A Midsummer Night’s Dream
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, By William Shakespeare, Adapted by John McDonald, Jason Cardy & Kat Nicolson, Classical Comics
A MIDSUMMER Night’s Dream is one of the bard’s most popular plays, in that it is the one most watched by the general public thanks in part due to it often being enacted out in the open (where all and sundry may chance upon it), also that its central fairy-characters and their scenarios have been adopted by the fantasy genre as bible, and, lest we forget, the 1935 Hollywood film starring a young Mickey Rooney in the part of Puck, or Robin Goodfellow.
It is a tale not far removed from Romeo & Juliet (presumed to be written around the same period) in that there are lovers denied marriage, though this is extrapolated further with more than one relationship astray, and it is a tale than concludes happily, with much of it played out as comedy, rather than that most famous of tragedies.
Shakespeare fiddles with history, myth and folklore to suit his story needs – it all falls apart completely when you consider what Theseus is doing marrying Hippolyta (not Herodotus’ version, and certainly not Wonder Woman’s mother!) in an Athens that’s one step removed from an English countryside so it’s best just to go along for the ride on that score and a pleasing diversionary one it is too.
Like Romeo & Juliet, Hermia and Lysander want to be together and unlike that pair they do meet and attempt to flee the city. However, she is promised to Demetrius who chases after them having been told their whereabouts by Helena (who loves him, but has subsequently been scorned). Are you keeping score? Good. Into that throw Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the Fairies respectively, who are practically a Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor of the magical realms the way they carry on, with the latest reason for their marital dispute being that there’s a human child she won’t give him to be his changeling page. Yeah, I believe that one too! There’s extraneous stuff as well, but it all gels together thanks to the mischievous hobgoblin that is Puck, or Robin Goodfellow.
Under Oberon’s command, Puck spins spells that make the various protagonists fall in love with the wrong person, convoluted further when the hobgoblin gets things wrong, and then when he starts conniving too!
The elements of British farce are held in waiting within this play; it would take the Restoration and the introduction of busty wenches taking the part of boy actors to achieve that completely, but make no mistake it’s there. What keeps A Midsummer Night’s Dream credible beyond that is that it digs deeper - albeit subconsciously even on Shakespeare’s part I’d presume – echoing back to the earlier mummer plays, ancient Greek stage plays, and the origin of theatre itself as a re-enactment of a story for religious education – for it is that age old tale of seasonal regeneration.
We’ve cast them with many names, dependant on the times and places we’ve lived in but the mythical tale remains the same, and despite its use of Athens as a backdrop, it’s firmly the variation our combined English stock took prior to their Christianisation that holds firm here.
Puck is the original version of Loki, the trickster and mischief-maker; the root of whose name is said to come from wildfire while Titania, and all the women folk are golden-haired Sif who was the corn in our farmers’ fields, and it took one from on high (Thor, Woten, or Oberon in this case) to send rains (or other magical works) to prevent damage being caused by fire scorching the corn, and so another year of survival could continue – That’s the simple interpretation, but it holds true; agriculture remained imperative to the nation’s survival, the industrial revolution was centuries away and subsequently we had not built machines to mine en masse or create an empire.
Shakespeare instinctively was aware of this, he rebooted the myth for his times, and because of the power of his words they are the reason his version of the tale survives: it is a tale of hope, and perhaps one we need right now.
So, finally, onto Classical Comics’ version, or versions, for their Shakespeare adaptations come in three printed formats (Original, Plain and Quick, to suit ones reading abilities). First, simply judging a book by its cover, my preference is for the Plain version; the others opt for variations on a movie poster style theme whereas the Plain shows the magically transformed Bottom wearing his nags’ head (where did you think the name of the pub came from!) and embracing a Titania whose piercing eyes tells us she knows more than she is letting on, but her unashamedly smiling face tells us she’s perfectly happy in the moment as it is now – Sure it’s more in keeping with something we’re likely to see on the front cover of Hello! magazine but since the couples photographed on that kind of drivel rarely stay together for long, I’d say it’s more than apt.
