Multiversity Comics Presents: Kill Shakespeare’s Creative Team at WonderCon

Anthony Del Col: My name is Anthony Del Col and I am the co-creator and co-writer of Kill Shakespeare. I have various media background and business background in Canada ranging from producing independent feature films to managing artists in the music industry.

Andy Belanger: My name is Andy Belanger and I’m the artist on Kill Shakespeare. I’ve been a comic book artist for about 4-5 years now. I work out of Toronto in a studio called The Raid Studio with 5 or 6 other comic book artists. I sort of got my break with Wildstorm, I’ve worked for DC, Moonstone, Boom!, Devil’s Due. I have a book called Raising Hell on the Transmission X web comic site and an ongoing series with DC’s Zuda site called Bottle of Awesome, and now I’m kickin’ it with Shakespeare.

Conor McCreery: My name is Conor McCreery and I’m also the co-writer co-creator of Kill Shakespeare. I also have a background in independent film in Canada as well as broadcast news and journalism.

So let’s get started with a question we ask all creators: Why comics?

Anthony: Why comics for me? I’ve never been a big comic book fan myself. I’m the Shakespeare geek of the two of us, but with respect to comics, it was about 5 or 6 years ago when Conor was working in a retail store in Toronto and he introduced me to the depths of stories that are being told these days from The Walking Dead to Y: The Last Man to Blankets. And I started to garner a real appreciation for the art form and what you could do inside and outside the panel. So when it came time to decide what medium to do to Kill Shakespeare, comics we thought really captured the kinetic action and the energy of the series.

Andy: As far as bringing Shakespeare into comics, when they came at me with the idea, it just sounded like a good match. These characters, the way they wanted to approach it and the story telling style just kind of made sense and gave me a chance to show my chops in a new market.

Conor: Like Anthony said, I was a comic geek from a very young age so for me doing something in comics…there’s so much freedom in comics. And one thing I do really think about comics is that it’s a very democratic art form. People don’t realize this, but you can choose as a reader how the comic affects you. It’s not like a film where the editor decides where the cut comes or even a book where it’s hard to go back and reread something. In a comic you can flip pages, look at a panel as long as you want and I think there’s something special about that. And especially with Shakespeare, he wrote plays to be performed and not read. A comic book is kinetic and I think uniquely suited to Shakespeare, maybe better than any other art form, except for the stage.

Let’s get a rundown of all the major characters in the book. If you want to list a few of your favorites or any that have the most screen time in the first issue.

Anthony: Sure. We basically have a smorgasbord of the greatest Shakespearean characters of all time. We have Hamlet, who is our main character. We take him from the play Hamlet and he washes ashore on this land and he everyone he meets are other Shakespeare characters. On the “good side,” we have Juliet, Othello, Falstaff, Puck, and another character who shows up that I can’t mention. We have Lady Macbeth, Richard III, Iago, I mean; we throw everything from Lysander and Demetrius to Orsino or Narissa. It’s a greatest hits of Shakespeare’s characters.

You mentioned you had some influences from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Fables, what other influences do you have besides those or Shakespeare?

Conor: For me I love some of the work of Warren Ellis.; something like Trasnmet. Writing this, there was a lot of League or Fables, but I really like something like Black Hole by Charles Burns, it’s a weird influence, but he writes a really “true” story, and one of the things we were trying to do and something that Andy has done really well with is art, is that even though this is a fantastical story, there are a lot of real moments that are very real, and sometimes very terrifying. I think Andy has done such a great job of taking some of these magical influences and making it seem like a slice of life comic. I think that’s the neatest thing about Kill Shakespeare, is that it does combine this high epic fantasy with really intense human moments.

