A stick-figure Shakespeare comic by Mya Lixian Gosling
We're on the downward slope of the Three Panel Plays! Only sixteen left to go!
Falstaff and the buck basket made a cameo apperance in last year's Christmas cartoon. Because grown men hiding in baskets never ceases to be amusing.
Tune in again on Monday for another pair of comedies: A Midsummer's Night's Dream and Much Ado About Nothing! Apart from Macbeth, all of the "M" plays are comedies. Well, if you think Measure for Measure is funny, that is...
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We've finally reached the halfway point of my Three-Panel Plays series! Gosh, that Shakespeare fellow wasn't half prolific, was he? Anyways, 20 down, 18 to go...
Pictured: grisly corpses of Duncan and Banquo. Not pictured: grisly corpses of everyone else.
It's a comedy, folks. Honestly. Although I did leave out the bit about the severed head. You can read more on that here.
"M" is a very popular letter in Shakespeare's titles. Join us again on Friday, when we'll be taking a very brief look at The Merchant of Venice and The Merry Wives of Windsor.
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A tragedy and a comedy feature in today's Three Panel Plays.
I'm always surprised by the body count at the end of Lear. I know it's a tragedy, but for some reason I never instinctively associate it with massive amounts of death, like I do Hamlet and Titus Andronicus. And yet, at the end of the play, there are ten corpses, plus a pair of enfranchised eyeballs. That's some serious tragedy.
"Guys, let's swear not to have anything to do with women for the next three years."
"Hey look! Women!"
"......"
Coming up on Wednesday: murder and mayhem in Macbeth, followed by sex and corruption in Measure for Measure! It's like an HBO marathon.
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The Three-Panel Plays have finally made it past the Henries! Let's get to work summarizing the rest of the canon now, shall we?
Antony is holding Caesar's bloody robe in that second panel. My "bloody robe" drawing skills need work.
Just for fun, here is an alliterative summary of King John:
Plantagenet Pisses off Pope.
Pesky Prince Plummets Prematurely.
Plantagenet Poisoned by Priest.
Stop by again on Monday, when we will be taking a look at King Lear and Love's Labour's Lost!
See all Three-Panel Plays here!
More Three-Panel Plays today! These are the last ones to have any Henries in them, I promise you.
OK, so I had to cheat on this one. I just couldn't summarize the enormous political complexities of Henry VI, part 3 in just three panels. So I added two more. That was enough.
Tudor-style hats are hard to draw. I would like everyone to know that.
On Friday, we go Roman for a moment with Julius Caesar, then switch back to Plantagenets - early Plantagenets, this time - with King John.
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The latest installment of my Three-Panel Play series takes a look at two of the three Henry VIs. It turns out they're not really that complicated. Not really.
White for York. Red for Lancaster. Remember that.
Poor old Henry IV never gets a break. Also, for those of you keeping track, this is the play from which we get the famous quote: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers!"
Next up on Wednesday, the final part of Henry VI and Henry VIII! No more Henries after that, I promise you.
See all Three-Panel Plays here!
I was debating how to celebrate Valentine's Day on this blog, given that it is, as we know it today anyways, a crassly commercial holiday that potentially generates a huge amount of emotional baggage. However, love is, by most accounts, a wonderful thing, and below is a video clip compilation of one of my favorite bits of love-related Shakespeare from As You Like It.
Some background first... If you've never seen As You Like It, this is what you need to know to understand this scene:
Got all that? Good. Here's a compilation of various video productions of As You Like It, specifically the last bit of Act 5, Scene 2.
0:00 - As You Like it, 1936, Elisabeth Bergner, Laurence Olivier, Richard Ainley, Joan White
2:33 - BBC Shakespeare, 1978, Helen Mirren, Brian Stirner, Maynard Williams, Victoria Puncknett
4:56 - As You Like It, 2006, Bryce Dallas Howard, David Oyelowo, Alex Wyndham, Jade Jefferies
7:02 - Shakespeare's Globe, 2009, Naomi Frederick, Jack Laskey, Michael Benz, Jade Williams
That's love, I suppose: confused, mistaken, heartfelt, frustrated, chaotic, poetical, unrequited, and totally deluded.
Anyways... Happy Valentine's Day! I'll be back on Monday with some more Three-Panel Plays for you.
NOTE: One of the clips is owned by the BBC, and thus the video may be blocked in some countries. I will eventually figure out which one it is (presumably the BBC Shakespeare clip) and try to put up a video without it.
I continue our lightning-fast journey through the history plays in today's installment of Three-Panel Plays!
That's Justice Shallow and Mistress Quickly, partying with Falstaff in the first panel. "Falstaff parties" is a recurring motif in these plays.
The trouble with drawing stick-figure archers is that you have to be very clear which sticks are the arms, as opposed to the arrow sticks and the bowstring sticks. If you get them mixed up, nobody will know what is going on. Ah, the subtleties of my "craft"...
Next up, we delve into the Henry VI plays! Yes, it's Wars of the Roses time!
See all Three-Panel Plays here!
