Shakespeare Quotes for Rock Climbers

When I'm not drawing Shakespeare comics or going to the theatre, I am often found at my local rock climbing gym. I love rock climbing, and whenever I love something, I tend to mash it together violently with other things that I love. And so here we have...

I had to tweak a couple pronouns here and there, but otherwise those are all very real and applicable quotes. Try them out the next time you're climbing!

Upcoming Appearances

September 6: Stratford Festival Forum - Willy Shakes: Fanboy

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. 

Taking September "Off"

I've got a very busy September coming up, so instead of new comics I'm going to be posting some filler material taken from past social media posts and some of the bonus comics I share with my supporters on Patreon. It will hopefully (a) still be fun for all of you, and (b) allow me to take the time to get the rest of my year's tasks and projects in order without having a nervous breakdown.  Thanks for understanding! 

The Good Tickle Shoppe, with all its objectively awesome merchandise, will remain open for business, although orders placed between September 4 and September 11 won't ship until September 12. 

Chim Chim Chimney

After all the excitement of the Shakespeare World Cup, I thought I would sneak a non-Shakespeare comic in here, just for a change.

As some of you might know, when not occupied drawing Shakespeare cartoons or cataloging books for Southeast Asia I can often be found at my local rock climbing gym, getting into all sorts of literal scrapes. Recently my gym put up a new route that mimics chimneys, or rock fissures that are wide enough to fit your entire body in them. In order to climb them you have to sort of wedge yourself in the chimney and use your body tension to inch your way upwards. It kind of looks like this:

Not me. I found this photo on this blog, and the climber's expression perfectly sums up my opinion of chimney climbing, so I borrowed it.

It's not very common to see chimney routes in gyms, so I was very excited to see one in my gym. This is what happened when I tried to climb it. 

The friction coefficient of my gym shorts has never seemed so important. (In case you're wondering, I did eventually make it up, thanks to my climbing partner's patience and advice.)

Check out my other rock climbing comics here. Normal Shakespearean service will resume on Friday! 

Curse You, Gravity!

I've reached a level of rock climbing experience where I can usually see very clearly in my mind what I need to do in order to make a particular move. Unfortunately, I'm also at a level of rock climbing experience where my body often completely refuses to cooperate with my mind's grand plans. Either way, it's massively entertaining.

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In other news, I just saw a local screening of the National Theater's recent modern-dress production of Othello . I am not really a fan of either Othello  (apart from the last scene, which is always dynamite) or gratuitous modern dress, but the whole package worked surprisingly well. Also... Emilia. Can we talk about how much I love Emilia in that last scene? I'm going to rewrite Othello  so it ends with Emilia stabbing all these idiotic men in the face and driving off with Desdemona into the sunset, Thelma-and-Louise-style.