FRANKENSTEINIA WINS RONDO AWARD FOR BEST BLOG

The Ninth Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards were announced on Wednesday night and I am thrilled to report that Frankensteinia has been voted BEST BLOG!

I’ll level with you. I never thought I could go all the way and win this award. I was immensely pleased with the nomination but I thought maybe this blog was too specialized, too focused on one subject to earn first place, as opposed to other blogs that reach far and wide and cover a comprehensive range of horror subjects. Then again, Frankenstein is Forever and I owe this blog’s success to the perennial popularity of Mary Shelley’s remarkable creation and our unending fascination with all its manifestations.

I also owe more than I can measure to those who have encouraged and supported me with their kind words and the bloggers who have so generously endorsed Frankensteinia on their own blogs, on Twitter and Facebook.

I send heartfelt thanks to Stacie Ponder of Final Girl and Tim Lucas of Video WatchBlog for their endorsements, especially as they were nominated in the Best Blog category along with me! I thank the mysterious Arbogast of Arbogast on Film and Greg Ferrara of Cinema Styles for their unremitting support. Thank you to Brian Solomon at The Vault of Horror and Erick Bognar of Wonderful Wonderblog. Thanks to Chris at Frog on the Pumpkin, Rogue Evolent of The Roads of Autumn Dusk and Mike at The Skull and the Pumpkin. Thanks to Mark Redfield, a supporter from day one, at An Actor’s Notebook, and thanks to Holger Hasse of Hammer and Beyond. I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone.

And then there’s Max Cheney, the nitwitty operator of The Drunken Severed Head blog, who went so far as to campaign for me! Max, last year’s Best Blog winner and nominated again this time, threw his support, his influence and the kitchen sink behind Frankensteinia. Back when I kicked off this blog in the summer of ’07, Max gave me my first review, my first link and became my first friend in horror blogdom. After all this time, I still can’t get rid of him. Max has always been generous with support, praise, advice and encouragement. He is a brother to me and a true and faithful ally. I cherish his friendship.

Thanks go out to David Colton and his accomplices for making the Rondos happen, a incredible achievement in and of itself.

Congratulations to all of this year’s Rondo nominees and winners. Celebrating personal favorites, allow me to congratulate Belle Dee, Best Fan Artist. And don’t let the “fan” tag fool you, Belle is a Pro through and through. Congratulations to Kim Newman, a favorite author of mine, who gets Rondoed as Best Reviewer, and Mark Redfield, a runner up for Best Interviewer. Hooray to Women in Horror Month as Best Fan Event and Bravo to the Rondo committee for splitting the Best Magazine Award into two categories, Mass and Fan Markets, allowing my two favorite magazines, Rue Morgue and Monsters from the Vault, to win Rondos. And Extra Special congrats to Tim and Donna Lucas, who hold my undying admiration, for being elevated to the Monster Kid Hall of Fame.

Finally, I want to thank all of YOU who follow Frankensteinia, especially the regulars who check in every few days. You keep me going.

Rondo Awards: The complete list of winners.

The Art of Frankenstein : Massimo Carnevale

A delightful caricature of Marty Feldman’s walleyed Igor, slapstick servant to Young Frankenstein, by Italian illustrator Massimo Carnevale.

Carnevale has worked as a comic book artist, notably on the horror-themed Dylan Dog title, but he is best known as a prolific cover artist, both in his home country and in America where he produced dazzling, clue-laden covers for Vertigo’s Y, The Last Man and Dark Horse’s Terminator 2029.

The Igor illustration comes from Carnevale’s wonderful movie-themed digital sketch blog.

Massimo Carnevale is featured on the magnificent Lines and Colors blog, with several links to illustration galleries.

Clint Eastwood Meets Frankenstein

Imagine Clint Eastwood as that other Man With No Name, the classic Frankenstein Monster!

This inspired piece of fantasy casting was created by Darryl Cunningham whose humorous Frankenstein strip was featured here recently.

Darryl Cunningham’s art blog.

Related:
Uncle Bob and the Frankenstein Monster

It's Rondo Time!

Have you voted yet? There are only 2 days to go! UPDATE: Voting extended to include Sunday March 27!

The Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award is “fandom's only classic horror award, decided by fans, for fans, and dedicated to preserving the undying spirit of monsters past.”

The ballot is huge and you get your say in a generous range of categories honoring horror films and DVDs, books, magazines, toys, websites, blogs, and lots more. You are welcome to vote in as many or as few categories as you’re comfortable with, but hurry up! Time is running out and voting closes this coming Saturday Sunday, at midnight on March 27.

This blog is nominated for a Rondo as Best Blog! Should you wish to support us, be sure to vote Frankensteinia in Category 16.

