A drawing of Niccolo Machiavelli from the graphic novel \”Machiavelli\” by Watertown\’s Don MacDonald.
For years, Watertown’s Don MacDonald has worked on pages for a graphic novel on Niccolo Machiavelli, and now his wants to get help paying to print his work.
MacDonald works on his project in his spare time, and has posted his drawings and story on his online blog, http://donmacdonald.com/. He recently started a campaign on Kickstarter.com to pay for the printing and to create a website for the project. (Click here to go to the Kickstarter page). His goal is raising $7,500 by May 15, 2014.
Machiavelli has interested MacDonald for years, because of his link to art, politics and Italy. He added that people do not know the real Machiavelli.
“We think of something being Machiavellian as being evil, but in reality he wasn’t,” MacDonald said. “He had a reputation that was not deserved or based in reality.”
A frame from the graphic novel \”Machiavelli.\” Author and artist Don MacDonald is running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the printing of the book.
MacDonald traveled to Italy and spent time in and around Florence doing research for his graphic novel. The book focuses on Machiavelli’s time working for the Republic of Florence, before the Medici’s took over and sent him into exile.
He calls his book a “fictional biography” because he worked to make it historically accurate, but not the dialogue is not made up of direct quotes nor is it in the dialect of the time.
The book has 160 pages of artwork, and will have another 5-10 pages of historical notes and other information, MacDonald said.
MacDonald has lived in Watertown his whole life and he works at the Harvard Business Review helping them with their publishing.
In his youth he read comic books such as the X-Men and Hellboy, but fell away from it as he got older. Then he realized there were other subjects for comic books besides super heroes.
“As I got older I realized you can tell any kind of story through comics, like ‘Maus‘ or ‘Persepolis,'” he said, referring to graphic novels on serious subjects – the Holocaust for the former and growing up as a girl in the Iranian Revolution for the later. “They really inspired me.”
The Machiavelli graphic novel is finished, and by publishing it MacDonald said he can move on to his next subject, British playwright Christopher Marlowe.
Those pledging support to MacDonald’s Kickstarter campaign will get different rewards depending on the amount. Some include: a PDF version of the book and a signed postcard for $10, a printed copy of the book for $25 along with the PDF and postcard, An original page of Machiavelli along with book and other items for $500, and more. See details and pledge by going here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/325728729/machiavelli-a-graphic-novel