Andy: Black Hole by Charles Burns. My favorite comic [laughs]. It’s funny he mentioned it because I always mention it. My big influence for this book has been a lot of European stuff. Milo Manara, Serpieri; their work is sort of what I’m aspiring to, but under North American deadlines, you know what I mean? Like I really want this book to be really lush with forest with beautiful castles, and I really want you to get a sense of you are there in this world. I find a lot of times in North American comics, and there are time constraints, but I find that when there aren’t a lot of backgrounds in comics you just kind of glaze over a lot and I want each panel for you to explore and go “I really wish I was in that forest or I really wish I could explore that castle” That’s sort of what I was going for. As far as North American influences, I really love Olivier Coipel and Duncan Fregredo. Their work on Siege and Thor and Hellboy just blow my mind. And Fegredo’s backgrounds are just fantastic.

Conor: Sorry, I’m going to hijack this for a second but Andy, I’m curious, which of the characters do you like drawing the best?

Andy: It’s funny. I’ll tell you which one is the hardest. I really have a hard with a guy–Hamlet is our main character–and so far he’s been the biggest struggle for me. I think I struggle with the every man. It’s like Johnny Depp. When he plays a normal guy, it seems really off-putting, but when he plays Captain Sparrow or Edward Scissorhands, he’s like the coolest guy. Hamlet’s very difficult because he’s the Every Man, so that’s the one I really have to work hard on. But my favorite is–my first favorite was Falstaff, because in comics are usually super fit or normal, but Falstaff is like this really jolly, fun to draw, awesome shapes, awesome kinetic energy. But then I started drawing Othello, and now he’s my favorite. He’s like my Incredible Hulk of Shakespeare. Issue #4 is like a Blaxploitation of Othello just kicking butt. It’s so much fun to draw. Issue #3 with Falstaff is also just fantastic. It gave me a chance to do a lot of comedic stuff with his facial features. There are a lot of comedic elements and Falstaff is just hilarious in issue #3.

Anthony: And each of the issues that we’ve done, have their own little genre. The first is the introduction, the second is dark almost horror type story, the third one is our comedy, with woody pratfalls and whatnot and cross-dressing. The fourth is what Andy likes to call our Blaxploitation but uh–

Does he have an afro?

Andy: No. He’s bald, but he has the attitude man. He’s badass.

Anthony: He’s like Samuel L. Jackson badass. Issue #4 is Blaxploitation but #5 is more reflective. So I mean each issue is kind of you know one of the fun things we’ve done is that each issue stands alone on itself with the tone it presents.

Andy: Yeah, I model Othello after Eko from LOST.

Whoa!

Andy: Yeah, Mr. Eko.

Anthony: Whose name I don’t know how to pronounce.

Adewale?

Andy: Yeah, you got it! He’s a fantastic actor, I loved him in Oz and I love him in LOST, and if they cast the Kill Shakespeare movie tomorrow I hope they would cast him as Othello, because he’s just a wicked, wicked actor and a badass.

Conor: And actually like Mr. Eko, our Othello at first glance is just one thing, but the more you get to know him, and again, the more you realize the real, human elements of Othello, who arguably has the most tragic story in all of Shakespeare.

So are there any Shakespearean Easter Eggs in the play? I love Bottom for instance; will we see a beefed up role?

Conor: You’ve got me thinking we should have Bottom cameo somewhere as a Donkey, but uh, part of it’s writing, we do have some characters we think it’s fun to toss in the background and part of is that as Andy made the series more his own, I think there’s an interesting dance with writers and artists about how to find that middle ground between where we put stuff on the page and where Andy putting stuff on the page. I think Andy done more and more fun things with–I mean, look at the names of the taverns. That will be a hint to the fans, look at the names of the taverns and meeting places.

Andy: As far as when I’m coming at the artwork, I have my own goals with what I’m putting into it, but it’s funny you should mention this, but if we’re going to load it with even more Shakespearean stuff in the background we’ll have to put it there. But I’m excited to put it there. If you told me put this guy here, I would go crazy with it.

