Category Archives: Uncategorized
The Castle on the Hill
I love the idea of big rambling (and decaying) castles (mansions, fortresses, edifices). I need more practice drawing them.
A Big Goon
Friend Good
One thing I love about the Frankenstein Monster – there’s a lot of him. The version described by Shelley in the novel has yet to be represented on film.That’s understandable. There aren’t a lot of eight foot tall actors around.
Of Course
When sketching I have to draw a version of the Frankenstein Monster. It’s the law. I’ve yet to do a version of the Karloff monster that I think looks right. So I’ll keep practicing.
Ongoing Exploration
While I’ve haven’t been posting here for the last couple of years I haven’t been completely inactive or uncreative. Just very reduced. Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting some of my recent old work. Mostly with minimal comment.
Don’t Look Back
It’s not that I should never look back. I would never learn anything if I didn’t stop to assess things once in a while. And I have some great and fun memories. But I can’t change the past. I can only review it. I live now.
Out of Practice
I can talk about being out of practice, both in writing and in illustration. Or I can get to work.
A Faithful Representation
There have dozens, perhaps hundreds, of adaptations of the novel Frankenstein since it was first published in 1818. In the novel the creature is an articulate, complicated being. Sometimes, in literature and comic books, that creature is represented. Until Penny Dreadful I had not seen that creature in film or television.
Penny Dreadful is tv series that mashes up characters from various early horror stories. Mina Harker, Dorian Gray, Doctor Van Helsing, and others make appearances. Among the principal characters are Victor Frankenstein and his creation. The creation, who calls himself John Clare after the poet, is not a good physical depiction of the novel’s creature. He’s short (compared to the original’s eight foot height). He’s got some scars and a pale complexion but he’s hardly hideous.
But his personality is spot on. He’s melancholy. He’s murderous. He wants to be loved. He’s afraid to be loved. He haunts his creator and inflicts mayhem upon him, yet he is shy and nervous with the rest of the world. If Penny Dreadful did nothing else well I would love it for this creature.
A Good Father
I recently rewatched Young Frankenstein, the Mel Brooks comedy. I’d seen it once before, when I was a kid. I’m pretty sure that it was the first film version of the Frankenstein story that I had seen. I hadn’t yet seen any of the Universal Frankenstein movies so I missed the references. I didn’t know why it was in black and white. I didn’t understand what was up with Madeline Kahn’s hair at the end. This time, having seen all those films and having read the novel I really appreciated the movie.
What I appreciated most is that this was the first and, as far as I know, only film version of the story in which Doctor Frankenstein is a good father.
Despite claims to contrary, the novel: Frankenstein or A Modern Prometheus is not about a scientist who suffers because he played God and created life. Nope. The novel is about what happens to an arrogant man who refuses to take responsibility for the life that he has created. Frankenstein is the story of a bad parent. Victor Frankenstein makes a creature, brings it to life, is horrified by the results, and faints. When he awakes the creature is gone. Frankenstein spends the next three years hoping that the creature wandered off and died. He never looks for it. He never tells anyone what he has done. He just carries on his life. Until the creature comes back into that life, angry and hurt and demanding that Frankenstein love him. And Frankenstein refuses to love the creature. And Frankenstein refuses to take responsibility for the creature. And Frankenstein faints a lot.
Both play and film adaptations of the story have downplayed the bad parent theme. The creature is usually portrayed as speechless brute and Frankenstein is usually shown as an obsessed scientist. In Young Frankenstein Frederick Frankenstein may be an obsessed scientist but he also cares about his creature. Unlike the Frankenstein of the novel, he never gives up on his creation. He never walks away. He realizes that he made mistakes in the process of building his creature so he tries to make improvements. This Frankenstein is a good and generous man. And eventually he succeeds not only in improving the creature but in convincing the torch wielding mob that the creature is worthy of their sympathy as well.
When I was a kid this movie was a weird black and white thing that was mostly funny because it was so weird. Seeing it again last month, after decades of seeing rampaging monsters and the monomaniacal scientists who created them, I had a contented smile on my face. Finally a good doctor. Finally the creature got a happy ending.
Thank you Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder.
