"Beowulf" and "Romeo and Juliet" by Gareth Hinds

There is a lot to like in these two books by graphic artist Gareth Hinds.  There are also some things I didn't like.  The end result was ... mixed. 

"Beowulf", which  is the older of the two books, actually has much more sophisticated artwork than "Romeo and Juliet".  It is stunning design which really captured me.  There are variety of styles, good use of perspective, sophisticated technique and a lot of layers and depth.  Action sequences, for instance, are delineated by heavy use of line, drawn across images, to create a sense of extremely fast, powerful motion.  The violence is extreme and the "creep factor" well played.  Grendel first appears as a dark image in a dark forest, his outline blending with black trees.  In full appearance, he is truly terrifying, with "close-up" used to really drive points (and body blows) home.  Many body parts are ripped off, bodies are sometimes crushed in his grasp, and black blood pours out and stretches across panels.  The choice to make the blood dark is smart, and the effect is visceral. 

The artwork in "Romeo and Juliet" is actually far more simplistic, in comparison, which seems odd given that this book was created seven years after "Beowulf."  In terms of art, there is little that is notable about this book, in comparison, other than the same use of line to convey action and color to show a change in mood.  Overall, it seems a bit flat and two-dimensional.  Mr. Hinds does choose to make the cast interracial (Romeo is black, Juliet is Indian).  In the opening and closing notes, he mentions this, saying he wasn't trying to make a statement, just wanted to reflect the current world.  In that, he does well.  I'm not sure, however, how I feel about the half and half on costuming.  He sets the story in 16th Century Italy, but the dress is not unlike the CW's "Reign" -- kind of contemporary/old-fashioned.  Juliet's dress at the party ends just below the knee and her ensemble is completed with hip boots, while Tybalt runs around with Tudor pants but leaves his shirt off, presumably so that we can see his fabulous abs and extensive tattoo, drawn to perfection.  Hinds mentions the costuming in the end, discussing his choices, but much of the notes focus on the architecture, which, frankly, I didn't even notice.  This isn't really an "atmospheric tale" where the setting plays heavily into the main plot points.  Hinds is clearly better at action than the romance scenes, which are fairly static, and he doesn't change perspective much.  Almost the entire tale is told through a medium lens.  There are few long shots and no closeups until the end.  He also puts in "Thwonk" words during the fights -- which was simply distracting and reminded me of the 1960s Batman TV show and their "Zowies".  I don't want to rag on Gareth Hinds for a story I'm not wild about in the first place.  Many of my issues are, and have always been, the way most view this tale.  It's supposed to be the greatest love story of all time, but I wonder if that was what Shakespeare really intended.  Note that Romeo is teased, right from the beginning, for being someone who falls head over heels with every girl he meets.  People also forget that he goes to the Capulet party to meet ~~another~~ girl, and then forgets about her the minute he sees Juliet.  I can't help wonder if the real point of this story about love-soaked teens was to say that this "disease" is "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."  The moral is clearly not about the duo, but about family feuds.  In any case, I digress.

In both stories, Hinds uses adapted versions of the actual texts (in the case of "Beowulf", a translation) and this is where I took some issue.  I know "Romeo and Juliet" very well and could follow the story, and recognized where liberties were taken, very easily.   The editing of the text is  a bit questionable, however -- he cuts out most of the Nurse, but leaves in the Friar's monologue to his garden.  He defines some terms throughout, but it seems to be random -- defining some more simple terms while ignoring more complex ones.  I also don't agree with one of the definitions, where he states the (obscene) term is "Cupid's Blunt Arrow" -- um, no.  Shakespeare was making a very (very) dirty joke here.  In the case of "Beowulf", which I do not know very well, I understood the overall bones of the thing, but got fairly lost on the details.  In the end notes to that story, Hinds mentions the sage/oracle.  I was "huh?"  I had no idea who the oracle was, and couldn't figure it out, even when flipping back through it.

Bottom line for both books:  Hinds, who is clearly an artist, but not a writer, often switches between dialogue and images to tell the tales, rather than marry the artwork to the narrative.  It makes for a good visual, but a fractured experience as far as a story through-line is concerned.  In "Beowulf", he also gets a teensy bit preachy, showing an image of the NYC twin towers from 9/11 when the old King warns Beowulf of the destructive power of pride.  (That being said, he also apologizes, by name, to the students he bullied in high school in his end notes.  That was a first).  My sense is that these books (and others by Gareth Hinds) will engage young people in classic literature, and do a great job balancing the classic language with a contemporary feel, making the tales accessible.  "Beowulf", in particular, has artwork that will have students re-reading it and discovering something new on the second pass.  As for me, they were "serviceable" but didn't knock it out of the park.