Here's the Rondo Ballot, and thank you for your kind consideration.

Frankenstein's Wedding Album

The BBC has kindly provided Frankensteinia readers with a selection of photographs from Frankenstein’s Wedding, broadcast live from Leeds last Saturday, March 19, 2011.

All photographs here are by Matt Squires, Copyright BBC, and used with permission.

Angry villagers typically invade Castle Frankenstein, but here the mood is festive as thousands attend Frankenstein’s Wedding, live from the grounds of Leeds' magnificent Kirkstall Abbey.

A beautiful but doomed couple. Liverpool's Andrew Gower and EastEnders star Lacey Turner star as Victor Frankenstein and Elizabeth Lavenza.

Jemima Rooper as Elizabeth’s bridesmaid, Justine, gets the wedding reception going.

David Harewood as The Creature, with his laboratory Bride. The Birmingham-born actor’s roles have included playing Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King. He’s appeared in television adaptations of Philip Pullman’s novels and an episode of Doctor Who.

Betrayed by Frankenstein, denied a Bride of his own, The Creature crashes the wedding ceremony.

A wedding tragedy. Lacey Turner as the bloodied Bride of Victor Frankenstein.

Related:
Frankenstein Live in Leeds
Frankenstein's Spectacular Wedding

Frankenstein's Spectacular Wedding

Andrew Gower, Lacey Turner and David Harewood starred in the BBC3’s Frankenstein’s Wedding, beamed live from Leeds across the UK on Saturday night, March 19.

Reviews of the multimedia play are mixed, but everyone agrees it was an impressive spectacle. Adam Sherwin of Beehivecity gave the show full marks, writing “It was undoubtedly the sort of event that only the BBC can pull off, a huge-scale live production involving the public, staged with wit and intelligence, which didn’t sacrifice the drama despite the enormous technical challenges.”

Reporting from Kirkstall Abbey on a cold, moonlit evening, Alfred Hickling of The Guardian writes, “As a technical feat, BBC3's enterprise is undeniably impressive. But as an audience member, you feel strangely isolated and incidental to the main event. It may be one of those occasions when you just had to be there – at home, watching it on TV, that is.”

Dan Owen of Obsessed With Film was among the underwhelmed, finding that “no passion, pace, or humour to Frankenstein’s Wedding”, adding, “It’s hard to imagine anyone had a good time watching this (even goths and emos would have found it pedestrian and dull), although it’s admittedly good to see BBC3 try something bold and creative.”

Perhaps The Guardian’s John Baron offers the best overview, stating, “As an experiment in televisual drama, I think the jury's very much out - on the TV brave-ometer, it was pretty much off the scale.”

Here's a slideshow on The Guardian, and a very large selection of images on Flickr.

Update: See Frankenstein's Wedding Album, courtesy of the BBC.

Related:
Frankenstein Live in Leeds

Frankenstein Live in Leeds

It’s Springtime for Frankenstein in the UK. Even as the National Theatre’s play triumphs in London, BBC Television is staging a major live event in Leeds this weekend. You are cordially invited to Frankenstein’s Wedding.

In Mary Shelley’s novel, Victor Frankenstein reneges on a promise to create a bride for the Creature who, betrayed, warns, “I shall be with you on your wedding-night!” That night has come, this Saturday evening, as Victor (Andrew Gower) and Elizabeth (Lacey Turner) tie the knot at Leeds’ Kirkstall Abbey, its majestic ruins bathed in lights.

An onsite audience expected to top 12,000 is invited to dress for the occasion and participate in a special wedding dance. Meanwhile, cameras will follow The Monster (David Harewood) as he makes his way through the city, intent on confronting his maker and bride-to-be.

Billed as a Romantic Horror Spectacular, the elaborate event, combining live drama, music and dance, goes live March 19 on BBC3 at 8PM, local time. It’ll also unfold on Twitter. Preparations and character “video profiles” are available to see on the BBC3 website, and on YouTube for viewers outside the UK.

Hopefully, the proceedings will be recorded and made available to the rest of the world.

BBC3 page for Frankenstein’s Wedding.

Video Diaries on YouTube: Victor, Elizabeth and The Creature (whose handheld camera may induce motion sickness!), and here’s the Audience Dance Tutorial.

Frankenstein Tonight

Frankenstein goes global tonight, March 17, as the National Theatre’s production, directed by Danny Boyle, is broadcast live to cinemas around the world. It is a phenomenal event, by any measure, in the unending history of Mary Shelley’s creation.

Frankenstein first broke the bounds of Mary’s 1818 novel in 1823 as a London play. Its immediate success spawned copycat versions literally within days. Over the next decades, countless versions appeared and actors T.P.Cooke and O.Smith made careers out of playing The Monster in blue-green skin and toga. Eighty years ago, James Whale’s Frankenstein — itself inspired by a British stage play — recast The Monster as a twentieth-century icon with Boris Karloff in boxhead and bolts makeup.

