Feb 07 2015
For Les
Macbeth comes out this week. Here is the dedication page…
Les Kanturek died almost 2 years ago, on Feb 25 2013, after a long battle with cancer. Of the many excellent art teachers I was lucky enough to learn from during my education at RIT and Parsons, Les was one of my favorites, and one of the few who became a close personal friend in the years after I graduated. He had an incredibly generous heart and a great sense of humor, and he made even dry subjects like how to do self-employed taxes fun to learn. He helped countless young illustration students find their artistic voice, and he will always be missed by those who had the good fortune to know him.
Here is a short video profile of Les created by Ray Zablocki: http://www.rayzablocki.com/
You can see some of Les’ quirkier projects on his blog. There is a Facebook group called “For the Love of Les” featuring lots more stories and photos of Les.
4 Responses to “For Les”
Got it! Great job, once again. I wrote some praise for it on my blog:
http://tinyurl.com/mdlvzuf
One thing that I thought was curious in your notes at the end was your reasoning for cutting out the conversation between Malcolm and Macduff, as you thought that it doesn’t add anything to the story (if I’m remembering that correctly).
Please don’t take this as a criticism so much as an attempt by me to explain what I like about it. I don’t think it kills the story to cut it, but it adds something important. I teach high school seniors, and basically what I tell them that this scene does is highlight two very important things about both characters.
When it comes to Malcolm, it shows that he lacks his father’s weakness of not knowing whom to trust. Duncan thought he could count on the old Thane of Cawdor, but he obviously got that guy wrong, and immediately after, he goes on about what a swell guy Macbeth is. It’s letting us know that the new king will be a better judge of character, and there’s promise for a more stable Scotland, as opposed to the one torn apart by civil war and foreign invaders (who take advantage of the civil war).
As for Macduff, it lets us know that he’s not another Macbeth. He cares more about Scotland than his own ambition. And it also adds to the sense that things will be better in the end, as even though he’s the hero of the battle, he hands over the crown to the rightful king.
Basically, tragedies always end in a better place than where they began. Just as Verona, Italy is more likely a safer place at the end of “Romeo and Juliet”, Scotland is in better hands with Malcolm.
Anyway, great job! I eagerly await your next project. (Any chance of “Hamlet”?)
I don’t intend to say that the scene has no function. Shakespeare’s writing is so rich that basically every word has a function. I claim that it is “unnecessary and confusing” to the flow of the narrative. I agree that it reveals things about both men, but it does so in a convoluted fashion that is generally opaque to most readers on at least the first reading — hence the need for you to explain to your students what it means. It also sends a pretty mixed message about Malcolm, since it is such a bizarre way to test MacDuff’s motivations. For these reasons, I decided to sacrifice it for a tighter narrative.
Good point.
And I must add, I thought that it was wise to cut the boy’s line of “He has killed me mother”. That always gets an unintentional laugh.
Oh, and I included the wrong url for my review of your comic:
http://lancecjohnson.blogspot.com/2015/02/macbeth-in-comics.html
Thanks! I will share that link.