Anthony: the thing with the series, we’re putting those Easter Eggs here and there, but we’re not crafting the story so it’s just for Shakespearean audiences. If you know nothing about Shakespeare other than having heard about Hamlet or Falstaff or Othello, then I mean you’ll easily b able to get into it, because these are just great characters. Right off the bat you know you Hamlet is, you understand him, you understand his quest, and then along the way you meet everybody and you realize that at first they may appear as one thing but then they’ll appear as something else. We’re crafting it so its modern day language with Shakespeare references, because we didn’t want to get bogged down by language and it’s accessible for everyone.

When you go into the scripting phase, since there are three of you and you all have to work together, how much writing do you contribute and how much freedom does Andy have?

Conor: You don’t give Andy freedom. He takes it. By force

Anthony: He’s William Wallace!

Conor: We write every panel. And we write in how we think it should look. But Andy’s more experienced than we are, and we hired Andy because he’s a great story teller himself. He’s not just a pencil for hire. One of the great things about is when Andy makes suggestions and it’s exciting when we’re all on the same page. Andy will do something and we’ll be like “That’s such a great idea!” or we’ll suggest something to Andy and he’ll be like “yeah! I love that!” I think we work really well as a team and we all respect the other person’s mindset.

Andy: The scripts the guys are giving me are just fantastic. I love working from them, they’re very detailed, very precise, which I like. It gives me room to actually go in there and it’s not my goal in there and change anything. If I think it works a little better, I’ll make a suggestion. When it started, when we were deciding where we wanted to go there was some butting heads. But finally it happened and now we have a lot of people complimenting us on it.

Conor: I think we can say Andy was right.

Anthony: I will not admit that.

Andy: [Laughs] They came to me with issue #3 and I don’t think I really changed anything. I added some cool stuff I wanted to do in the background and they loved it. I was reading issue #3 while drawing issue three and I was thinking this script, especially for issue #3, is awesome. I was laughing out loud when I was working on it, drawing it, I was having a blast, it was really funny. There are some scenes with Falstaff in there that when I was drawing it I was just laughing my ass off. Really well done stuff. And with issue #4 it’s just really straight ahead. Everything they’re giving me works. I have situations where I don’t want to do something, right, if you know it’s going to make me fall asleep when I’m working on it I’ll try to jazz it up, but that doesn’t happen. I love every panel. It’s so much fun.

Anthony: What’s cool is that with the first couple issues with Andy is that Conor and I as the co-writers, we’re learning a lot, and we’re learning a lot about the craft of writing comics, I think our scripts are getting better as we go along.

Now that we talked about going between writer and artist; how about between two writers? How do you guys not kill each other when you’re trying to kill Shakespeare?

Conor: We work in different rooms, in different houses in different houses in different parts of the city of Toronto. [Laughs] No I mean, it’s like everything else, you go back and forth, and I mean in the end it’s about who’s most passionate about something. And we bring different things to table. Anthony has a good editorial mind and he’s good with grand scenes and I love smaller moments. I love it when characters have a moment where they steal the scene and Anthony makes sure I don’t do that too much so it hurts the story.

Anthony: It’s been great working with Conor on it. We both have our strengths and weaknesses. We add different elements to it. For instance, Conor is great at dialogue. WE trade off, and there are somethings we’re passionate about.

How did the three of you get together?

Anthony: Conor and I met almost 10 years ago now. Conor and I went to the business school but didn’t actually know each other and only got to know each other when we were both working in film. We met with the intention of stabbing each other in the back but found out we had similar sensibilities with respect to the films and the stuff we want to work on. We worked in children’s telelvision and about 5 or 6 years ago we came up with the idea for Kill Shakespeare.

Andy: About 18 months ago these guys approached me looking for an artist. I did a bunch of sample work for them to look for publishers and get funding and stuff like that. It’s just been really awesome because at every turn these guys just deliver. Working with these guys has just been amazing. The strategies they have completely go with what I feel needs to happen to comics. I find a big problem with comics is marketing. A lot of people have a great idea, and I get approached all the time about working on stories, and I think “I can do this,” but what’s the point of it if you don’t have an amazing business strategy?” Are you going to go out there and do what it takes to get the job done? These guys know what they’re doing and it’s good to see. It makes my three all-nighters, four all-nighters worth it.

