Manga Shakespeare: Hamlet

Great read if you want to introduce Shakespeare's Hamlet to a younger generation in a way they can understand. My 12 year old read and enjoyed. At the end of the story is a explanation and correlation to the original story.

It reads in the normal american book direction, not "backwards" like real manga. Otherwise it is good book, classic story.

The abridgements are done well -- you get the gist of the story without ALL the talking. It is easy to follow the action across the pages. Some of the characters could be better distinguished, but on the whole it was pretty easy to follow. Nice futuristic setting. Well done.

The cover of this book is misleading---the size of the wording implies that the text is partly 'manga,' but mostly 'Hamlet.' Sadly, the reality is that the book is 3/4 manga, 1/4 Hamlet. The problems start with the cutting-edge, futuristic, dystopia setting. I'm not saying that Shakespeare can't be transferred successfully to other settings (because it can and has been done very well), but when people are talking to each through floating, virtual screens on one page, but a guy with a shovel is digging up skulls on another page, it just doesn't sync. Worse than the problems with setting, this text doesn't seem to have much appreciation or sensitivity to what Shakespeare was actually doing. Huge passages are removed. Important information is elided. Beautiful language is abandoned on the cutting room floor. I'm ranting now, of course, but it just seems that if you're going to do Shakespeare, you should trust him enough to make his material the top-priority. (For a great example of what's possible, check out the Classics Illustrated version of Hamlet with artwork by Tom Mandrake.) Back to the rant for just a second, using an ellipsis (e.g., "...") in every seventh dialogue balloon is gratuitous and uncalled-for. With that out of my system, let me say that as far as the artwork goes, the book is great. While the figures are distorted beyond plausibility (a person with proportions of 11-heads tall?! I know that's part of manga-style, but please...), other elements of sequential art are handled very well. The dialogue balloons caught my eye, I think because of the generous white space that helps emphasize the wording. But even more, the background textures and page layouts were wonderful. On several pages I thought, "Aahh, so that's what McCloud was talking about...." So, taken all in all, this version of Hamlet leaves quite a bit to be desired, but it's a great step towards what sequential art CAN do with sophisticated texts.

Flawless, I literally used this for my college essay in English and got a 98% never read the actual play mind you.

My daughter loves Hamlet. She has read the standard book version and seen the movie. Magna is another great way to experience a classic Shakespeare Tragedy.

Fun book. Quick delivery. Recommend

Great!