Friday, August 25, 2023

Shakespeare in FoxTrot's Say Hello to Cactus Flats

Amend, Bill. Say Hello to Cactus Flats. Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel, 1993.

I may have hit a bit of a jackpot with this volume of Bill Amend's tremendous comic strip FoxTrot.

We're on the sixth published volume. The characters are pretty firmly established and fairly fleshed out.

Thus, we're ready to run with the Shakespeare tropes.

First, it's Peter who is working on Shakespeare. He has a Macbeth essay due, and here's how it goes:


I don't know that I would be able to call myself a Shakespeare scholar if I didn't point out that there are actually only four "prithees" in Macbeth, 75% of them spoken by the title character and the remaining 25% spoken by Banquo.

And now . . . well . . . something a bit more tangential. If you've dipped into Bardfilm's "Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete" (for which, q.v.), you may have noted that Bardfilm can get carried away, finding Shakespeare allusions where none was (probably) intended. But humor me, please:


Tell me that's not a sideways allusion to Othello with the gender roles reversed.

Oh.  Okay.  I hear you.

We can all agree that the next strip is clearly deliberately related to Shakespeare, though the specifics are left vague:


And, last but not least, we have one that I actually covered back in 2012 (for which, q.v.).


That felt very satisfying. Thanks, Bill Amend, once again for years of great Fox Trot strips (though, please, more Shakespeare is always appreciated).

Click below to purchase the book from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

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