Kill Shakespeare #7 – Review

By Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col (writers), Andy Belanger (art), Ian Herring (colors), Chris Mowry (letters)

The Story: Lady Macbeth and Iago discuss their (still tenuous) alliance, while Hamlet and Juliet continue to grow closer together. Feste, an oddly self-aware Fool, shows up for the big Twelfth Night celebration, and puts on a show eerily reminiscent of Hamlet’s past.

What’s Good: So I’ve complained about the inconsistency of Andy Belanger’s artwork more than once over the course of reviewing this series, so I feel obligated to start this review off with a huge kudos to him for this issue. While I’m still not wild about the way some of the facial features on the characters’ close ups look, the look and especially the design of this book as a whole is absolutely gorgeous. The panels within panels—many of them beautifully outlined by theatre curtains or ornate picture frames—are great fun not just to read, but to sit back and take in as a whole. They serve not only as possible commentary on the potential reality (or fiction) of a scene, but also to unite a page of disparate panels into a single cohesive piece of artwork. This is not the first time this sort of design strategy has been implemented of course, but it does work particularly well here, and drives home the refractive “fiction within a fiction” quality that the Kill Shakespeare universe has.

McCreery and Del Col’s writing is fortunately up to the challenge of dealing with the increasingly large cast of characters. The focus is well balanced between the heroes, the antagonists, and the more peripheral characters who seem to be biding their time. I also like the fact that Juliet is finally able to address her past and, although I still have a hard time buying her as the best choice for a rebel leader, it does go a long way towards explaining her motivation for taking up the fight against Richard.

What’s Not So Good: While I think it was an excellent choice to take a breather issue to refocus on the characters a bit, a little bit more plot development, particularly since we are at such a critical juncture in the story, would have been nice. It’s a fairly minor complaint really, since the issue was very good as it was. Reading Artifacts and seeing how seamlessly Ron Marz meshes character growth with plot development has spoiled me a bit in that regard.

Conclusion: McCreery and Del Col deliver another excellent, character-driven issue backed up by the best pencil work Belanger has given us yet. It was nice to see the characters—both hero and villain—take some time to reflect and take stock of where they are and who they do and don’t trust. I’m really looking forward to seeing how things play out as the final, inevitable confrontation between the Prodigals and Richard’s army moves closer.

Grade: B

-SoldierHawk