You mentioned going to different publishers going around trying to shop the book. How difficult was it to land at IDW, which is the biggest publisher that doesn’t start with an “M” or a “D?”

Anthony: We were surprised at how easy it was for us. But I think it’s not because it was easy but because we came in with a good game plan. Before we talked to Andy we went to private investors to help pay for Andy and take care of marketing costs and overhead costs, and we had a very tight package in terms of character design and sample pages, you know, we knew exactly what was going to happen in each of the twelve issues. So when we sat down with publishers in February at NYCC they were quite impressed, at the end of the day we had five different publishers who were interested in the property. We signed with IDW for a number of reasons. One, we like the people at the company, we like where they’re going. They used to be 7th or 8th, then 3rd or 4th, now they’re a premiere publisher. We knew they were a company that was really on the right, and we liked how aggressive they were on the digital front, which is important because we were really looking forward to seeing Kill Shakespeare on iTunes, which it will be on April 20th.

April 20th. And that has special significance why?

Anthony: I’m glad you asked that. That’s the same week of Shakespeare’s birth and death. Shakespeare being the dramatist and entertainer he is, was born on April 23rd and died on April 23rd. The fact we’re releasing the app that week is very significant.

What’s it been like to work for IDW?

Anthony: IDW has been great to work with. They have given us a lot of creative freedom which is what we wanted. Tom Waltz, our editor has given us some feedback, but for the most part, they’re really excited about what we’ve done. They’re really jazzed about Andy’s artwork. They’ve called him repeatedly just to compliment him on it. And from a business perspective, everything’s been great. We’ve been working with [Marketing Director] AnnaMaria White and [VP of Sales] Alan Payne about getting the individual issues and the graphic novels out. Getting buzz out. They’re top class.

Andy: Yeah, I had wanted to work with IDW for a long time. My big thing was most of the work I had been doing had been doing–most of the work I DO–sort of web based. I love doing it and I mean, the ultimate goal with the stuff coming out in print. And that’s the goal of every comic book artist is to see stuff in print, but they’re giving me a chance to do an in print monthly series. Which is really hard to do I find. I’ve been able to do a one-shot here, six pages there, a cover there. For me I want to be a storyteller, and the only way to do that is to do a twelve issue series. I’ve been after that for a long time. And not even six issues, I wanted twelve. I wanted long format storytelling stuff so I can really explore what I want to do, and to come away with the kind of stories I want. It’s really fun to do the one fun issue here and there, but the fulfilling thing for me is to try and do something that’s longer format, and they’re giving me a chance to, working with them is great. And they contact me mostly to give me compliments and stuff. But most of that stuff is with Anthony and Conor. They take care of that for me, and relay messages, and it’s just a great team. Everything is just meshing so well.

You mentioned before the interview that you had a mentor in Darwyn Cooke. Were there any other people like that? Who were they?

Andy: In Toronto there are maybe 10-15 artists, and I call Darwyn the mentor because we all have a piece of Darwyn in us in Toronto. All of us in our artistic sensibilities, how we come at a page for storytelling, our inking style all comes from him. But my first big influence comes from Stuart Immonen. I went to school in London, Ontario. And while I was going there, Stuart and his wife Kathryn moved there to raise their son Connor. And they held a drink and draw every week. I would go and watch him draw and get pointers here and there and they were so good to me. They treated me almost like family. I mean they helped me move once. It was really funny. I used to go into his studio and was really jazzed because it was something I wanted really badly. He really helped by example on how to do. Moving to Toronto was the key. If you’re Canadian, it’s really hard to make this kind of living and not live in Toronto.

