I won't review the play itself, except to say that for some reason I found the scenes of Gloucester and his sons, especially his attempted suicide, much more moving than anything with King Lear and his children, not sure if that's because they came across as more original because I didn't remember them as well as the other parts.

But I will say that this version, a graphic novel by Ian Pollack, was outstanding. It includes the full text and the illustrations are a beautifully rendered companion to the text. They function as a creative and thought-provoking production that is in a highly stylized fusion of traditional and contemporary costume with a wide variety of human and quasi-human shapes and forms for the characters.

It's a very good way to read the play which, after all, was meant to be watched. Unfortunately looking through the shelves of Barnes and Noble and Amazon, this appears to be just about the only decent graphic novel version of Shakespeare. The rest of them seem hackneyed and to subtract from the text. But tell me if you think otherwise.