The webcomics blog about webcomics

Okay, Weird

Something’s going on with WordPress where I lose connection to the back end and editing functions, but the front end continues to show the site. And then it comes back without doing anything! So let’s be quick about this, and I hope you will appreciate how much work went into this one.

See, I owe Amazon an apology, as I was complaining t’other day about my copy of Romeo And/Or Juliet not being here on day of release, and now I’ve got it. Thanks, Amazon! It’s wacky and wonderful, and features many, many terrific artists and story ending illustrations. Author Ryan North’s sense of both complete absurdism and Shakespearean drama are intact, as he takes us through multiple plots, multiple story styles (I’m presently following along a noir pastische), and pulls in multiple plays for inspiration (said pastiche stars Rosalind from As You Like It, and there are short versions of Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and even Midsummer’s play-in-a-play, Pyramus and Thisbe). There’s time travel, giant robots, sex-having, sweet fights, record-setting one-rep weightlifting, a cookie recipe, and even a nod to Back To The Future¹.

Sadly, the best thing we saw in To Be Or Not To Be: That Is The Adventure — where those illustrations were full page with the minor text associated with the story ending (usually grisly death) — is modified somewhat; the illos are mostly 1/3 page in size, with a continuous stream of text-illustration-next story point. As a result, RAOJ doesn’t have page numbers, it has passage numbers — a passage being a node in the story, ranging from a line or two to more than a page. Additionally, instead of the full-color glossy illustrations from TBONTBTITA, the papr stock is matte and the pictures are all combinations of black, white, and red. The changes do make the book less of a bicep-building than TBONTBTITA, though … that was one seriously heavy book.

But despite all of the good points, Romeo And/Or Juliet has one stunning flaw, one shared with To Be Or Not To Be: That Is The Adventure, namely: the index of artists in the back of the book contains only an alphabetical listing, not a listing by passage (or page, in the earlier book) number. So when I came across a stunningly beautiful (or funny, or disturbing … ) illustration in my read-through, I’d sometimes recognize the artist by style, but more often not. Then I had to scan the index, looking for the passage (or page) number, to find it who it was.

Well, no more! Ryan North, I am calling you out for having a defective book, and furthermore I am doing something about it. Specifically, I have painstakingly transcribed the passage numbers and artist names and compiled them into a table (below the cut) that you may print and stick in your copy of RAOJ. I trust Mr North will prevail on his publishers to include information in future printings; with a clear typeface, you might be able to fit it on a promotional bookmark, but at the least you could “tip in” some pages in this and future North/Shakespeare collaborations.

It’s a minor thing, though — don’t let the lack of reverse-lookup prevent you from picking up Romeo And Or Juliet; it’s a brilliant job from a brilliant writer and nearly 100 brilliant artists. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to decide what to do in this game of rock-paper-scissors I seem to have found myself in.


Spam of the day:

Identity Issue PP-658-119-347

I believe that you are the PayPal Review Department exactly as much as I believe the South Asian-accented man who called himself Steve Martin on the phone yesterday really was calling from the Treasury Department².

_______________
¹ Or at least North’s obsession with the novelization of the movie.

² I called him to point out he is very bad at being a thief and he hung up on me. So I called back and got him again and continued my spiel. After five further discussions (sample statement from me: I can do this all day), he apparently decided he had to take a break and a woman picked up in his place. She said I was very rude and not to call their scam operation again or I would be in trouble. That was fun.


No links, there are too many names for that. Fortunately, all of these names are easily Googleable.

Passage

Creator

front cover

Noelle Stevenson

heart icons*

Andy Runton

epigraph

Noelle Stevenson

title page

Kate Beaton

31

KC Green

36

Kate Beaton

49

Chris Jones

55

Annie Stoll

62

Tyson Hesse

69

Kevin Jay Stanton

70

Carly Monardo

81

John Martz

85

Mike Holmes

86

Lar deSouza

87

Justin Pierce

91

Joe Quinones

92

Anthony Clark

95

Kate Leth

103

Jess Fink

105

Boulet

106

Erica Henderson

107

Ray Castro & Alex Culang

115

Em Partridge

120

Andy Runton

121

Jonathan Rosenberg

124

Anthony Clark

124 (design)

David Malki !

126 to 136

Andrew Hussie

138

Braden Lamb and Shelli Paroline

145

Alex Thomas

150

Kagan McLeod

151

Rebecca Clements

153

Joe List

157

Nicholas Gurewitch

162

Evan “Doc” Shaner

164

Mike Rooth

165

Abby Howard

168

Dustin Harbin

174

Mike Maihack

175

Eric Kim

177

Michael Firman

182

Tony Wilson

211

Meags Fitzgerald

215

Matt Cummings

217

Richard Stevens 3

219

Becky Cloonan

220

Erika Moen

235

Brandon Bird

236

Richard Stevens 3

255

Kean Soo

259

David Malki !

260

Emily Horne

264

Willow Dawson

265

Karl Kerschl

271

Kate Beaton

272

Lucy Knisley

280

Zach Weinersmith

298

Em Partridge

299

Gisèle Lagacé

301

Jeffrey Veregge

315

Jeph Jacques

318

Eric Colossal

320

Tony Cliff

322

Jim Zub

326

Pendleton Ward

328

Randall Munroe

333

Natasha Allegri

337

Ethan Nicolle

339

Sara Richard

341

Richard Stevens 3

345

Brian McLachlan

346

Evan Dahm

350

Sam Logan

358

Anthony Clark

358 (design)

David Malki !

359 to 368

Andrew Hussie

370

David Troupes

373

Sara Winifred Searle

375

Jon Klassen

388

Vera Bosgol

389

Ian Herring

392

Michael Walsh

395

Dylan Meconis

397

Mike Rooth

398

Nate Powell

400

David Hellman

404

Richard Stevens 3

406

John Keogh

426

Richard Stevens 3

428

Dara Gold

429

Ray Fawkes

441

Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett

444

Meredith Gran

446

Marguerite Sauvage

447

Zac Gorman

449

Chip Zdarsky**

450

Steve Wolfhard

452

Brice Hall

453

Christopher Hastings

454

David Hellman

459

Gillian Goerz

460

John Allison

461

Emily Carroll

463

Lucie Clare Whitehead

466

Noelle Stevenson

470

Aaron Diaz

476

Kate Beaton

* Little heart-shaped icons indicate the path through the story that matches Shakespeare’s version of the story. Warning: there are very few robots or time travel adventures along that path.

** Zdarsky is actually listed in the artists credits as Chip Zudarsky, on account of in TBONTBTITA he complained about not being last in the alphabetical list because of that bastard Zub. /p 124tdtd

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