A friend of mine told me that Jasper is working on a project called "Kill Shakespeare". Does anyone know anything about this? Ever heard of it?

Actually, I just hopped online and it doesn't seem to be a Jasper Fforde project at all. My mistake. It does look cool though - and similar to a Thursday Next story.

Hi there LB. When you have had your fill of the free cyber pies, please give some more info. It sounds intriguing.

[www.youtube.com]

Vedi, veni, and what a load of rubbish.


Get Oberon and/or Titania to wipe the lot of them out in the first act, then we can consider if Lady Macbeth would have died of pneumoni, what with the depiction given and the fact that Scotland in the time before the invention of electric lighting in tigers was a cold place.

Also in an intellectual battle Portia* would run rings around the lot of them.

* Not Portia de Rossi

(although very possibly Portia de Rossi would as well)

Hypothetically speaking, if there was some sort of transition that had to be made, I'd rather see Jasper's books as Graphic Novels than films. Keeping his copyright to the product would be the only sticking point (see last paragraph!).

The thing that surprises me every day is that Jasper has not yet been snapped up by Vertigo, Marvel, IDW, Dark Horse or Tharg for just that purpose.

(Yes, I didn't have Dell or Disney in the list for fairly obvious reasons)

Remember that you heard it here first - this is a Robert exclusive:

It's in my ears that a major comic group will be making Jasper Fforde a big offer very soon. I think that Jasper would be silly to refuse it - and Jasper is anything other than silly. Personally, I'd love to see Bryan Talbot's take on the Next series.

What about Charles Vess?

There's a book called SPANKING SHAKESPEARE that's now out in paperback
but it's YA novel that has nothing to do with the bard or our Fforde...

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Signature or shameless self-promotion?
You decide:

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I could definitely see Jasper's books as graphic novels! I think that comic book readers are a lot smarter than people give them credit for and could really get behind some of his unique stories.

For examples, take a look at "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (not the film...), "Fables", and a news series called "The Unwritten", which has a very serious literary bent. This "Kill Shakespeare" series, if it's not just a sensationalized battle piece, could be added to the list.

I hope that Robert is right - I'd love to see what Jasper could do in the interesting world of graphic novels!

Much as I like graphic novels, I think they are very different from novels and although some stories could work in both formats many couldn't.

Same as book/film, I suppose, "Sin City" & "V for Vendetta" worked but LOEG didn't. (mrs. Skidmarks and I are probably in a minority of 2 in that we enjoyed LOEG dispite its many faults. Then again we like Wild Wild West and Godzilla, so we accept that it is our problem!)

I suspect that "The Eyre Affair" might work as a graphic novel or a movie, but as the series progresses I believe that they would make less interesting conversions, whereas I feel that as books the general trend is more interesting. [pseuds corner] Certainly a graphic novel wuld have to lose a lot less of the asides and detail which give the books such depth. [/pseuds corner]

Perhaps one of Jasper's other series might work better. It looks a little like Roger Rabbit in my head.

It would work better as a graphic novel, if they do not try to limit length....

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'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

I think that Jasper should great a new story made specifically for the graphic novel. It would be great to see literary and comic book characters immersed in the same world.

Of course, neither Marvel nor D.C. would probably allow him access to their characters - but I think he could probably work around that.

LizzieBennett Wrote:
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>
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> Of course, neither Marvel nor D.C. would probably
> allow him access to their characters - but I think
> he could probably work around that.

Perhaps if it was published by one of them, they may be more tolerant. And what about Dark Horse?

You're right - I think that Dark Horse would be a great fit for a Jasper graphic novel. Or IDW Publishing, which is getting into classic comics and doing some interesting projects.

I read last week that Salman Rushdie is doing work on a graphic novel. It's becoming a more legitimate art form as artists like he and Stephen King delve into it. It's time for Jasper to work his magic here!

Hey everyone, I'm one of the co-creators of "Kill Shakespeare". We're with IDW and you guys are right Fforde's work could be great there, or with Dark Horse. It makes me think a bit of how Vertigo took Gaiman's Nevermind series and adapted it back into comics. You do have to be careful and the stories DO change (different mediums and all that) but I think some AWESOME stuff could be done with Jasper's stories.

As for what we are up to -- well we are working hard so that "Kill Shakespeare" does deserve to be mentioned with "LOEG", "Fables" and "Unwritten". I just wanted to let you know that we're definitely not looking to do some lame WWE version of The Bard's work. We're officially being unveiled by IDW in the next 4-6 weeks. In the short-term though you can find out more about us on our Facebook site -- we'll hopefully be able to release some "sneak peeks" of the art very soon as well. (and the YouTube trailer that was sent out above).

As for Graphic Novels being recognized as a legitimate art-form. It's well beyond time. It always saddened me that you had such great work from Will Eisner to help birth the form and then we had to wait so long before getting this recent rush of attention to the amazing stories being told. I urge you to check out "Louis Riel", "Black Hole", "Blankets", "The Alcoholic" if you haven't already (as well as the awesome Buddha Manga by Osamu Tezuka).

Here's hoping Jasper's work comes out soon.

A few things to look at there, thanks ConorMcCreery. Now I need yet more spare time..

Havent graphic novels/ comics always been recognised as legitimate artforms? Or is that just geeks and art geeks who think so?

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Part time Quantum Elephant hollower

Geeks and art geeks. There is division on this issue.