On Kickstarter, the website that helps promote crowd-funded projects, a choose-your-own-way edition of Shakespeare’s tragic play, Hamlet, called, To Be or Not to Be: That is the Adventure, has received, as of early December, nearly $300,000  in support from interested readers. The project’s creator, Ryan North, a writer and comic book artist, originally set a goal of $20,000 to be able to produce the book and have some of it illustrated. Now he has more than enough funding to have the book produced in high quality paperback and hardcover editions and to illustrate all 110 of the possible endings. Each ending features a different way for the character(s) to perish. For each cartoony illustration, North has commissioned a different artist.

North’s treatment of the subject matter is admittedly very light. On the author’s Kickstarter project page, North answers the question: “What makes this book awesome?” For instance, his version of Hamlet includes pirates, more sword fighting, more jokes, and a preponderance of the word awesome used as a noun.

“You can die a lot in a book like this, and I want to make each time something to look forward to,” wrote North. “I want it to be a treat.”

In describing his audience, North claims, “this is a book written for adults who like only the most awesome of things. I’ve used the story of Hamlet as a starting point, but a) that’s already a great story because it ends with pretty much everyone in it getting stabbed in the body and b) the story can go in all sorts of fun, crazy directions when you make a choice that Shakespeare didn’t.”

Check out the progress of the project and read about North’s plans for the book here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/breadpig/to-be-or-not-to-be-that-is-the-adventure?ref=city

Source: GalleyCat