The Stratford Zoo Midnight Revue Presents: Romeo and Juliet, by Ian Lendler and Zack Giallongo

Review copy provided by First Second Books.

I squeed when I saw this in my mailbox. The first volume, The Stratford Zoo Midnight Revue Presents: Macbeth was amaaaaazing. Hilarious. The only Macbeth you’ll ever need. Well, okay, not quite that far. But still: seriously good stuff.

Premise of the series is: the zoo animals perform Shakespeare after hours behind the humans’ backs. This is ridiculous. Yes. It embraces the ridiculous.

Romeo and Juliet is not as fertile ground as Macbeth, particularly when you have apparently decided that murder is all right for a kids’ comic but sex–even marital sex–is not. And somehow the direction of ridiculous with playdates was less hilarious to me than the direction of Macbeth eating everybody. I still enjoyed it, and I’m still looking forward to there being more (please? Titus Andronicus Richard II OH PLEASE TELL ME WHAT RIDICULOUS THING YOU WOULD SUBSTITUTE IN THERE I WANT TO KNOW).

Mostly I enjoyed Juliet being a bear. I like bears. I don’t go around saying I have a Patronus or anything, but bears: good stuff. Juliet-bear: okay, let’s go with that. Romeo-chicken and Juliet-bear. Got it.

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Originally published at Novel Gazing Redux