Hamlet:
That skull had a tongue in it and could sing once. How the
knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jawbone,
that did the first murder! It might be the pate of a politician,
which this ass now o'er-offices, one that would circumvent
God, might it not?
Hamlet is irritated by the graveyard for mishandling a skull that could belong to an important figure.
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Lines 176-187
Hamlet:
Let me see. (He takes the skull) Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him,
Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.
He hath borne me on his back a thousand times, and now,
how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it.
Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.
Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs?
Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on
a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning? Quite
chapfallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber and tell her,
let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come.
Make her laugh at that.—Prithee, Horatio, tell me one
thing.
Hamlet speaks directly to Yoric's skull, and is conflicted at how someone once full of life is now decayed, and static -- he undergoes a revelation.
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Lines 197-206
Hamlet:
No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty
enough, and likelihood to lead it. As thus: Alexander died
Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust. The
dust is earth, of earth we make loam, and why of that loam,
whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall t'expel the winter's flaw!
Hamlet marvels at the fact that all people -- even great conquerors -- turn to dust in the end. At the beginning of the scene Hamlet was irritated by the gravedigger's mishandling of a skull, but now asks 'why can't/what's to stop Ceasar's dust from being used to fill a whole?'
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Facing eye to eye with the skull of an old friend clearly jolts Hamlet's philosophy and further feeds his preoccupation with death. Hamlet begins the scene uneasy about the gravedigger's handling of the skulls, as well as his cheerful disposition in the graveyard. When he at last recognizes the skull in the gravediggers hands as belonging to Yoric, Hamlet voluntarily pics it up, gazes into its eyes, and begins to speak directly to it.
I browsed youtube for act 5 scene 1, and in every movie it just has Horatio and the gravedigger idly standing while Hamlet speaks to a skull . . . therefor one of the jokes in this comic is the awkwardness of having to stand next to Hamlet during his grim revelation: everyone turns to dust in the end . With that said, the second joke in the comic is an exaggeration of what Hamlet saw/thought at the time -- a mix between memories of Yoric, and the physical characteristics of death in his hands. The skull is a photograph rather than a cartoon to emphasize the physicality of death hamlet is exposed to; the jester hat only appears through his eyes as a result of his memories (also makes him seem crazy).
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Process
Below is an image of the line work for this cartoon, which took 83 layers to complete. This picture is not of the final #2 -- I re-arranged the order horizontally (as well as for the first comic), because I felt it carried better.
Some choices I made:
- Hamlet appears the same, and for the same reasons as strip 1
- I photoshoped an image of a skull, and a jester hat to combine what hamlet saw/thought: memories of Yoric mixed with the physicality of death siting in his palm
- only Hamlet sees the jester's hat
- the graveyard is based off of the one in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (film)
- Horatio and the gravedigger are drawn how I imagined them while reading
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