January 8, 2009

Romeo and Juliet by Esther Pearl Watson

Amazon.com Product Description:

This remarkably well-told, bizarre and updated version of the classic tale of love and loss will blow your mind. Narrated by Donkey Kong, and set in a urban high school. Instead of poisoning themselves, the young lovers prove their devotion to each other by crushing themselves under a Coke machine. By Esther Pearl Watson, regular contributor to Bust magazine.

Esther Pearl Watson is hilarious, random, and very unique. When I heard she did a version of Romeo and Juliet I just had to read it!

The comic was funny and very very random, if a bit short. Having her strip, Unlovable to compare it to it didn't exactly live up to my expectations. Don't get me wrong, the illustrations were great, the story was funny and it was very very random. I just think the author truly shines with her Unlovable strip, which is why I'm very glad all the Unlovable comics have been collected into a book!

But anyways, it was definitely fun comparing her comic to the Romeo and Juliet we have all read! If you are ready to try an short indie comic with familiar content this is the place to start!

3.5/5 Stars

What's one remake of a story you enjoy?

This is a cross post with my own blog!

5 comments:

Alea said...

Subscribing to comments so I can see if anyone says anything :P

Unknown said...

Ok. You had me at "narrated by Donkey Kong". Hahaha. I'm definitely doing to have to check this out, as well as her Unlovable strip.

I've always been a fan of retellings of fairy tales--like Fables.

Alea said...

Laza- Unlovable is awesome, next time you are in a bookstore look for Bust magazine, her comic is always the last page. That will give you a great taste! I'm still waiting for the whole Unlovable collection to ship from amazon, it was supposed to be released awhile ago, hopefully it's not going to be months before it happens!

Beth F said...

You asked about remakes: Well, I thought the Nancy Drew graphic was ok -- not good enough to make me a fan, though.

I'm reading the graphic of Artemis Fowl now (will finish in the next day or so). This one is a more interesting take on the original book. I'll report back when I finish!

Alea said...

Cool! I didn't even know there was an Artemis Fowl one lol! Nancy Drew I might have known about, not sure.

I've seen the Babysitter's Club ones before, which is funny to me since i read them when i was little. I've also heard that Meg Cabot is doing some as well and I think Melissa Marr. Those aren't really remakes but additional material i think.

The whole of graphic novels is huge!