“HARDBOILED HAMLET”
by HB Klein
“Hardboiled Hamlet” is an 8 page comic done entirely in black in white. In print, it is paginated and horizontally bound. Online, the pages are strung together vertically into an endless scroll.
The lighting is harsh and geometric, with heavy blackspotting. The text is taken from “Hamlet” Act 3 Scene 1, the famous “to be or not to be” speech. Pages are divided in half along the horizontal axis into two rows, unless otherwise stated. If there is only one panel on the row, than that panel is the width of the page. Otherwise the page width is divided equally between panels.
“O.P.” stands for “Off Panel,” meaning that the character speaking isn’t pictured.
[PAGE 1]:
1.5x2, 3 panels
PANEL 1, ROW 1: HAMLET, a scruffy blond man in suspenders, lounges in his wooden office chair, eyes shadowed, lighting a cigarette. His feet are propped up on the desk, ankles crossed.
Light shines in from the hallway through the window-sign on his door, projecting the shadows of a large eye logo and the words “Hamlet: Private Investigator” across his desk, stopping just before his shoes.
HAMLET: To be or. . . NOT to be, Ophelia.
PANEL 2, ROW 2: HAMLET leans his head back, cigarette dangling between his fingers, blowing smoke up and out across the room. The smoke cloud extends into the next panel, distorting the eye logo across both.
HAMLET: That IS the question. . .
PANEL 3, ROW 2: Extending panel 2, only HAMLET’s feet are visible. OPHELIA, a young bohemian black woman with a flower in her hair, looks distraught. The smoke cloud stretches across her face, throwing her into negative lighting.
HAMLET (O.P.): Ayyyy. . . . THAT’S the RUB.
[PAGE 2]:
3x2, 6 panels
PANEL 1, ROW 1: CLAUDIUS, stepfather of HAMLET, a stocky older man with a large mustache, looks down at the name plate in his hands. He is wearing a formal police uniform and badge, but the lighting from his blinds cast black and white stripes across the left half of his body like an old jail uniform.
PANEL 2, ROW 1: A close-up of the right side of HAMLET’s face as he snarls.
HAMLET: Whether tis nobler in the mind to SUFFER
PANEL 3, ROW 1: CLAUDIUS adjusts the name plate on his desk, close-up on his hand. The lighting still makes black and white stripes across his chest.
NAME PLATE: CHEIF OF POLICE -- Claudius King
PANEL 4, ROW 2: HAMLET, in profile, looking down contemplatively. Close-up on his face.
HAMLET: the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. . .
PANEL 5, ROW 2: Looking over CLAUDIUS’s shoulder as POLONIUS, an old police officer with a hat and large beard large beard, enters waving cheerily. POLONIUS is holding a pair of binoculars.
Both are lit in the black and white stripes from the office blinds.
PANEL 6, ROW 2: HAMLET reaches towards the reader for a pistol in a shoulder holster, moving forward. His head is cut off by the top of the panel.
HAMLET (O.P.): Or to take up arms against a sea of troubles
[PAGE 3]:
3x2, 6 panels
PANEL 1, ROW 1: HAMLET’s hands, aiming the gun off panel.
HAMLET (O.P.): and by opposing
PANEL 2, ROW 1: A mysterious woman, GERTRUDE, mother of HAMLET, a dark-haired greying older woman with a prominent beauty spot, posing in an alluring manner, lit from behind.
PANEL 3, ROW 1: HAMLET’s hands, firing the gun, barrel flashing.
HAMLET (O.P.): end them.
PANEL 4, ROW 2: A bullet shatters a lens of the binoculars, held up to POLONIUS’s nose. The shards of glass fly out of the panel.
HAMLET (O.P.): To die
PANEL 5, ROW 2: A staticky shot from a “Steamboat Willy”-style cartoon. The OLD MOUSE KING sleeps peacefully as a hand reaches in from off panel and pours poison into his large ear, producing a skull cloud.
HAMLET (O.P.): to sleep
PANEL 6, ROW 2: OPHELIA, in profile in close-up, eye open wide as she drowns, bubbles streaming from her open mouth.
HAMLET (O.P.): and by a sleep to say we end
[PAGE 4]:
3x1, 3 tall panels
PANEL 1, ROW 1: Two doors opening on an abstract geometric scene, possibly involving arms.
HAMLET (O.P.): THE HEARTACHE
PANEL 2, ROW 1: The doors open further, the shapes resolving into two pairs of arms.
HAMLET (O.P.): and the thousand natural shocks
HAMLET (O.P.): that the flesh is heir to
PANEL 3, ROW 1: The doors are all the way open, and the scene is revealed. GERTRUDE is mid-orgasm atop CLAUDIUS. CLAUDIUS looks at the reader, smirking.