Tonight, another London stage adaptation of Frankenstein projects itself as a new Frankenstein reference. The reviews have been terrific and the participation of a famous director and two red-hot stars, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, have made the National’s live broadcast a must-see ticket worldwide, as witnessed by the buzz on social media. Next week, many cinemas will be showing an alternate version, with Cumberbatch and Miller switching roles as Victor and The Creature. Many venues will repeat the show in weeks to come.

No doubt both versions will be committed, soon, to DVD. Not coincidentally, the CD soundtrack by Underworld went into pre-order mode earlier today, along with t-shirts, one of them reading “Heartbeat Boom Boom”, evoking the play’s opening sequence.

Frankenstein never rests. In the next couple of days, I’ll be reporting on Frankenstein’s Wedding, a live television event this weekend out of Leeds. And a new batch of Frankenstein films loom on the horizon, not the least of which is a version planned by Guillermo del Toro.

Frankenstein marches on.

National Theater Live

Related:
The Reviews Are In
The National Theatre's Frankenstein
Images from the National Theatre's Frankenstein

Frankensteinian : The Walking Dead Reissue Poster

In 1936, Warner Brothers threw a curve ball when they mixed one of their patented streetwise gangster movies with a Frankenstein theme. Framed for murder, executed and resurrected by a scientist, Boris Karloff goes looking for his tormentors with a rigor mortis shuffle, a dead-eyed stare and a chillingly soft voice.

The original ad campaign featured superb art deco posters (see below) distinguished by great art, bold colors and beautifully designed titles. Not so with the re-release campaign of 1942, as evident in the crude paste-up job on the vertical insert-type poster (here at left). Karloff’s reanimated man dominates, with x-ray hand, but the face is actually swiped from the 1931 Frankenstein “Monster is Loose!” poster.

Compare the images of the original publicity photograph and its red poster version from 1931, and the yellow variation of the 1942 Walking Dead re-issue. Neck bolts and heavy eyelids have been removed, but the source still very obvious.

Related:
Frankensteinian: The Walking Dead

Frankenstein Fauteuil

An elegant, gilded fauteuil with skull detail, upholstered in printed leather and featuring a painting of Boris Karloff as The Monster, signed by artist and designer Paul Karslake. Part of a very ritzy series commissioned by Wish Interiors — other models feature Audrey Hepburn and Heath Ledger as The Joker — and strictly limited to 25 copies worldwide.

For discriminating and well-heeled Frankenstein fans, only 8,000US$.

Paul Karslake Fine Art website.

Wish Interiors Flickr.

Via Horror Society, with thanks to Jane.

3D Papercraft Frankenstein

Bob Canada is not a country. Heck, he’s not even Canadian. Bob Canada is an American cartoonist who, apparently, is trying to confuse us with his name. Bob keeps an art blog where, some time ago, he challenged himself to draw 100 different Frankensteins. Unfortunately, Bob keeps posting all kinds of fun stuff on his blog and the Frankensteins are few and far between. At the rate he’s going, Bob should be posting his final Frankenstein sometime around 2057. Until then, you can see his Frankensteins conveniently collected on a 100 Frankensteins Project Flickr page.

Among Bob’s creations is a rather ingenious, 11-inch high papercraft Frankenstein that you can assemble to amuse yourself and impress your friends with. Simply print, cut, fold and glue it together. All very simple and straightforward. A monkey could do this.

Bob says the 3-D Frankenstein is a bit top heavy and tends to fall over. I suggest taping a dime to its feet so it stays upright. Or, you could sue Bob for making your life miserable.

Papercraft Frankenstein download.

Related:
Art of Frankenstein: Bob Canada
Frankenstein Halloween Mask

A Million Frankensteins

Spotted on the net, a Frankenstein Million Dollar Novelty Bill that “commemorates the movies’ most famous Frankenstein – Boris Karloff”. You can buy them for two bucks apiece on Amazon or in pads of 10 from eBay.

Actually, I became a millionaire this weekend. On Saturday, according to StatCounter, my page loads, i.e. the number of times a page was accessed on this blog, sailed over the one million mark. That’s one million pages viewed over the three and a half years since Frankensteinia started up. Wow. I ain’t braggin’ — there are lots of horror blogs that leave mine in the dust — I’m just celebrating. Feels like an achievement, of sorts. And on a purely personal note, my Dad, who passed away late last year, would have turned 91 on Saturday. I enjoy the coincidence.

Thank you for visiting. Do come again!

Related:
Monster Money

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.