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Ham-let: A Shakespearean Mash-up
Ham-let is a fun and endearing reimagining of a classic Shakespearean tale! This satirical story stars a cast of anthropomorphic animals based on characters from Shakespeare's greatest plays!
The eponymous Pig Prince himself returns home from college to find that his uncle Claude betrayed and murdered his father to seize the throne! But this familiar fable veers into the zany and adventurous when Ham-let calls upon his best friend Horatio and a troupe of rowdy, self-centered actors to aid him in halting his uncle's evil plans. Ham-let and the troupe must cast aside their egos and work together as a team to have any chance of saving the village from falling to King Claude's corrupt rule!
The eponymous Pig Prince himself returns home from college to find that his uncle Claude betrayed and murdered his father to seize the throne! But this familiar fable veers into the zany and adventurous when Ham-let calls upon his best friend Horatio and a troupe of rowdy, self-centered actors to aid him in halting his uncle's evil plans. Ham-let and the troupe must cast aside their egos and work together as a team to have any chance of saving the village from falling to King Claude's corrupt rule!
64 pages, Hardcover
Published April 19, 2022
15 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
April 6, 2022
It’s pig Hamlet. I refuse to explain it further.
And if the teaser at the end for an evil chicken Lady MacBeth is a set up for a sequel, then I’m going to be need that too.
**For more book talk & reviews, follow me on Instagram at @elle_mentbooks!
And if the teaser at the end for an evil chicken Lady MacBeth is a set up for a sequel, then I’m going to be need that too.
**For more book talk & reviews, follow me on Instagram at @elle_mentbooks!
March 8, 2022
It's Hamlet (sort of)! But Hamlet and his family are pigs. He's Ham-Let!
The basic structure of the book largely follows Hamlet, and then splices in many other Shakespeare plays - characters from those other plays are friends of Ham-Let here, forming his amateur theatre group. One is a cat (Catulet), another is a dog, there's a bull, a cow, you see what's happening here.
The story is okay, it does feel like it could be a bit whackier, with more silly jokes. That said, this is a pretty nice introduction to Shakespeare for kids (and quite a few adults, come to think of it).
The art is almost European in style, and should also appeal to children.
(Thanks to Dark Horse Books for providing me with an ARC through Edelweiss)
The basic structure of the book largely follows Hamlet, and then splices in many other Shakespeare plays - characters from those other plays are friends of Ham-Let here, forming his amateur theatre group. One is a cat (Catulet), another is a dog, there's a bull, a cow, you see what's happening here.
The story is okay, it does feel like it could be a bit whackier, with more silly jokes. That said, this is a pretty nice introduction to Shakespeare for kids (and quite a few adults, come to think of it).
The art is almost European in style, and should also appeal to children.
(Thanks to Dark Horse Books for providing me with an ARC through Edelweiss)
November 19, 2022
I felt brain cells dying while I read this.
In theory it's a retelling of Hamlet, albeit with roles for other of Shakespeare's famous characters, all in animal form. In practice it's an embarrassing ride on the coat-tails of the master that substitutes bright colors for anything of substance, and adds literally nothing of value. Did you want to know more about the actors in Hamlet's play-within-a-play? I hope so, because they are the central characters. Think Hamlet is too tragic? Well let's end it with something like four weddings! Think the story is too old? We'll throw some modern music lyrics in.
There's nothing of value brought in here; no humor, no insight, no interesting characters. Just a total misfire. At least it's only around 70 pages.
In theory it's a retelling of Hamlet, albeit with roles for other of Shakespeare's famous characters, all in animal form. In practice it's an embarrassing ride on the coat-tails of the master that substitutes bright colors for anything of substance, and adds literally nothing of value. Did you want to know more about the actors in Hamlet's play-within-a-play? I hope so, because they are the central characters. Think Hamlet is too tragic? Well let's end it with something like four weddings! Think the story is too old? We'll throw some modern music lyrics in.
There's nothing of value brought in here; no humor, no insight, no interesting characters. Just a total misfire. At least it's only around 70 pages.
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April 21, 2022Doesn't change your life but entertaining
December 7, 2022
This was a shortened version of Hamlet, but with animals and I liked it a lot. I really enjoyed how we not only got characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but also some of his other plays. This was pretty cute, too.
May 31, 2022
While it was clever, it was also chaotic. Too wacky for me, this graphic novel is more than just Hamlet (lots of references to other Shakespearean plays) while also not truly representing the story of Hamlet. I was a little disappointed that it didn't stick closer to the original, but I suppose that's the point of a mash-up. Still, if I had kids they wouldn't be reading this.
December 17, 2022
Delightful for a lighthearted, punny romp through Shakespeare's collected works. I appreciate the effort and it made me laugh.
The storyline was fine, but felt a bit choppy since it was trying to fit so many characters and lines into it. However, a work like this isn't really made for the story, but rather the hilarious Easter eggs. Not only did they manage to squeeze in main characters from Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, and Nick from A Midsummer Night's Dream, (perhaps others I missed), but they had more Easter eggs in the dialogue, such as "Do you hear the animals sing?" (Les Miserables) and a riff on Inigo Montoya's famous line (Princess Bride). So much wacky fun that I can forgive some clunky bits and jumping around trying to hold it all together.
Other Easter Eggs I noticed:
The St. Crispin's Day speech (Henry V)
"Discretion is the better part of valor" (Henry IV)
A guard named Julius Caesar.
Nick was strapped with meat and called the Trojan Donkey.
Lots of puns - the scapeGOAT, the SWINE, etc.
No blood or inappropriate content. Even when you see fallen soldiers or when Ham smacks down his enemy, it literally is a smack down with his blade. Didn't appear to cut him or poke him the least bit.