Onto the interiors: You may have read my comments on previous occasions where I’ve noted times where it’s great to see that people have actually drawn comics these days. What I mean by that is that they’re people who may have studied life art classes or architecture and understand why things are put together, then how they should work sequentially draughtsman-like across a page, and put those aspects together in an artistic way. I know artists trained in those skills who now use computers to assist them, and I have no problems with computers whatsoever unless you can see they’re covering up mistakes that should have been eliminated at those earlier stages because they actually haven’t got any real drawing or storytelling skills or are trying to dazzle me with super-cool effects just for the sake of it. So as I began to read this book it was quickly apparent that I was looking at wholly computer generated art, but it was done well, and I turned to Classical Comics’ familiar Page Creation sections at the rear to see if they had updated their texts for this book, and they had, and it proved an interesting piece of diversionary reading that I’d like to know a little more about.
Jason Cardy and Kat Nicholson’s creative work is known to me primarily as digital colourists, and they’ve produced well over a hundred pages of comic book art using assorted computer techniques here . There are no hard edges - which I’ve tended to have a preference for in comic works, and but a small reason that I applaud such outstanding inking artists as Mark Farmer so much - rather the work is modelled, as in the way of animation, but the pair have done this gently rather than crisply; the colours themselves range from a lovely pastoral mistiness in our real world (as perceived in the story) to bright elaborate and articulate hues when in the fairy-realm landscapes - which as I write it sounds as if it shouldn’t work for the assorted characters’ personalities but does and I find it not ironic but novel in its truest sense.
The characters themselves have a painted and animated feel towards them, falling squarely into that traditional fantasy theme of personalities that can be twee or evocative dependent on the artist. For the most part the pairing do not stray to the wrong side of the path for me with this. Where the computer generated work becomes most noticeable to me (alas, looking for faults as someone who’s worked as an editor is prone to do by profession rather than any desire) is with their use of perspective: the three dimensionality of a room or a forest tends to be exacting, and again for the most part this works well and I can see how it’s going to progress even further as technology advances but when it combines with figures intended as flesh and blood personifications with the semblance of movement, and where the very medium of comics can use exaggeration or underscoring of space within time as a very factor of storytelling things it can come slightly adrift.
Trust me when I say I think Jason and Kat have done a great, worthwhile and visually very readable work here. The results of their production has lifted a veil from my perhaps blinkered eyes with regards to this kind of work; it’s something I was hoping computer technology could one day achieve and here I find it pretty much has already, with future advancements and the continuing self-education of those who apply it promising much.
John McDonald writes most of Classical Comics’ Shakespeare adaptations (if not all). It is by contrasting the Original, Plain and Quick editions that one notes his contributions to the book (no reader cares that the writer told the artist(s) what was to go in a panel, they only see the lettered word balloons) and we can see that the book is long enough to encompass all of Shakespeare’s words in the Original version without cramping the visual essence of the book, and a quick browsing of the Quick version (I’ve had these books two days, I’d be a liar if I told you I’d read all three from beginning to end) shows that it should be just right for the young to get into, and surprisingly – since I’ve often questioned the marketing purpose and potential financial purpose of the Plain text middle-ground versions of these books, I find myself enjoying that one the most for there are certain abbreviations and slight tendencies towards modernisation of language that I find work well and could find favour with the youth of today (old man that I’m fast becoming!).
Drawing to a conclusion, let’s repeat something I often declare about Classical Comics books: I prefer their other classics to their Shakespearian ones; the Stratford dude’s words come alive more on stage whereas someone like Dickens’ power of description involves one personally in the story and so that translates more efficiently to a long comic book story for me. That stated I’ve enjoyed this adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream an awful lot, quite especially because the computer generated art’s proved to be as successful as it has, and it’s my favourite so far of the company’s Shakespeare adaptations.
Sponsored by Target Media.
