Uncle Bob and the Frankenstein Monster

What a life Uncle Bob has led! Now a sprightly 150-year old, he loves to entertain his nieces with rousing tales from his extraordinary past. Why, it was he, all those years ago, who thwarted the Martians who invaded us with their terrible tripods. It was he who tracked down the notorious jewel thief known as The Phantom. Uncle Bob met Dracula, Tarzan and he even traveled to King Kong’s dinosaur infested Skull Island. In one particularly memorable episode, Uncle Bob encountered Frankenstein’s murderous (and artistically inclined) Monster, high in the frozen Swiss Alps.

Darryl Cunningham of Yorkshire, England, is a perfectly brilliant cartoonist whose pared-down tales and minimalist drawings get straight to the heart of the story, stripped strips if you will, free of extraneous details yet loaded with pulse-pounding action and strong doses of humor, irony and sometimes bittersweet emotions. Cunningham’s comics manage to be at once understated and powerful. Here, less is definitely more.

Cunningham is the author of Psychiatric Tales, the acclaimed graphic novel about mental health problems. Now he’s collecting his Uncle Bob stories, aimed at readers of all ages, into a book due for later this year. I, for one, can hardly wait! Until then, you can read the stories, appearing as they are hatched, on his very engaging blog.

Read Uncle Bob and the Frankenstein Monster.

An excellent interview with Darryl Cunningham on Tom Spurgeon’s The Comics Reporter.

Reviews of Psychiatric Tales on The Comics Journal and Forbidden Planet.