Some disappointing things:
Not sure why Othello was a white ram. He should have been a black sheep. If he were just slightly darker it would have been fine.
Some things were poorly thought out. When rebuilding the city, they had someone covering a broken window with a board. Fine, but he was hammering it to the glass…
Also, when it says "wedding fever had gripped the kingdom," the second panel showed King Lear and his daughter Cordi. They should perhaps be the last so they aren't grouped in with the marrying couples. Unless there's stuff in King Lear I didn't know about...
The storyline was fine, but felt a bit choppy since it was trying to fit so many characters and lines into it. However, a work like this isn't really made for the story, but rather the hilarious Easter eggs. Not only did they manage to squeeze in main characters from Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, and Nick from A Midsummer Night's Dream, (perhaps others I missed), but they had more Easter eggs in the dialogue, such as "Do you hear the animals sing?" (Les Miserables) and a riff on Inigo Montoya's famous line (Princess Bride). So much wacky fun that I can forgive some clunky bits and jumping around trying to hold it all together.
Other Easter Eggs I noticed:
The St. Crispin's Day speech (Henry V)
"Discretion is the better part of valor" (Henry IV)
A guard named Julius Caesar.
Nick was strapped with meat and called the Trojan Donkey.
Lots of puns - the scapeGOAT, the SWINE, etc.
No blood or inappropriate content. Even when you see fallen soldiers or when Ham smacks down his enemy, it literally is a smack down with his blade. Didn't appear to cut him or poke him the least bit.
Some disappointing things:
Not sure why Othello was a white ram. He should have been a black sheep. If he were just slightly darker it would have been fine.
Some things were poorly thought out. When rebuilding the city, they had someone covering a broken window with a board. Fine, but he was hammering it to the glass…
Also, when it says "wedding fever had gripped the kingdom," the second panel showed King Lear and his daughter Cordi. They should perhaps be the last so they aren't grouped in with the marrying couples. Unless there's stuff in King Lear I didn't know about...
January 27, 2026
Ham-Let: A Shakespearean Mash-up is a little like Shrek, but with funny animals and all of Shakespeare's creations co-existing in a kind of comedy remix. Writers Jim Burnstein and Garrett Schiff don't always hit the mark, but most of their jokes are amusing, and most of their references easy to get if one has read the major plays. But a lot of charm comes from Elisa Ferrari's art, which is perfect for anthropomorphic animals who are as adventuresome as they are comic. Hamlet is, of course, a pig, but a goodly pig, tasked with avenging his father, and so on. But while Hamlet's key events are tent poles, the story goes in different (and more upbeat) directions. Sometimes asking a "what if" of the original, and I like those modifications a lot (they could even be staged). Sometimes just to include more of the Bard's characters - so Horatio runs an acting troupe out of Midsummer Night's Dream filled with animal versions of Lear, Othello, Macbeth, and others; there's an Iago betrayer, etc. - or simply hark to events from other players - Ham-let is often mixed in with Henry V, for example. Fun, clever, and open to a sequel. Well, so am I!
November 20, 2022
I wouldn’t recommend this as an easy-to-digest Cliff-Notey adaption of Hamlet, in the way that graphic novels are typically useful for students, as it’s a kooky mashup with several Shakespearean plots and characters woven in and not ‘real’ Hamlet plot.
But it is an entertaining tale-a bit of Animal Farm meets Charlotte’s Web meets Bojack Horseman meets management guru John C. Maxwell, as Prince Ham-let conducts a master class on how to motivate a team. Zany fun.
Looks like there a sequel in the mist, too, if you like this one. …
But it is an entertaining tale-a bit of Animal Farm meets Charlotte’s Web meets Bojack Horseman meets management guru John C. Maxwell, as Prince Ham-let conducts a master class on how to motivate a team. Zany fun.
Looks like there a sequel in the mist, too, if you like this one. …
December 9, 2022
A "retelling" of Hamlet with anthropomorphic characters. The story was changed enough to make it less dark that a lot of it was hard to recognize as the original. The story mainly focused on the actors in the play within the play giving them much larger parts and bringing in characters from Shakespeares other plays. I get this is meant for younger audiences but the jokes fell completely flat and I found the whole thing tedious.
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April 14, 2025this was so silly i loved it
I’m not a huge graphic novel person but this was fun! I read it in about an hour. As someone who knows bits and pieces of Shakespeare, it was fun trying to spot the references from the plays I’ve read. I wish some of the background characters were developed a little bit more, and thus definitely could have been expanded into a much longer graphic novel with more depth. But still, this was very fun :)
I’m not a huge graphic novel person but this was fun! I read it in about an hour. As someone who knows bits and pieces of Shakespeare, it was fun trying to spot the references from the plays I’ve read. I wish some of the background characters were developed a little bit more, and thus definitely could have been expanded into a much longer graphic novel with more depth. But still, this was very fun :)
June 13, 2025
A mash-up of plots that very much relies on the the reader knowing the source material. Do not expect any of the poetry or language/poetry of Shakespeare or deep themes, instead appreciate it as goofy romp with beautiful art.
Want to read
January 5, 2022Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.
December 10, 2024
Until we eat again
Котулетті і Монтепсюки.
Гамлет зі звірами в шасливим кінцем.
Цю шнягу вартувало почитати задля однієї єдиної сцени де черв'як розв'язує мотузку, якою прив'язаний Гамлет.
Котулетті і Монтепсюки.
Гамлет зі звірами в шасливим кінцем.
Цю шнягу вартувало почитати задля однієї єдиної сцени де черв'як розв'язує мотузку, якою прив'язаний Гамлет.
April 16, 2025
2.5 stars
It's Hamlet as a pig. Really all there is to it.
It's Hamlet as a pig. Really all there is to it.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews