Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Hyperion To A Satire

My pal Siskoid has been running a nifty blog called Hyperion To A Satyr, in which he's taking a remarkably in-depth look at several versions of Hamlet (the greatest thing ever written, period), including a couple of comic book adaptations.

It's insanely good and fun, and if you read it you might even see the comment wherein I put forth the theory that Horatio is really a Terminator from the future sent to change Danish history.

[Editor's note: snell actually has never made such a comment. However, snell did actually propose that Hamlet and Horatio are really the same person, a la Fight Club. This is why we usually don't let snell out amongst cultured folks.]

Anyway, as a tribute to Siskoid's ongoing effort, I thought I'd take a look at a comic adaptation of Shakespeare that seemed to escape his notice, namely, the Judge Dredd story from 2000 AD #1174 (2000). And, since this is an English comic, we should expect nothing less than a witty and erudite look at the Bard, right? Right??

OK, let's not panic...just because we're doing a "parody" of Shakespeare In Love more than a year after it came out is no reason not to expect a wry and original take on Hamlet, right? So here's Johnny Zzap as Willy-Boy Shakespeare, in Shakespeare At War!! Remember, it's British, so it's got to be quality!!



"Eat hot lead, Hammy?" Man, the English so do not deserve Shakespeare...[Editor's note to all British readers--snell really doesn't mean that. Please don't hate him]

Yes!! There's a catchphrase we can sink our teeth into!!


No!! Wrong on so many levels...


Oh my dear lord...

Hey, where the hell is Dredd in all of this?


That's more like it...and that will sure raise my hits amongst those googling "Judge Dredd spankings!" And when you actually combine Dredd with Shakespeare?


Genius (of a sort).

Anyway, go read Siskoid's Hamlet blog, or I may be forced to do something like this again. And trust me, in terms of comic book Shakespeare, I can do a whole lot more painful than "Eat hot lead, Hammy." Don't test me...[Editor's note: snell really can't do worse than "Eat hot lead, Hammy." Thank goodness. And when you visit Siskoid's site, don't forget to ask him why he's not covering the Gilligan's Island episode...]

Alan Grant and Siku forgo the better part of valor in the first issue of 2000 AD that actually appeared in 2000 AD.


1 comment:

Siskoid said...

Hahaha! I missed this one last week! Ah man, that's really great.