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Sven-Arve Myklebost
University of Bergen
Abstract
This article addresses adapting in a transmedial
manner works of art, generally, and plays by William Shakespeare,
specifically. It canvasses the potential and limitations of manga comic
books as interpreters and conveyers of the complex poetic structures of
Shakespeare’s plays, structures which are wholly verbal, but
which are reconstructed with different tools and materials, namely the
complex visual/verbal form of the iconotext. The essay argues that
these processes may be discussed and measured by the concept of
ekphrasis, considering the artistic, philosophical and critical
engagement that is made necessary in the act of transmediating or, more
precisely, rebuilding the
works of Shakespeare. Hence, the article investigates the semiotic play
and conventions of comic books and mangas with which the British
publishing house Self Made Hero has attempted to recreate The Tempest, Hamlet, Richard III, and Romeo and Juliet, in their Shakespeare Manga series.
Keywords: Adaptation,
transmediation, graphic novel, manga, Shakespeare, semiotics,
illustration, iconotext, editing history, Self Made Hero.
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