Lake Illustrated Classics editions of Shakespeare, circa 1994

I spied but didn't buy (even though they were just $2 apiece) these Lake Illustrated Classic graphic novel versions of William Shakespeare's plays at a Bookmans in Tucson. I think these are the 1994 reprints of the Pendulum Press editions that were originally published circa 1980, right before Pendulum ended that particular series. The covers are mostly identical, in terms of artwork and design, just changing "Pendulum Illustrated Series" to "Lake Illustrated Classics."

Mostly, I thought the covers were intriguing, especially Macbeth with its colorful portrayal of the Weird Sisters. The King Lear cover is OK, but it mostly just makes me want to rewatch Kurosawa's amazing Ran (see article and photos by American Cinematographer).

Apparently these books and other classics adapted by Pendulum were largely targeted for classroom purchase and use. In a paper titled "Educational and Public Information Comics, 1940s–present," authors Christopher Murray and Golnar Nabizadeh state: "Pendulum was headed by David Oliphant and received funding from the US government in the 1970s to produce comics with a focus on education. They hired Vincent Fago, an experienced comics writer, artist and editor, to oversee the production of a series of comics adapting literary texts in a similar vein to Classics Illustrated, in what they terms [sic] the ‘Now Age’ illustrated series, which ran from 1973 to 1980." Pendulum Press also offered audiobook cassettes to go along with these condensed, illustrated versions.

In a 2021 post for My Reader's Block, Bev Hankins recalls discovering Dracula through the original Pendulum series in the classroom: "I didn't meet Dracula in the classroom, however. Unless you count receiving the Dracula, Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde three-pack of illustrated classics through the Weekly Reader book order form at school. ... I loved reading these adaptations then — there was just enough of the books' creepy storyline to give me the shivers without thoroughly freaking me out. Rereading Dracula now over forty years later, I'm impressed with how much of the story [Naunerle] Farr managed to pack into this condensed version."