comic#1 comic#2 comic#3 comic#4
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Comic's Title: Something's Rotten in the State of Denmark
*first blog entry for the 'My Hamlet Project' is titled "Hamlet Proposals"
*7 entries in all [including this one]
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Basis and Process for Comic #4
Act 3, Scene 4, Line 25
Polonius:
O, I am slain.
Polonius . . . announcing his death.
Lines 159-166
Hamlet:
Once more, good night,
And when you are desirous to be blest,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,
I do repent. But heaven hath pleased it so,
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow, and will answer well
The death I gave him.
Hamlet says that his murder of Polonius was an act of faith (Protestant belief) meant to do two things: to punish Hamlet with another murder to repent for, and to punish Polonious
-----------------------
Three jokes exist within the fourth strip of the web comic:
1. Hamlet's lack of remorse, as he proclaims the murder to be an act of faith (as well as the ones he commits in the final act); I have God arrive in the scene to counter-act the 'slander' against him.
2. The general violent nature of the play (suicides, murders, ect.), which I show through an exaggerated amount of blood on Hamlet's clothing and on the tapestry (juxtaposed against a heavanly figure -- judge).
3. Polonius' announcement of his own death; I try to make it more ridiculous by having him say the line well after he is presumed dead by the other characters in the strip.
=============================
Process
It took 69 layers to complete the final web comic for the 'My Hamlet Project'. Although I feel it looks the best out of the four, I must admit that the rhythm is choppier than the others. With little time left to complete a fourth comic (I though three was too few) I could not spend as much time with the continuity of this strip as I did with the previous ones. Overall, I am satisfied with the way my project turned out -- if it were to become an actual web comic, the content would need to expand beyond death related scenes in the play.
Some choices I made:
- a portrait of Claudius was placed above Gertrude's head to allude to the conversation that had taken place
- the bedroom was drawn how I imagined it to look like
- tapestry where Polonius was stabbed is included on the right side of the background (ripped from Hamlet's sword)
- Gertrude was modeled after the Gertrude in Mel Gibson's Hamlet
- "heaven" replaced with "God" to make the joke more clear
Polonius:
O, I am slain.
Polonius . . . announcing his death.
Lines 159-166
Hamlet:
Once more, good night,
And when you are desirous to be blest,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,
I do repent. But heaven hath pleased it so,
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow, and will answer well
The death I gave him.
Hamlet says that his murder of Polonius was an act of faith (Protestant belief) meant to do two things: to punish Hamlet with another murder to repent for, and to punish Polonious
-----------------------
Three jokes exist within the fourth strip of the web comic:
1. Hamlet's lack of remorse, as he proclaims the murder to be an act of faith (as well as the ones he commits in the final act); I have God arrive in the scene to counter-act the 'slander' against him.
2. The general violent nature of the play (suicides, murders, ect.), which I show through an exaggerated amount of blood on Hamlet's clothing and on the tapestry (juxtaposed against a heavanly figure -- judge).
3. Polonius' announcement of his own death; I try to make it more ridiculous by having him say the line well after he is presumed dead by the other characters in the strip.
=============================
Process
It took 69 layers to complete the final web comic for the 'My Hamlet Project'. Although I feel it looks the best out of the four, I must admit that the rhythm is choppier than the others. With little time left to complete a fourth comic (I though three was too few) I could not spend as much time with the continuity of this strip as I did with the previous ones. Overall, I am satisfied with the way my project turned out -- if it were to become an actual web comic, the content would need to expand beyond death related scenes in the play.
Some choices I made:
- a portrait of Claudius was placed above Gertrude's head to allude to the conversation that had taken place
- the bedroom was drawn how I imagined it to look like
- tapestry where Polonius was stabbed is included on the right side of the background (ripped from Hamlet's sword)
- Gertrude was modeled after the Gertrude in Mel Gibson's Hamlet
- "heaven" replaced with "God" to make the joke more clear
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Basis and Process for Comic #3
Act 1, Scene 5, line 9 - 25
Ghost:
I am thy father's spirit,
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combinèd locks to part
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fearful porpentine.
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love—
Hamlet:
O God!
Ghost:
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
--------------------
In these lines the ghost introduces itself to Hamlet as the spirit of his father (shocks Hamlet) and then asks for his son's commitment to revenge his murder. Once Hamlet accepts the call (text not given above), the ghost remarks:
Duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,
Wouldst thou not stir in this.
