Of all the writers in the English language, there is perhaps no one as famous as the late William Shakespeare. Whether or not you actually care for his work (personally, I am a big fan), one has to admit that his fame eclipses every other writer in our tongue. Dickens was a fad. Twain was a nobody. For better or for worse, Shakespeare left a mark on in the English literary canon that obscures anyone who came before and everyone who followed. Likewise, Hamlet is often thought of as the Bard’s defining work. Here, the competition is a bit less clean-cut, with Romeo & Juliet perhaps being more embedded in pop culture, but it is hard to see someone holding a skull pensively without thinking of Bill’s name. A multifaceted, twisting drama of betrayal and madness, Hamlet is considered by many to be the iconic Shakespearean play.
…and Ryan North, creator of “Dinosaur Comics” and current writer of the “Adventure Time” spin-off comic, has decided to make a choose-your-own-adventure out of it — well, not technically, because that’s a copyrighted term, but you get what I mean. Enter To Be Or Not To Be: That Is The Adventure.
The Why: Ryan North is one of the funniest, most inventive guys currently working in this industry. Take a look at his longest-running project, “Dinosaur Comics.” For almost ten whole years, North has been making a comic strip based off of the “gimmick” that each installment has the same exact layout, only with different text. Somehow, over the span of this decade, it has avoided coming off as formulaic or repetitive. That isn’t gimmickry — that is honest-to-god talent. If “Dinosaur Comics” isn’t enough to sell you on North’s ability, though, have you read his “Adventure Time” comics? North has been able to harness the imaginative energy of the show without making the comic seem like a half-hearted effort — these aren’t storyboards that wish they could be episodes, these are full-fledged, A-grade comics that could only work in that medium.
Of course, To Be or Not To Be is not technically a comic. I know, four columns in, and half of them are only tangentially related to our site’s subject matter, but hey, I embrace that tangent. Besides, as comic fans, we should be willing to support other marginalized mediums, and as much as we might be the victim of having our favorite art form labeled as “kid stuff,” North is using a format that has almost entirely been reserved for children’s books to create a story for adults. Just because the book itself is humorous doesn’t mean North isn’t taking the medium seriously; in his preview video, North stresses that since the chooseable-path book has almost exclusively been used for children, there is a lot of unexplored ground in terms of experimentation with the medium that he tried to chart. This isn’t a novelty for him, it’s a true creative endeavor, and that’s wonderful. After seeing what Mike Carey and Peter Gross did with the chooseable-path narrative in “The Unwritten” about a year ago, I have been waiting for more to take the risk and dabble in this under-valued field, and North is just the guy to do it.
The book isn’t just written by someone who writes comics, though; every death scene will be illustrated by a who’s who of webcomic artists: literature and history buff Kate Beaton, choose-your-own-adventure guru Andrew Hussie, Multiversity favorite Jim Zub, wonderfully demented comics artist Chip Zdarsky, pioneer of the absurd Ethan Nicolle, all-around funny guys Anthony Clark and KC Green… the list is enormous, and represents some of the top talent putting their work out by themselves on the internet and beyond (as you can guess, there are a lot of deaths). While I personally love the work of so many of the artists listed, I almost wish Beaton was illustrating the whole thing — her spot illustrations on the Kickstarter page are pretty much perfect. Somehow, though, I can live with the outstanding cast North has assembled. So, it’s not a comic, but it is written by a comic writer and illustrated by comics artists, so it’s close enough, right?
Continued belowThe Incentives: For $15 you get a digital copy of the book, but for only $5 more ($20 total for those of you comically bad at math) you get both the digital copy and a physical paperback. With that minute of a difference in price, it is understandable that almost ten times as many people have chosen to donate $20 over those who donated $15 (at the time of writing this, at least), and that’s the “target” I would recommend to the average person. Note, however, that if you donate another $5 more, you get both the Dinosaur Comics temporary tattoos originally listed on the sidebar, for the mature adult you are, and a special, choose-your-own-adventure bookmark, so that’s worth considering, too. For those who are completely sold on this book, $50 will get you a hardcover with a fancy slipcase that can be reversed, or you can donate $55 for three softcovers, just in time for the holidays.
Perhaps the coolest of the incentives that the average Joe can afford throwing money down on are the two “I WANT TO PUT THINGS ON MY BODY AND WALLS” packs, regular and super, which give you the book, both digital and physical, tattoos, bookmark, stickers, three Dinosaur Comics ebooks that everyone gets, and flowchart poster of the entire book. This incentive is $60 or $90, depending on whether you want the softcover or the hardcover, respectively, and the $90 donation also automatically qualifies you for an audiobook of the whole thing (requires a $75 donation otherwise). There are some nice incentives for those of you that are well-to-do, as well, including a Dinosaur Comics strip on a topic of your choice, a painting from North, and a personalized new adventure gamebook, which you can see the details of on the site’s sidebar.
I almost feel bad plugging this book for this weekly column. After all, there are many struggling projects out there that need the boost more, considering this one has already sextupled its original $20,000 goal. Still, as North promises, “The more money we raise, the better the book will be,” and as various milestones have been reached, more rewards have been given out, such as a free prequel called Poor Yorick that will only be available to Kickstarter patrons. Of the remaining markers, North promises that “one of these involves all the world being a stage, metaphorically, but also involves how some parts of the world are an actual and literal stage.” Might we see To Be Or Not To Be: That Is The Adventure in the round? There’s only one way to find out. Add to that the fact that all of the publisher’s profits go to charity, and you can be sure that this project is worth supporting well past its goal. North is a fellow of infinite jest, and I positively cannot wait to hold this book in my hands — and you shouldn’t be able to, either.
