This is my attempt at representing Deucalion, Victor Frankenstein’s first creation, from Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein trilogy. Deucalion has named himself after the son of the mythical titan, Prometheus. Koontz’s story isn’t a sequel to any specific version of Frankenstein; neither the original novel nor any of the multitude of plays and films that have been inspired by it. Deucalion, rather than being hideous at his awakening as in the novel (and most of the movies), was apparently very handsome. His facial scars are the result of Frankenstein’s attempt to destroy him after he rebelled against his creator. A Buddhist monk added the tattoos to distract from the scars.
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A thing I seem to remember from Shelly’s novel – the monster was handsome, finely featured, but hideous and scary because unnatural. People reacted viscerally to something that should not exist, not to his superficial appearance. But then Mary Shelly kept his description pretty vague, didn’t she?
In Shelly’s novel Frankenstein says –
“His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! — Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips.”
That’s about as detailed as it gets. Oh, and he’s eight feet tall. The creature in Koontz’s novels in six feet, six inches tall. Which makes sense since Koontz explicitly says that he’s built from the parts of criminals. It’s awfully hard to build a giant from the parts of normal human beings.
Shelly never says specifically how the creature is made. At least not in the novel itself.
Yellow skin. Straight black lips. Hm. So much for beauty.
I have a hard time drawing a version of Shelly’s novel’s creature that I actually find hideous. But I keep working at it. 🙂
Cardassianish.
Eric the Ex-Coworker