New York: I had but one afternoon at The New York Comic Con. I decided to spend that time visiting every booth and exhibitor on the floor. I stopped by the Kill Shakespeare booth looking at the cool T-shirts and the comics on the table, but I initially did not want to buy any of it.

“Why do you want to kill Shakespeare?” I asked Conor McCreery with a pout. I like Shakespeare.

Thankfully, it was early on in the con so he must have had the energy to graciously take the time out to tell me that he really does not want to kill Shakespeare. However, in the world he and Anthony Del Col created, the villains Lady Macbeth, Richard III and Iago do want him dead and they want to possess his magic “quill.”

Also seeking Shakespeare are those with possibly other intentions: The troupe of Juliet, Othello and Falstaff who are joined by Hamlet. The comic actually starts after Hamlet escapes Denmark on a pirate ship with his buddies Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Then all hell breaks loose, as things are wont to do on fictional pirate ships. Throw in one of those, and can trouble be far behind?
I listened to Conor talk about his comic book—about the dramatic performance they were having on Saturday at the comic con; about how excited he is to bring Juliet back to life as a bit of a “Joan of Arc.” This was a man who seemed to take pride in his work and loved what he was doing. So I made my first purchase of the day.

He also mentioned that he corresponded often with Gerry Alanguilan and talked to me about Elmer.
We had also discussed “Sleep No More,” which is a most unique, strange, dark, immersive, sexy, gothic take on the play Macbeth. It one of those things that cannot be easily be described; the only thing one can do is to experience it.

You enter The McKittrick Hotel, you are handed a mask and then you begin your own adventure through rooms and corridors that have the decayed remnants of what must have once been stately and elegant in the 1930s. Old hymn books in libraries, handwritten notes on animals, taxidermy, children’s toys long unloved, crucifixes, phonographs, an abandoned dining room, the long unused office of a detective agency, dark marital beds, statues of angels and Catholic saints, all in low, eerie light.

You may chance upon a blood banquet, a woman bathing a man in bloody water, a couple dancing together and then parting, a murdered corpse being lifted away, Christmas trees may close in on you, or a man with a goat’s head may lead you to an orgy.
And if you’re “lucky” you may get abducted.

I didn’t get abducted. But Mr. McCreery made a wish when he signed if I ever went back to “Sleep No More.”

Thank you for the wish Mr. McCreery, and to all the authors that put wonderful wishes for their readers on their books. You haven’t killed Shakespeare; you join the ranks of those who continue to bring him back to life.

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By the way so many fun new releases out: Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie, Tik Tik the Aswang Chronicles and Looper with Joseph Gordon Levitt, which all opened on October 17.