Essentially saying something is would be wrong with Hamlet if he didn't get riled up about the situation, and the presence of his father's apparition.
-------------------------
The fact that the ghost is seen by the guards, and then Horatio -- who is said to be scholarly -- is enough to convince Hamlet of the apparition's existence. When the ghost is directly introduced to the reader as it speaks to Hamlet (we hear it with him), the existence of apparitions are validated within the world of the play, and possibly implied by Shakespeare in his own world. However, in modern times many are skeptic of whether ghosts exist ( I don't believe in them) . . . so what would happen if the most characteristic figure of the play (in the sense that Hamlet is one of the most notorious ghost stories) -- the one who sets the 'call', and starts the action -- doesn't actually exists? To answer that question, there would be no play -- and to a degree, there lies the joke of the third strip, where I have Horatio dress up as King Hamlet's Ghost as a joke (invalidating the existence of ghosts). The fact that it is a prank between best friends, over the serious conflict of the actual play (murdered father), heightens the punchline.
=============================
Process
The line work for this comic only took 64 layers to complete -- a significantly less amount than the other two, since my familiarity with the program increases with each comic I make. At this point, the style seems to have [fully] developed (you can see that the first comic looks a little different than the others).
Some choices I made:
- Elsinore Castle was modeled after the ghost scene in Mel Gibson's Hamlet
- some lines from the ghost's dialogue had to be cut, in order to neatly fit in the frame
- first comic where I added new text (necessary for the punchline)
- Horatio is the one under the white sheet, as the joke contradicts his "scholarly" nature
- The ghost is originally cut off after he says "If thou didst ever thy dear father love—" by Hamlet saying "O God." I keep the same break, but replace it with Hamlet asking the ghost if it is Horatio dressed up.
Ghost:
I am thy father's spirit,
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combinèd locks to part
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fearful porpentine.
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love—
Hamlet:
O God!
Ghost:
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
--------------------
In these lines the ghost introduces itself to Hamlet as the spirit of his father (shocks Hamlet) and then asks for his son's commitment to revenge his murder. Once Hamlet accepts the call (text not given above), the ghost remarks:
Duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,
Wouldst thou not stir in this.
Essentially saying something is would be wrong with Hamlet if he didn't get riled up about the situation, and the presence of his father's apparition.
-------------------------
The fact that the ghost is seen by the guards, and then Horatio -- who is said to be scholarly -- is enough to convince Hamlet of the apparition's existence. When the ghost is directly introduced to the reader as it speaks to Hamlet (we hear it with him), the existence of apparitions are validated within the world of the play, and possibly implied by Shakespeare in his own world. However, in modern times many are skeptic of whether ghosts exist ( I don't believe in them) . . . so what would happen if the most characteristic figure of the play (in the sense that Hamlet is one of the most notorious ghost stories) -- the one who sets the 'call', and starts the action -- doesn't actually exists? To answer that question, there would be no play -- and to a degree, there lies the joke of the third strip, where I have Horatio dress up as King Hamlet's Ghost as a joke (invalidating the existence of ghosts). The fact that it is a prank between best friends, over the serious conflict of the actual play (murdered father), heightens the punchline.
=============================
Process
The line work for this comic only took 64 layers to complete -- a significantly less amount than the other two, since my familiarity with the program increases with each comic I make. At this point, the style seems to have [fully] developed (you can see that the first comic looks a little different than the others).
Some choices I made:
- Elsinore Castle was modeled after the ghost scene in Mel Gibson's Hamlet
- some lines from the ghost's dialogue had to be cut, in order to neatly fit in the frame
- first comic where I added new text (necessary for the punchline)
- Horatio is the one under the white sheet, as the joke contradicts his "scholarly" nature
- The ghost is originally cut off after he says "If thou didst ever thy dear father love—" by Hamlet saying "O God." I keep the same break, but replace it with Hamlet asking the ghost if it is Horatio dressed up.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Basis and Process for Comic #2
Act 5, Scene 1, Lines 74-78
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.
-------------
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.
------------------------------------
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?'
--------------------------------------------------------------
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).
=============================
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
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.
-------------
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.
------------------------------------
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?'
--------------------------------------------------------------
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).
=============================
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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