Comics Romeo and Juliet was created as part of an international project Classics in comics: An exemplary model of innovative cultural and artistic education in high school, which is coordinated by the Slovenian Theatre Institute with partners from Poland (Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute, Warsaw) and Slovakia (Theatre Institute, Bratislava) in the period 2019-2023. The project is co-financed by the European Union's Creative Europe Programme and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.
Creating a comic book Romeo and Juliet
The literary template by Ľubomír Feldek was adapted by playwright Daniel Majling in such a way that it had a clear structure of the arrangement of images and individual scenes. My task was to design the story visually and translate it into an artistic form. I decided to work in a digital environment and use a computer for the realization, mainly because of possible corrections that the traditional form does not allow with a classical medium.
I based the depiction of the story on dramatic imagery, the contrast of black and white, and easy-to-read gestures, mixing frames that appear linear and flat with frames that are more dynamically elaborated. I left the background fictitious, based on Verona, but it has no direct influence or significance in relation to the structure of the story, it is only an accompanying phenomenon, a backdrop.
(Juraj Martiška)
About the comic book author
Juraj Martiška (1969), Slovak visual artist focuses on book illustrations, freehand painting and graphic design. He has illustrated numerous textbooks and books for children and young people. In 1990, with his debut Samar Island (Samar Island) began publishing comics in the magazine Believe me! (Believe). Since 1992, the magazine Light (Bright) published many comics, such as the original comics Great friend (Great friend ), King Michael's worries (The Age of King Michael) or Space pilgrims (Space travelersHe also collaborated with the magazine Little bee (Bee) and with magazines AH and Researcher (Researcher). Juraj Martiška has received numerous awards, including the Ludovita Fulle for his achievements in books for children and young adults and multiple awards The most beautiful books of Slovakia (Sútež Najkrajšie knihy Slovenska) and The most beautiful children's book (The shortest children's bookInternational Board of Books for Young People (IBBY – International Board on Books for Young People) included his works in the prestigious 2012 and 2020 Honor Roll (Honor List).
Romeo and Juliet in Slovenia
Slovenians were introduced to Shakespeare relatively late compared to other major European nations, but Slovenian intellectuals soon recognized his example. Anton Tomaž Linhart, the central Slovenian Enlightenment playwright, writes a tragedy in German based on Shakespeare's example Miss Jenny Love (1780); already a few years after Linhart's return from Vienna (1781), adaptations of Shakespeare were performed in Ljubljana, in German (Romeo and Juliet was not among them). Mladosloven Fran Levstik mentions Romeo and Juliet in criticism and letters. For us, it is important to note that the first attempts to translate Shakespeare's tragedy into Slovenian appeared precisely in the case of Romeo and Juliet, after which it only experienced an integral professional staging as the author's fourth text, directed by Anton Verovšek in 1901. Individual premiere productions of Shakespeare's works were quite free and also omitted key scenes, with Linhart already writing a request, based on his experience in Vienna, that Slovenians play Shakespeare undistorted.
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The common motif is Romeo and Juliet In its 120-year history on Slovenian stages (1901–2021), it has seen 39 drama, opera, ballet, contemporary dance and performance productions. Shakespeare would have received royalties in all of them, but 17 drama productions have been more closely linked to him. We should also mention the puppet adaptation Romeo and Juliet (2011) and additionally for the blind and visually impaired (2015).
(from an article by Primož Jesenko) The gradual decay of immortality)
Sample comic book pages Romeo and Juliet >>