HAMLET (O.P.): tis a CONSUMMATION devoutly to be wished.
[PAGE 5]:
3x2, 6 panels
PANEL 1, ROW 1: Close-up on a cigarette, burning down close to HAMLET’S fingertips.
HAMLET: To die
PANEL 2, ROW 1: GERTRUDE, CLAUDIUS, HAMLET, and OPHELIA in a sitting room, watching a staticky vintage black and white television. GERTRUDE and CLAUDIUS sit together on the couch. HAMLET is cross-legged on the floor, leaning his head against OPHELIA’s lap.
On the television, a cartoon mouse is picking up a vial of poison.
PANEL 3, ROW 1: HAMLET crushes the cigarette out with his thumb.
HAMLET: to sleep
PANEL 4, ROW 2: Closing into the staticky television screen. A cartoon mouse is sneaking up behind the peacefully dozing OLD MOUSE KING.
HAMLET (O.P): to sleep
PANEL 5, ROW 2: Staticky television screen consumes the whole panel. Sinister CLAUDIMOUSE, a mouse with a curly mustache, is smirking and holding a finger to his mouth to signal quiet. In his other hand, he holds a poison vial, with a smoke skull puffing from the top.
HAMLET (O.P.): perchance to DREAM.
PANEL 6, ROW 2: The “Steamboat Willy” style title card for the movie. CLAUDIMOUSE is jauntily pouring poison into the sleeping OLD MOUSE KING’s ear, producing a poison skull cloud.
TITLE CARD: The Tragedian’s MOUSE TRAP
[PAGE 6]:
1.5x2, 3 panels
PANEL 1, ROW 1: A pair of eyes (GERTRUDE’s) in close up. The MOUSE TRAP is reflected in both.
In the right eye, OLD KING MOUSE is dead, ear foaming. A hand reaches for his eye.
From the left eye, CLAUDIMOUSE looks out at the reader as he kisses GERTRODENT deeply on the mouth.
HAMLET (O.P.): For in that sleep of death
HAMLET (O.P.): what dreams may come
PANEL 2, ROW 2: This panel continues into the panel beside it, splitting the image in half. In the first panel, a pair of arms (HAMLET’S) drag a prone man along the ground by the ankles.
HAMLET (O.P.): when we have shuffled off this mortal coil
PANEL 3, ROW 2: The upper half of the dead man’s body (POLONIUS) scrapes along the ground. There are glass shards clustered in his eyes trailing blood off panel, and a pair of shattered binoculars is being pulled along behind him.
HAMLET (O.P.): must give us pause.
[PAGE 7]:
3x2, 6 panels
PANEL 1, ROW 1: CLAUDIUS kneels by his office window with his back to the reader, praying.
HAMLET (O.P.): For who would bear the whips and scorn of time,
PANEL 2, ROW 1: A close-up shot from THE MOUSETRAP of a distorted rat-like figure (THE OLD MOUSE KING) looming over GERTRODENT as she cowers in fear.
HAMLET (O.P): the oppressor’s wrong,
PANEL 3, ROW 1: A shot of GERTRUDE’s bruised back as she brushes her hair.
HAMLET (O.P.): the pangs of disprized love,
PANEL 4, ROW 2: An autopsy file. Clipped to the left side of the folder is a picture of OLD KING HAMLET, the right side is an autopsy report revealing that the investigating officer was CLAUDIUS.
HAMLET (O.P.) the law’s delay,
PANEL 5, ROW 2: A pair of binoculars (held by POLONIUS) peer through a window at HAMLET, who is turning around to spot the intruder.
HAMLET (O.P.): the insolence of the office
PANEL 6, ROW 2: A family photo of HAMLET, GERTRUDE, and OLD KING HAMLET, where CLAUDIUS’s face has been taped over OLD KING HAMLET’s. The picture is captioned "Our little prince" in cursive.
HAMLET (O.P.): And the spurs that patient merit of the unworthy takes.
[PAGE 8]:
1.5x2, 3 panels
PANEL 1, ROW 1: HAMLET, in profile, blows smoke across the panel border into the second panel.
HAMLET: When he himself might quietus make
HAMLET: with a bare bodkin?
PANEL 2, ROW 1: OPHELIA’s face blows away in the smoke, reaching for HAMLET.
HAMLET (O.P.): Who would fardels bear?
PANEL 3, ROW 2: HAMLET stands in a graveyard, trench coat blowing in the wind, staring at his own tombstone.
HAMLET (O.P.): But for the DREAD
HAMLET (O.P.): of something after death?
[END COMIC]