T h e
K
i n g
R
T r a g e d y
i c h a r d
o f
t h e
Original Text by
William Shakespeare
Graphic Novel Adaptation by
V i v i a n X i ao
T e ag l e E ss ay M ay 2015
T
h i r d
For my senior year Teagle essay, I adapted two speeches and one scene from Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of King Richard the Third into a graphic novel. I was inspired by Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, which gave me a deeper appreciation of comics as an art and literary form and provided a broad framework for me to understand the mechanics of graphic novels. The process for creating the graphic novel involved several iterations. I began with annotations on the original text to note important imagery, then created rough sketches of each panel. I arranged the panels into a draft composition for each page, and also cut and pasted the text onto the page to determine text composition. The final graphic novel is illustrated in pastel and the text is added digitally. The dialogue is typeset in Actionman. My thesis explores Richard’s dual nature as both culprit and victim; although he skillfully constructs an evil identity and denies remorse for his villainous acts, he eventually reaches an acknowledgment of guilt when he fails to suppress his conscience. In the opening soliloquy, I focused on colors and textures to evoke a violent and fast-paced mood, imagery portraying the play’s theme of self-judgment, and shape and line to emphasize distortion in Richard’s insecurity and manipulative behavior. The second scene from Act I compares Lady Anne and Richard’s behaviors and explores their denial of accountability. The final soliloquy provides justification for Richard as a tragic hero. Thank you to Maria Xu for helping me photograph my work, to Mr. Lock for helping me with printing, to Mr. Faus for keeping me on a productive work schedule and financing the production of the books, and to Mr. Fornshell for teaching Shakespeare’s works.