It was an unholy pairing of two completely different genres: Shakespeare and the choose-your-own-adventure book. So when Toronto-based cartoonist Ryan North pitched the idea of a choose-your-own-adventure comics version of Hamlet, he wasn’t sure if the idea would gain any traction.

He then turned to the crowd funding website Kickstarter to see if he could raise $20,000 — just enough to pay a few artists and get the book off the ground.

When the campaign ended on December 21, a month after it was first launched, it had raised over $580,000 and gained the unofficial title of “Kickstarter’s most successful publishing project.”

On the last day alone, the project raked in $101,000, said North, still in disbelief.

“I wish I knew what I did to make that happen,” he said. “When I launched the book, the greatest I thought I would do was $100K total. To do that in one day is nuts.”

But so too, perhaps, is the concept for the book. A modern re-telling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, To Be or Not to Be: That Is the Adventure, told in a comic book form that allows the reader to be a host of characters, choose from among 100 different deaths and take any path available. They can also follow the original story line, if the diversions seem a little too blasphemous.

Initially, North, creator of Dinosaur Comics, says the goal was to produce a book with 30 illustrations. But as the funding increased, he was required to become more creative, promising his donors more goodies along the way. At $100,000, he promised a sequel. At $300,000, he promised to print the book in full colour. At $400,000, he said the prequel called Poor Yorick would also be in colour.

But the end, he had enough money for a prequel and sequel, more than 60 artists involved, and pledges to donate hundreds of books would to libraries and universities.

Eventually he couldn’t think of anything else to add.

“I sort of ran out of ideas of how to make the book better at the $400,000 mark. It was at that point already the best they could be, but people kept going,” he said.

Hence, Ryan had nothing left but to promise to “literally explode” if they reached the $500,000 mark.

While he’s thrilled at the outcome, he says he hasn’t quite cracked the code as to what made the project so successful, with more than 15,000 from around the world backing the project.

“I didn’t expect it to go this well, so I don’t have any super insights as to why it did,” he said. He thinks the adult and comedic version of choose-your-own path likely appealed to people nostalgic for the genre.

The publisher of the comic has launched the website Hamletbook.com, for those who still want to invest or pre-order a copy of the book and other perks North promised to those who invested in the project (like posters, bookmarks, pamphlets, tattoos and copies of the book) by December 31.

The goal is to have the book printed by May 2013. It will be available in bookstores and is expected to retail for $18.