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Post by Prince Hal on May 28, 2017 22:19:50 GMT -5
I never knew that one of the Mad Thinker's androids was based on a certain glover's son from Stratford:   (There are a few other famous types there, too.) |
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Post by Prince Hal on May 28, 2017 22:31:14 GMT -5
Attention @stevo , Farrar Slam_Bradley Found this item just now and thought of the earlier post about Jack Kirby and Julius Caesar. "What if Shakespearean costumes were designed by an artist who drew superheroes? That would never happen, right? In 1969, Sheldon Feldner contacted Marvel Comics, asking if one of Marvel's artists would be interested in designing costumes for a production of William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar by the University Theatre Company at Santa Cruz at the newly-built Cowell College of the University of California at Santa Cruz.
As luck would have it, the Kirby family had recently moved to California, and Stan Lee recommended that Feldner contact Jack Kirby.
Jack Kirby {wiki} was the creator of such characters as Captain America, The Fantastic Four, and the X-Men. But he went to work designing not only the costumes but also a poster for the student production. His sketches, and some pictures of the actual costumes, are posted at the Kirby Museum. Link -via Metafilter" www.neatorama.com/2010/01/17/shakespeare-with-a-taste-of-marvel/ |
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Post by Hoosier X on May 29, 2017 2:23:39 GMT -5
I haven't had time to look through the Penguin's early appearances to see if he ever quoted Shakespeare (as I seem to recall), but I got Untold Tales of the Batman #2 a few days ago, and Alfred has a flashback that puts together all the little bits of his biographical data scattered through forty years (as of 1980) of Batman comic-book stories. After World War II (in which he helped many refugees escape from Nazi Germany), he was an actor for a time before he had to give it up because his dying father wanted him to remain "in service" (i.e., be a butler).
So there's one panel of Alfred onstage, performing the first line of the "To be or not to be ..." speech, and he's wearing stage clothes that look like the attire you might see in a stage production of "Hamlet" -- but he isn't wearing a wig or makeup. There's Alfred's familiar balding head and his little moustache.
I didn't laugh, but I smiled very broadly. Alfred's stage career was actually wrecked by a low-budget production of "Hamlet" that skimped on wigs and makeup.
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Post by Farrar on May 29, 2017 16:46:18 GMT -5
Attention @stevo , Farrar Slam_Bradley , Found this item just now and thought of the earlier post about Jack Kirby and Julius Caesar. ... Thanks, Hal! Yep, that pic of Flavius--plus the blurb about Sheldon the director, and Stan and Jack--is from the kirbymusem link some of us had posted earlier in this thread. It's several pages back so for convenience here's the link again for those who may want to check it out, it's kirbymuseum.org/blogs/effect/caesar/And while we're on the topic of that production, the Marvels on sale in October 1969 contained this announcement in the Bullpen Bulletins:  Stan (or whoever wrote the text) mistakenly referred to the University at Vera Cruz; a few months later there was this item in the Bullpen Bulletins:  |
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Post by foxley on May 30, 2017 3:18:50 GMT -5
I've been wanting to post this one for some time, but it took me some time to track down what issue it happened in, and then to find a scan of one of the Shakespeare relevant sections. This is from Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #101. In "Olsen's Time-Trip to Save Krypton!", Jimmy (for complicated reasons) travels back in time to attempt to save Krypton by getting the Science Council to take Jor-El's warnings seriously. In the process, he becomes a lab assistant to another scientist. Falling in love with the scientist's daughter Mirri, and woos her using lines stolen from Shakespeare. After he is sentenced to the Phantom Zone (like I said, it's complicated), Miri quotes one of Jimmy's stolen lines back to him as she kisses him and passes him the Elastic Serum that allows him escape. Then Krypton explodes and Jimmy regrets that he never got a chance to tell Miri that the lines were from Shakespeare and not him. This brief summary does not even begin to do justice that is this glorious Silver Age tale. And the implication of this story is that Shakespeare's words sound just as good in Kryptonian as they do in English.  |
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Post by Prince Hal on May 30, 2017 15:28:04 GMT -5
