Shakespeare’s Sonnet 12 as graphic novel

As part of the International Festival of Authors — and the 400th anniversary this year of Shakespeare’s death — two graphic artists are rethinking his work: Specifically, the Bard’s Sonnet 12. In what’s being billed as a Graphic Sonnet Exchange, Toronto’s

John Martz What did you think when you first heard this idea originally?

As comics become more accepted as a literary form, I think their capacity for poetry can be overshadowed by their more prosaic qualities. So I liked the idea, though was maybe skeptical that a 14-line sonnet could be expanded into a four-page story without losing the conciseness so inherent in the sonnet’s form . . . Jon (McNaught) is a remarkable, nuanced cartoonist, and I liked the challenge of creating something that might complement his work in my broader cartoony style.

How well do you know Jon McNaught (or his work)?

We’ve been both been published by Nobrow in London, but before this project we had only met in person once, at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Md., a few years ago. We Skyped together in preparation for creating these comics and we got along very well.

Just as importantly, how well do you know Shakespeare? And specifically Sonnet 12?

I know the Greatest Hits from high school, but I can’t exactly call myself a Shakespearean scholar. I didn’t know the sonnets at all, to be honest, though I was familiar with the form . . . I wasn’t immediately keen on Sonnet 12 because so much of the imagery and visual metaphor seemed a bit on-the-nose, but once I gave myself permission to tackle the themes of the sonnet using my own metaphors rather than Shakespeare’s, I warmed to it.

How did you approach your adaptation?

A sonnet has a very strict formal structure, with a set rhythm and rhyme scheme, and the first challenge Jon and I shared was how to translate that structure into comic panels. We settled on a panel grid that echoed the form of a sonnet without being too literal.

The real challenge for me was how to take the concise, carefully-crafted images from the sonnet and to expand them into multiple panels — creating a narrative story out of these themes.

I like working with humour and science fiction, so it didn’t take long for this adaptation to go that route. The theme of immortalitythrough-procreation seemed like it could be about cloning, so I made my story about a man who clones himself, and the rest of the sonnet came together based on that decision.

Did anything about the process surprise you?

In my comics work, generally, I strive for the most efficient way to tell a story. As much as comics are sequential in nature, I strive to compose things in such a way as to communicate as much information as possible in a single image. I initially found it frustrating to take the simple, visual metaphors from the sonnet — already quite efficient — and expand them over multiple panels. I thought a single image like “the violet past prime” didn’t need multiple panels, for example. But I soon realized that if I take a single image, and repeat it over multiple panels with incremental changes, I was able to bring the momentum and rhythm of the sonnet’s language to what would might otherwise be quite static . . . The process provided me with a new way to think about how I structure my work.

Finally, did doing this change your view of Shakespeare at all?

I enjoyed the academic nature of this project and dissecting Shakespeare’s words and putting them back together again in my Frankenstein version. I don’t know if it changed my view of Shakespeare as much as it made me better appreciate the intricacies and distillation of thought that go into writing something with strict formal rules.

Jon McNaught What did you think when you first heard this idea originally?

I was very intrigued by the project from the start, although I had no idea how it would play out as I haven’t really attempted anything like this before. Although I found it slightly daunting, I welcomed the excuse to read the sonnets in some depth, and was interested in exploring the similarities between the formal structure of poetry and of comics.

How well do you know John Martz (or his work)?

I’ve known John’s work for years, first becoming aware of him when I discovered his blog Drawn many years ago. Since then I’ve been a fan of his books, so I was very excited when I heard that he was on board for the project.

Just as importantly, how well do you know Shakespeare? And specifically Sonnet 12?

I mainly knew Shakespeare from reading the plays at school. I may have touched on a few of the sonnets, but as a 14-year-old they didn’t really grab me. It was great to have this opportunity to read them more thoroughly, and they really resonated this time, I found many of them very powerful . . . Sonnet 12 stuck out when I read it, particularly the haunting line “thou among the wastes of time must go.”

How did you approach your adaptation?

When we first spoke on Skype, John and I decided it was important to come up with a grid structure together that would best reflect the formal structure of a sonnet, and then both use this within our individual comic strips. We gave each line of the sonnet a line of panels, and used a 4 panel grid to try to replicate the rhythm of the iambic pentameter.

We also decided to completely abandon the words and make entirely visual adaptations, we didn’t want to end up simply illustrating the words, which could risk killing off the subtlety of the language. I had the sonnet in the back of my mind for a couple of weeks, and in certain situations it kind of crept up on me and felt very relevant. I was particularly looking for visuals in a contemporary setting that would work alongside the metaphors in the poem, suggesting passing time and fading beauty.

Sitting on a bus one evening, I thought about the line “thou among the wastes of time must go” as I looked around at all the tired people sitting silently around me, and it seemed to resonate. The visual of the ghostly reflections in the dark glass helps to capture this sense of foreboding, so I begun to work the comic strip out around this point. In drawing the comic strip I decided to interpret the sonnet line by line, sometimes in quite a literal way, and sometimes changing the metaphor to fit in with the contemporary setting. I also attempted to use the same rhyme scheme (ABAB etc.), but using visual rhymes at the end of each line instead of verbal.

Did anything about the process surprise you?

I was surprised at how many similarities there are between the formal structure of a sonnet and of a comic strip. The process of planning out the grid collaboratively with John was very straightforward in the end, it just seemed to translate very naturally.

Finally, did doing this change your view of Shakespeare at all?

Having the excuse to read and discuss the sonnets in some depth was a real treat and I was surprised by how personal and relevant they are. I’m looking forward to continuing to explore them in the future. The International Festival of Authors runs until Sunday. For more information on this and other graphic novel events, see ifoa.org.