All of a sudden, working as a hydro reader was gone and I had a career. So mentor wise, he was one. Darwyn Cooke, I learned a lot by talking to him, but I would say one of the biggest guys who have helped me with storytelling who has been hands on with me has been Cameron Stewart. He’s one of my best buddies and when he was in the studio I would show him my layouts and we go over them, and he was awesome about it. I owe a lot to Cameron Stewart. But in the studio now, some of my biggest influences–well, I wouldn’t say influences but guys I rap back and forth to about comics are Ramon Perez, we talk about business a lot, and Scott Hepburn who was working on Star Wars last year. Scott has a brilliant design sense and he helps me a lot. I find that feedback is the most important thing. I think any of the guys that out of all of all of us that I’m the guy who’s always trying to improve. You always have to be a student in life. You should always learn how to improve your work and how it can help you. And I think rapping back and forth is important. We have a thing in Toronto called the Superman Club.

I’m already a fan, I love Superman!

Andy: Yeah, it’s called the Superman Club and Darwyn and those guys started it, Mike Cho and Steve McNally. A lot of those guys show up and we go to the comic book shop and then have lunch and talk about work, talk about comics, etc.

Anthony: How come I’ve never been invited?

Andy: I don’t know, you’re always invited! But to be honest it’s kind of a clique-y thing, but you’re always invited. But as far as mentors go, that’s my history. I‘ve learned from a lot of great guys. My dad was a tennis player and he used to say if you want to get better, play with people who are going to kick your ass, because that’s the only way you’re going to get better. And that’s my feeling about it. I met Dave Johnson, and I can’t wait to keep in contact with him and learn from him. Guys who think they know it all and ya know, and don’t need to learn anything are going nowhere, and it’s your future. Get together with other artists to get better yourself.

Conor had to go get ready for the Shakespeare panel, but Anthony, you said you had a background in film, so who were your influences in film or do you have any in comics now?

Anthony: Influences for this project are a lot of the film versions of the plays. Movies like Shakespeare in Love.

Which is an underrated movie by the way.

Andy: Polanski’s Macbeth is awesome.

Anthony: Yeah, Macbeth is good, but Tom Stoppard, the writer or Shakespeare in Love and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead would probably be the biggest influence. What he did was turn either Shakespeare’s characters or Shakespeare’s character and put them into a different format that was accessible to everyone. Not only the language in terms of language and grossed $200 Million worldwide. He took Shakespeare and turns him from the stuffy guy you see in portraits into something of a romantic hero. Someone everyone can relate to. And in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, he was able to take two buffoons and kind of tell the story of Hamlet from a new perspective. His screenplays appeal to the average person and the Shakespeare buffs, so he was a major influence.

I liked how you put Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in it and put a different spin on it. They weren’t sell outs; they were good guys, what made you go that route instead of just painting them to be sellouts you don’t even see?

Well the great thing about all his plays is that Shakespeare left a lot of stuff open to interpretation. It would happen off stage, and you would just hear about it, like for instance the pirate battle. Hamlet was on the ship with his buddies and the ship is attacked by pirates and you hear about it, but you never see it. That’s a jumping on point for our story, and you see all that here. It’s a great jumping on point for our story. There’s a lot that William Shakespeare didn’t writer, so let’s fill it in with our own interpretation. Conor has always been moved by the fact that while Hamlet’s father has been killed, you never really see anyone that’s upset that Claudius took over. So Conor back in High School, his interpretation was that Hamlet’s father wasn’t a great king. So we played around with the idea that maybe Hamlet realized that his father wasn’t the best for Elsinore that Claudius has taken over. So I mean, there are a lot of gray areas where we’re filling in the blanks and doing out own interpretations and we think is quite interesting that Shakespeare fans will get and people who aren’t will go “Ok, that’s an interesting element.”

Well, that’s all I got now, and you guys gotta get to that panel, so this is Gil signing off. Be sure to pick up Kill Shakespeare on April 14th!