Attention @stevo , Farrar Slam_Bradley Found this item just now and thought of the earlier post about Jack Kirby and Julius Caesar. ... Thanks, Hal! Yep, that pic of Flavius--plus the blurb about Sheldon the director, and Stan and Jack--is from the kirbymusem link some of us had posted earlier in this thread. It's several pages back so for convenience here's the link again for those who may want to check it out: kirbymuseum.org/blogs/effect/caesar/And while we're on the topic of that production, the Marvels on sale in October 1969 contained this announcement in the Bullpen Bullentins: Stan (or whoever wrote the text) mistakenly referred to the University at Vera Cruz; a few months later there was this item in the Bullpen Bulletins: D'oh! Should have double-checked that post! Thanks, Farrar! |
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Post by Prince Hal on May 30, 2017 15:37:07 GMT -5
I've been wanting to post this one for some time, but it took me some time to track down what issue it happened in, and then to find a scan of one of the Shakespeare relevant sections. This is from Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #101. In "Olsen's Time-Trip to Save Krypton!", Jimmy (for complicated reasons) travels back in time to attempt to save Krypton by getting the Science Council to take Jor-El's warnings seriously. In the process, he becomes a lab assistant to another scientist. Falling in love with the scientist's daughter Mirri, and woos her using lines stolen from Shakespeare. After he is sentenced to the Phantom Zone (like I said, it's complicated), Miri quotes one of Jimmy's stolen lines back to him as she kisses him and passes him the Elastic Serum that allows him escape. Then Krypton explodes and Jimmy regrets that he never got a chance to tell Miri that the lines were from Shakespeare and not him. This brief summary does not even begin to do justice that is this glorious Silver Age tale. And the implication of this story is that Shakespeare's words sound just as good in Kryptonian as they do in English. This is a gem, foxley! Like so many Silver Age stories, it tosses in about a hundred different ideas, which is why it's often so difficult to summarize, characterize and/or categorize them. This is truly something rich and strange... |
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Post by Prince Hal on May 30, 2017 15:52:53 GMT -5
Here's a Vigilante story from Action 65 with a bad guy named "Shakes." It ends with Vig tellling Stuff ruefully, "If Shakes had only used his poetic gift for good purposes, he might have made a wothy contribution ot literature." To whihc Stuff responds, "uh-Huh --- This poetry stuff ain't bad once ya get the hang of it -- "I wanderedd lonely as a cloud" -- Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la." Well, it ain't Shakespeare, but "ya" have to love it when the Vigilante's sidekick is quoting Wordsworth!  |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2017 8:14:20 GMT -5
Here's a Vigilante story from Action 65 with a bad guy named "Shakes." It ends with Vig tellling Stuff ruefully, "If Shakes had only used his poetic gift for good purposes, he might have made a wothy contribution ot literature." To whihc Stuff responds, "uh-Huh --- This poetry stuff ain't bad once ya get the hang of it -- "I wanderedd lonely as a cloud" -- Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la." Well, it ain't Shakespeare, but "ya" have to love it when the Vigilante's sidekick is quoting Wordsworth! I read that story a year ago at a friend's place and I like the poetry in this story very much and I find it quite amusing! |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 7, 2017 20:53:33 GMT -5
This could be the subject of an entire thread by itself: The misuse of the word "wherefore"  |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 7, 2017 20:57:49 GMT -5
One more for good measure...  |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 8, 2017 14:01:23 GMT -5
The great Robby Reed weighed in on Shakespeare and comics here: www.dialbforblog.com/archives/45/I saw that Classics Illustrated Romeo and Juliet the other day and just didn't have time to mention that the Romeo on the cover (a 1956 issue) looks just like Laurence Harvey, who played Romeo in a 1954 movie.   |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 16, 2017 21:17:59 GMT -5
Oh, beware my lord of jealousy; it is... a cartoony witch!  |
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Post by berkley on Jun 16, 2017 23:26:33 GMT -5
I never knew that one of the Mad Thinker's androids was based on a certain glover's son from Stratford: (There are a few other famous types there, too.) Who do we have there? Nietzsche and probably Plato, or maybe Socrates, at the table, I suppose. Shakespeare and Lincoln (why Lincoln?) on our left but no idea about the two on the right, unless the guy in the vaguely Chinese-looking clothing is Confucius or Lao Tzu or whoever. What is it from, BTW? I'm guessing something from the 80s by the look. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 17, 2017 12:35:30 GMT -5
Quoting Hamlet's father's ghost...  and Jaques...  |
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