Tagged: English

Shakespeare cartoonified – The Merchant of Venice: Part 1

I know many people hate Shakespeare and that they have had bad experiences with it in school. But, you know, Shakespeare really isn’t all that bad. I’m very fond of Shakespearian plays myself, and as I have to write a paper on Shakespearian comedy at the moment, I thought I’d turn work into play and cartoonify The Merchant of Venice. (The cartoon isn’t part of the paper. That would have been a wonderful opportunity though! I’m studying the devices used in the play.)

So here is my retelling of Merchant. I hope you like it and that I can share my enjoyment of the comedy with you in this series of cartoons. (Also, I did not mean for Lorenzo to come out having Draco Malfoy hair. That kind of just happened.)

Cover

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More literal sayings and other things

Well, hello! I hope everyone had a great week!

After my previous post on portraying the literal meanings of words turned out quite popular, I thought I might as well draw a few more. This time it is…

Taking Sayings Literally.

Enjoy!

 

Don't fly off the handle!

 

Don't lose your temper!

 

Keep your hair on!

 

And that’s it for drawings today! But I still have a few more things up my sleeve! Or rather, up my computer fingers!

 

Seeing that it is (almost) the last day of March, I wanted to make a graphic representation of what my month looked like. Let me introduce…

Homework Extravaganza

March

Really, that 23rd truly was a nightmare day. And the 27th was not much better. Now I just want to go to sleep, but I can’t. I’ve got a few more assignments and stacks of homework waiting for me. Blargh!

 

However, I should hope that I was still able to laugh as I struggled through the 3rd week of March. This is what made me laugh:

Photo0437

Yes, those are sticky notes all round my laptop screen. It’s my references for said HUGE assignment. I stuck them there because I kept forgetting which author wrote what article and in what year. And then I had to page through everything again when I wanted to quote. That got annoying.

 

Lastly, I recently saw some bloggers making typography images with all the fonts that they regularly use and I thought it was a very good idea. I try to use only a handful of signature fonts in my cartoons, but if you’ve been around for a while you’d know I have a slight font obsession. So… this is mostly only for my own benefit to remember which fonts when/how/what, but maybe someone could find it useful. So I’m sharing it!

All these fonts are available as free downloads (obviously). Actually I don’t use Elven Common Speak or Lime Glory Caps in my cartoons as they are too hard to read, but I only included them because I use them in my blog signature.

Fonts.png

 

Have a great weekend!

Sig2

Taking words literally

I love words. I’d speak about them all day. I’d also use words to speak about more words, which is, I admit, not a very unique trait.

This little dialogue from The Truth by Terry Pratchett could directly be applied to me:

‘You talking to me about knocking back? Don’t know what a tosheroon is, do you?’ he said. The dwarf shrugged.
  ‘Yes, I do,’ said William. ‘There’s several meanings, but I think you’re referring to a big caked ball of mud and coins, such as you might find in some crevice in an old drain where the water forms an eddy. They can be quite valuable.’
  ‘What? You’ve got hands on you like a girl,’ said Harry, so surprised that the cigar momentarily drooped. ‘How come you know that?’
  ‘I like words, Mr King.’

- p.212, 2001 Corgi Edition.

It may or may not also be this single little conversation that has made William de Worde one of my favourite Pratchett characters.

But without going into a digression about how I love collecting words and being an obnoxious little know-it-all, let’s just say that I also find words quite funny. However, before the funny, I first have a couple of other things things to say.

 

Firstly, sorry for being MIA. University started again a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been spinning around like a crazy elf. (Kudos if you pick up the reference!) Everybody seems to think it is my goal in life to read a score of boring articles a week. Well, maybe not a score. But a lot. I was going to make a vlog again, but halfway through recording I noticed that the mic was not picking up my voice properly and I was basically inaudible. I didn’t feel like dubbing it, so you will just have to make do with my bland text.

I’m not sure what this means for the blog and how often I will have time to post. Perhaps I will start doing smaller posts, with only one or two frames. But I am definitely going to continue blogging! Unfortunately I am enjoying this far too much to stop! Smile Anyway, just be aware of this in case I go missing for 3 weeks!
Oh, and before someone asks, our academic year does run along with the calendar year.

 

Secondly, I… uh… received quite a lot of awards recently. Uh… 5, I think. I will make my next post about that, but firstly I need your help! Everyone seems to want you to tell your readers random things about you. However, I’m fresh out of ideas. I don’t even know where to start this time round. So if any of you have any random questions that you would like me to answer, let me know in the comments and I’ll include it! If I receive too many, I’ll just pick some.
Also, if anyone has any suggestions for blogs that I can pass these things on to, let me know as well! I wouldn’t complain as I never seem to be able to think of the required amount of new nominees. Winking smile

See? Working together we can get there! To the stars!

 

Thirdly, enjoy my

Taking Words Literally!

 

There are words that are so common we all know them and use them everyday. But have you ever noticed that some words can have very strange meanings if you look at them literally? No? Observe:

 

Rock music

 

Hollywood

 

Tablets1

 

Tablets2

Please don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate every random person who happens to own a tablet computer. I just hate the show-offs, and believe me, there are enough of those in my classes. So right, you are able to afford one of these ludicrous new note-typing machines. That still does not give you the right to look down at the rest of us who cope perfectly well with a pen and paper and to come in late to class, wait until all eyes are on you, take out your shiny tablet and start to preen it. *

 

* Well, maybe I’m just a tiny bit jealous. Jealous of those who don’t need to lug heavy handbooks around, because they simply scan them onto the tablet. But I am certainly not jealous of having to look after a liability like that all day and be nervous that it will get stolen – with all my notes and books on it. I’m paranoid enough about my phone already, thank you all the same. Winking smile

 

Sorry, but I just could not resist sticking a random, old-fashioned London dandy into this cartoon. I don’t know how these ideas get into my head, or what exactly he is doing there.

Green fingers1

 

Green fingers2

 

PS.

Afterword

 

 

I hope everyone enjoyed this!

Sig2