Basis and Process for Comic #1

Act 5, Scene 2, Lines 280-285

LAERTES

He is justly served;
It is a poison tempered by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me. (He dies)

HAMLET

Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.

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"Redemption is a religious concept referring to forgiveness or absolution for past sins and protection from eternal damnation"
- wikipedia.com
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In these lines Laertes forgives Hamlet for killing him and his father, essentially offering to Hamlet, the Christian [and Islamic] principle of redemption. Likewise, Hamlet forgives Laertes for poisoning him. As Laertes dies, Hamlet pronounces that he will follow him in to heaven.
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After Hamlet's long anticipated act of revenge -- where he not only kills Claudius, but also Laertes (lets not forget Poloneous earlier on) -- Shakespeare wipes the slate clean in just five lines. . . so I ask the question: what if they still went to hell?
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Process
*overall I underestimated the time it would take make to create a web comic (its been a looong time since I last used Flash MX). Below is an image of the line work for the first cartoon, which took me 99 layers to complete -- though I could have sacrificed the aesthetic quality to create more comics, part of my goal in making a web comic was to connect Hamlet to a modern audience, and appearence is of importance to colorfully catch a reader's attention. Though stick figure hamlet (http://stickfigurehamlet.com/act4/scene4/page01.html) is ammusing, its simplicity can not carry readers the entire 80 strips (though it would be difficult to make that many had he done it more detailed).


Some choices I made:
-Hamlet's hair is disheveled, has a 5 0'clock shadow, and he wears all black to accentuate his melancholy persona.
-Laertes was given a mustache after the Laertes in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (film)
-that is Claudius in the last frame (thought it makes it funnier to have him pop up and say hello); he too is modeled similarly after the Claudius in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet.
-the palace is based on how I pictured it when reading the play (very brown and red)
-Laertes has been hit three times, and Hamlet once -- just like in the play

List of Death/Afterlife/Character belief related content

- laertes and hamlet forgive each other at the end (retribution)
- hamlet with yoric's skull ('everyone turns to dust in the end')
- Gravedigger's reluctance to dig ophelia's grave due to suicide (christian burial) -- water analogy
-priest's conversation with Laertes about burial rituals; says if it weren't for the king, she'd be burried outside the church graveyard. Laertes claims his sister was pure.
- ghost; acknowledged by the living, therefor apparitions are validated within the play; talks of purgatory
-Horatio warning hamlet not to fight laertes; hamlet asserts that faith guides him (protestant principle)
-Hamlet's indecision about suicide; to be or not to be soliloquy
-Ophelia escapes through death
-Claudius praying -- chooses his current riches/power over going to heaven; never asks for forgiveness.
-hamlet as a martyr figure/christ figure; "The final words of Jesus ("It is finished") and Hamlet ("The rest is silence") are similar, and Horatio beckons the angels to carry Hamlet."
-Gertrude unable to see the ghost
- Hamlet justifying the murder of polonius as an act of god (further indicating his belief in fate/destiny -- a protestant principle)
- general belief of the characters that murder is the ultimate form of revenge
- announcement of one's own death in the play, "oh I am slain" -- polonius
- lack of remorse for committing murder

Hamlet Proposals

Actual project is the web comic medium of #2 with an intent/message similar to proposal #1: to provide satire or commentary on embedded philosophies about death and the afterlife, in the play -- as well as on individual characters' own revelations and views pertaining to the same. The web comic medium is intended to connect Hamlet with a modern audience across the heavily trafficked world wide web. With the use of the original text (fair amount), this project orients itself more toward the group [that was mentioned in my Hamlet on the Web essay,] more fluent in Elizabethan English.
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Proposal #1: a critical essay which focuses on Hamlet’s contribution to philosophical/religious discussion, in Shakespeare’s, and our own time. Specifically, I will be looking at how the audience’s interest in Hamlet’s addressing of the afterlife, has shifted from a religious standpoint to philosophical one. Shakespeare builds the plot on/has the character’s abide by both Catholic and Protestant beliefs (ghost talks of purgatory, while Hamlet states God controls everything before his duel with Laertes); the play was written not too long after the English Reformation, where the Church of England broke away from the Roman Catholic Church, partially influenced by the Protestant Reformation. Today’s audiences – long after the Christian Reformations, and with a growing number of atheists, and agnostics – look to the play for answers/stimulus to their own questions about the afterlife. The diversity that Shakespeare instilled into his characters is what makes the play so appealing to them: Ophelia sees the afterlife as an escape from her misery, Claudius decides his present state of “inherited” power is of greater importance than his well being in the afterlife (therefor does not ask for forgiveness), and Hamlet is balanced in between – uncertain of whether to commit suicide, or to continue to avenge his father’s death, risking his own damnation (kills Polonius and Laertes, and has Rosencrantz and Guildenstern killed).

Proposal #2 (Similar subject matter as the above: religion/afterlife): a web comic which depicts alternative versions of a scene, structured around the beliefs of other philosophies/religions (not Catholic or Protestant). Which scene and what religions has yet to be determined, although the scene would have to deal with the afterlife (encounter with the ghost, Yorick’s grave, the ending, etc. – one of those). There would be a total of 7 strips – one for every day of the week. I was browsing for “Hamlet comic strip” to see if it had been done before, and came across Stick Figure Hamlet (http://stickfigurehamlet.com/act1/scene2/page01.html). It covers the entire play in 80 pages (that’s a lot), so I wanted to do something different/more focused.