In the wake of the No Fear Shakespeare series, manga-ification, multi-modal animation, comic book repackaging, vlogging, Lego-ing and a wide range of abridged versions, publishers, illustrators and graphic designers have joined forces to promote oddities such as emoji versions of Shakespeare (OMG Shakespeare). Creating innovative forms and formats, or imagining graphic designs is a never-ending process mainly conditioned by the search for new marketing segments, for instance, in the bookselling industry, or renewing pedagogical approaches to teaching the classics and incorporate them into what Douglas Lanier coined “Shakespop”.Ģ Over the last decades, Shakespeare studies have taken on board the impact of popular culture and the permanent morphing of the Bard’s canon into new textual or visual objects that correlate the way technological innovations affect our world in the 21st century. One such trend is closely linked to digital publishing on the Internet but equally to adaptations as tools that can convey critical views on the use of digital devices (computers, smartphones, tablets). Those adaptations also fit within a broader context of new tastes and trends across genres and styles. They have all been ceaselessly adapted, illustrated, re-appropriated and remediated so as to circulate among an ever-larger spectrum of readers and on ever expanding platforms. Mots-Clésġ Graphic adaptations come in all shapes and sizes, and we live in what seems to be a golden age for graphic adaptations of mythologised works like Shakespeare’s plays, Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, or Jane Austen’s fiction, 1 to name but those few. De fait, les pixels des émojis ainsi que les strips dessinés et diffusés sur la toile offrent l’occasion de repenser le rapport de ces pièces à la mise en scène et à la réappropriation de la dramaturgie constamment renouvelée, en sons et en images. Bien qu’à première vue, les strips et les émojis peuvent sembler réducteurs et qu’il est tentant de voir dans ces adaptations du Shakespeare « décafféiné », le propos consiste à démontrer que ces modes graphiques déploient une rhétorique visuelle et une performativité propres qui renvoient à ce que Douglas Lanier a défini comme les réseaux rhizomatiques shakespeariens, en empruntant le concept à Deleuze et Guattari. D’autre part, les strips en ligne constituent une approche multimodale, globalisante et un moyen de communiquer qui permet à l’artiste-illustratrice de croiser la dimension visuelle avec d’autres formes telles que la musique. Ces modes de représentation ne sont pas éloignés de ce que Sianne Ngai a théorisé sous le terme « cute ». Il s’intéresse notamment à la façon de représenter visuellement les personnages à l’aide de bonhommes-allumettes ou avec des émojis en postulant que le dénominateur commun est la résistance à une figuration de type réaliste. They also gesture in more ways than one toward Shakespeare’s text when it is staged and permanently reappropriated in sight and sound.Ĭet article interroge Roméo et Juliette adapté sous forme de strips publiés sur un blog en ligne, ou avec des émojis dans une version imprimée qui simule la communication numérique sur les réseaux sociaux. In spite of the apparently reductiveness of emojified pixels and/or digital panels, and the temptation to perceive in those adaptations a degree of decaffeinated Shakespeare, it is argued that the visual rhetoric and performativity which underpin those modes of representation are multifunctional and are thus in keeping with rhizomatic Shakespearean networks as defined by Douglas Lanier. Furthermore, webcomics embrace a global and multimodal approach whereby the medium itself allows the artist-illustrator to cross-reference visual adaptations with other discourses. Part of the argument is a larger issue which is the use of stick figures and emojis to represent the characters visually as both have in common the aim to simplify and steer away from realistic figuration while often revealing elements of the “cute” as theorised by Sianne Ngai. The present essay examines how Romeo and Juliet is when adapted as a webcomic and is illustrated with emojis in paper editions that emulate digital conversation platforms.
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