Big Planet Comics Bethesda hosted creator John K. Snyder III on July 14 for a signing for his adaptation of Lawrence Block’s Eight Million Ways to Die, published by IDW.

There was a steady crowd throughout the two hours, including several friends stopping by to say hello to Snyder, who lived in the area for many years.

Eight Million Ways to Die is getting good reviews so far, including from Publishers Weekly and The Oregonian. While it’s been out in comic shops for few weeks now, it hits regular bookstores tomorrow, July 17.

While that’s Snyder’s most recent release, I was happy to have him sign my copy of the collected edition of Fashion In Action, released last year by Bedside Press after a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Now, if you know a few things about me, you probably know them in this order: I like comics, I like music, and I like clothes. This is a delightful intersection of all those things and I, of course, love it.

Snyder gives us a great collection of heroines that are thoughtful, complex and powerful. True to the name, there is a lot of great fashion and action, but there’s also an exploration of fame and mortality.

That may make it sound heavy, but it’s not — it’s also so much fun with a great post-punk sensibility. It’s clearly a product of the ’80s but it feels surprisingly relevant now.

(I may actually own a few issues of Scout where some it originally appeared. Or I may have just meant to buy them and never did. I should go through some more boxes.)

Fashion in Action is fun and I’m glad it’s in print in such an accessible format so more people can read it.

Kill Shakespeare
Vol. 1
Buy on Amazon.com

I was an English major who would often make jokes about how William Shakespeare was our patron saint (his birthday fell near the end of the semester usually so that was a good day to try to appeal to him for help). Obviously, I like comics.

I don’t think I really need to explain how much I love Kill Shakespeare (IDW, 2010).

Pitting Hamlet, Juliet and Othello against the evil Richard III and Lady Macbeth as they all search for the mysterious wizard known to them as Shakespeare, the concept is ridiculously fun.

While Shakespeare is known for the beauty of his language, I think the non-English major types tend to not realize how violent and sexy his plays are, too. Co-creators and writers Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery blend both these sides with intelligence and playfulness. It’s the perfect mix of literary references and pulp entertainment.

Artist Andy Belanger also brings a good mix of beauty and horror to the title. Complimented by colorist Ian Herring, Belanger’s art switches between epic battle scenes and terrifying encounters to quieter, friendly moments between our main characters. He’s the perfect artist for this title.

While Kill Shakespeare doesn’t particularly require any special knowledge of Shakespeare to enjoy it (basically, if you read anything by Shakespeare in high school, you’ll be fine), there’s still quite a bit going on in this volume. As the first half of the story arc, it’s almost all setup and even though Del Col and McCreery keep things moving and accessible, there are a lot of pieces to keep track of.

But that just means you’ll want to keep reading. This comic isn’t so much about what happens as it is how. It’s a wonderfully smart comic that never disappoints. It will make you want revisit the work of
William Shakespeare himself. And that’s probably the coolest thing about it.

Co-creators Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery will be speaking at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., this Tuesday and it should be a good time.

Review copy provided by creators.

Comicsgirl: I like that Kill Shakespeare includes a broad range of Shakespearean characters, from the ones everyone knows to ones that are more obscure. How did you pick which characters you wanted to include?

Conor McCreery: We always joke that they chose us. After the main characters, though, we did do a bit more work on choosing the cast. Oddly enough we agonized a lot more over the inclusion of the Parolles and Philip the Bastards of the world then we did over Iago or Juliet.

Anthony Del Col: As Conor said, the main characters came very naturally to us. We immediately could see Juliet and Othello fighting together, Falstaff serving as a comedic sidekick/mentor, and Lady Macbeth and Richard III fighting against them. Hamlet was the last main character that we realized should be in it, which is a tad surprising as he is the main character. But once we realized we need to include him it brought everything together.

CG: How do you balance the legacy of Shakespeare with the need to keep the story moving and accessible? Do you feel like you have any responsibility to stay true to the spirit of Shakespeare?

ADC: We’re trying to make Kill Shakespeare appeal to those that love the Bard (by playing fantastic ‘What if?’ games and including Easter Eggs) but – just as important – making his work accessible in a whole new way to new audiences. We know that we could never write anything better than Shakespeare does. He is the best writer of all time – no debate on that. However, we’re trying to shine a spotlight on his characters in a very interesting, unique manner.

CM: True to the spirit? Absolutely. We VERY much want to tell a story that has sophisticated human emotion and that is, at its core, a humanist tale. But we don’t feel too much responsibility to regurgitate
scenes or tropes from Shakespeare’s plays – at least not ALL of them, GRIN.

CG: The reaction overall has been very positive. Have any of the reactions surprised you?

CM: It is always a pleasant surprise when people like your work. I think I might have been a bit surprised at how much intellectual rigor has gone into the criticism (both good and bad) of the work. That’s actually
very flattering.

ADC: The best reactions are the reviews where the writer states that reading Kill Shakespeare has made them want to go back to re-explore a play that they had read/watched in their pasts. Or, on the flip side, hearing from people that are big Shakespeare fans but have never read a comic book before and now want to check out other series. Those are the best reviews we could ever receive.

CG: Neither of you really had much of a background in comics before this. What do you find satisfying about the medium of comics? How does it compare to the other media you’ve worked in?

ADC: I love the instant – and unfiltered – feedback. It’s very creatively fulfilling to be able to put out an issue and talk about it with fans and readers to see what they liked and what they didn’t like. We’ve tweaked aspects of our story as we’ve gone on based on this feedback. I also like that comic readers are very honest with their feedback – if they like or don’t like something, they are NOT shy to tell you. It’s quite refreshing.

CM: I think the speed at which your ideas become reality is very satisfying. Working in film and TV takes a long time and you never know when the whole thing could come unplugged. I’ve also loved the ability of comics to be the perfect delivery system for both melodrama and delicate emotion. Plus in a comic if you want 600 guys on horses charging a 2,000 person army of lizard men, well, you just have to buy your artist a lot of beer.

CG: After Kill Shakespeare wraps up, what are your future plans?

ADC: More Kill Shakespeare, hopefully! We’d love to continue the series beyond the current twelve-issue arc and know what subsequent stories could involve. We’ve had a lot of people ask for more so we’ll see if we can make it happen. We really love working on this series and it would be a dream to be able to continue.

CM: We also had a kid’s show we did together that we’d love to find a home for. And of course we both have a lot of projects that have gathered dust while we worked on Kill Shakespeare. It would be a dream come true if this work gave us the credibility to move some of that forward.

Check back tomorrow for my review of Kill Shakespeare: Vol. 1