never found a proper place to live on the Good Tickle Brain website, but it still amuses me, so I’ve gone ahead and re-drawn it.
Barnardine deserves someone much better than Angelo, but I hope they’re very happy together.
Them: Shakespeare is soooo romantic!
Me: 🤨
Consulting pocket dramaturg: Kate Pitt
Huge shout-out to my consulting pocket dramaturg Kate Pitt for coming up with the ideas for all of these.
Be sure to check out Shakespearean Valentines (part 1) and Shakespearean Valentines (part 2), as well as all my other Valentine’s Day themed comics.
Let’s keep updating those play pages! Today we have three “M” plays that are conventionally known as comedies. In actual fact, two of them really incredibly NOT funny and the third is… just not very good, to be honest. I’ll let you figure out which is which.
Some useful quotes for our current time.
Consulting pocket dramaturg: Kate Pitt
Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will INSIST THAT YOU PULL YOUR MASK UP OVER YOUR NOSE, COME ON, MY GLASSES ARE FOGGING UP TOO BUT SERIOUSLY ONLY SELFISH SOCIOPATHIC NARCISSISTS THINK THAT’S TOO HIGH A PRICE TO PAY FOR LITERALLY SAVING LIVES AND CURBING A GLOBAL PANDEMIC JUST dammit… I’m so tired… just wear your masks properly.
It’s New Year’s Eve! Time to check in with some of our favorite Shakespearean characters and see what resolutions they’re making for the new year.
Consulting pocket dramaturg: Kate Pitt
And, just in case you need some resolution inspiration, here are past years’ installments. I’ve put them in reverse chronological order, so you can track the devolution of my artistic style.
2020 is going to be my SEVENTH year creating Good Tickle Brain! If Good Tickle Brain was a wizard, it would be preparing for its N.E.W.T. exams at Hogwarts. That’s insane. Thank you so much for reading and supporting my work over the years. Here’s to another year of Shakespeare silliness!
Have you ever written yourself into a corner and found yourself trapped in a plot complication that seems impossible to untangle? Consider doing what Shakespeare often did in such situations: introduce convenient pirates!
Thanks to my pocket dramaturg, Kate Pitt, for once again consulting with me on this, and for compiling a list of Shakespearean Pirate Names:
A list of Shakespeare pirates:
— Kate Pitt (@KatePitt) May 14, 2019
-Antonio (denied by the accused)
-Bargulus
-Menas
-Menecrates
-Ragozine
-Valdes
-Walter Whitmore
They all have appropriate pirate-y names until the end – I'm pretty sure Walter escaped from Penzance. (h/t to @GoodTickleBrain for the inspiration)
Sometimes it’s very easy to decide how to visually depict a Shakespearean character. Case in point: Isabella from Measure for Measure.
SHE A SAD NUN.
After I did my "How Much Ado About Nothing Should Have Ended" comic, I stopped to think about what other severely problematic endings there are in Shakespeare's canon. It turns out (unsurprisingly) that there's a lot of them! Here's how I'd fix Measure for Measure's ending:
Poor Isabella has SUCH a rough time, and is given such a rough time by everybody for prioritizing her religious convictions (i.e. not agreeing to sleep with Angelo) over the life of her brother. And then what happens at the end? The duke is all "EVERYTHING IS SETTLED, YOU'LL MARRY ME NOW, IT'S ALL GOOD".
To be fair, he leaves the question marginally more open than that, but he is the DUKE, and it's super-hard to say "no" to a Duke. Her response to his proposition is deafening silence, and how she actually reacts is up to interpretation.
"Burn in all down" is just my interpretation...
WHO: Me! And also Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery of the Kill Shakespeare comic book series.
WHAT: Panel discussion on Shakespeare in pop culture and graphic novels. Part of the Stratford Festival Forum series of events.
WHEN: Wednesday, September 6, 10:45am
WHERE: Chalmers Lounge, Avon Theatre, Stratford, Ontario.
WHY: Because they asked me!
HOW: Buy tickets at the Stratford Festival website.
