The Art of Frankenstein: Brom

The Frankenstein Monster, stitched, stapled and patched with bolted iron stands among ruins, perhaps a mausoleum. His hollow gaze suggests despondency. The title of the piece, Alone, evokes The Monster’s words, as written by Mary Shelley:

“I am an unfortunate and deserted creature; I look around and I have no relation or friend upon earth… I have good dispositions; my life has been hitherto harmless and in some degree beneficial; but a fatal prejudice clouds their eyes, and where they ought to see a feeling and kind friend, they behold only a detestable monster.”

This splendid, melancholic painting is by the Seattle-based artist (Gerald) Brom, one of the finest fantasy artists working today. His bizarre, intricately costumed characters and vastly original monsters are as haunting as they are unique. Brom first came to prominence with his work for the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing games and collectable card games such as Magic: The Gathering. He has also produced book covers and designs for videogames such as World of Warcraft, and films including Sleepy Hollow (1999) and Van Helsing (2004).

The Frankenstein image appears in Darkwërks: The Art of Brom, published by FPG in 1997. Other Brom books include Offerings (Paper Tiger, 2003) and the recent illustrated novel The Devil's Rose (Abrams Books, 2007). Another illustrated novel, The Plucker (Abrams Books, 2005) has been optioned for films by New Line Cinema.

Brom’s official website. Dedicated web pages for Devil’s Rose and The Plucker.

Brom’s books are available through the Amazon links above, or directly from the artist’s web shop, along with a vast selection of prints.

Brom art gallery, and a fansite.

Indie Frankenstein

Indie band Willoughby, led by singer-songwriter Gus Seyffert, perform a lovely, bittersweet ballad called Frankenstein, part of their debut album I Know What You’re Up To.

Evoking such influences as Chet Baker, Harry Nilsson and The Zombies, Seyffert recorded to analog tape, and the album will be released in both CD and vinyl editions.

A simple, unpretentious video features Seyffert as The Scientist and band member Charlie Wadhams as a wandering hobo Monster with a curiously pointy nose. The song is said to be “a love letter” from Frankenstein to his creature.

See the video on the Willoughby site, or on YouTube.

The band’s site carries additional info about the song, and the photo section has backstage pics from the video shoot.

The Web of Frankenstein

Tracking some recent Frankenstein activity on the net… Click away!

August Ragone, author of Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters, runs a terrific blog called The Good, The Bad and Godzilla. It’s highly entertaining, with great info and fantastic pics. Here’s a post about War of the Gargantuas (1966), a film originally called “Frankenstein's Monsters: Sanda vs. Gaira” in Japan, illustrated with a wonderful candid shot of special effects genius Tsuburaya striding a miniature set with one of his Giant Furry Frankensteins. Ragone also posts a great gag shot (glimpsed here, visible in all its uncropped glory on August’s blog) of Tsuburaya and the caveman-like Frankenstein from Frankenstein Conquers the World (aka. Frankenstein vs Baragon) (1965).

Music from the Monster Movies: 1950-69 is another blog recently celebrating the Japanese Frankenstein's conquering ways, complete with twanging guitar sound clips. Hosts Eegah! and Tabonga! also treat us to a short and punchy look at the Mexican-made Orlak, el infierno de Frankenstein (1960).

The Vicar of VHS, holding forth on the splendid Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies is a funny and enthusiastic — nay, exuberant — reviewer. He is not above using CAPS, large type and even color accents to express surprise and sheer, uninhibited and contagious delight. Hang on to something and read his euphoric reviews of Frankenstein monster mashes like Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror, Assignment Terror and Lady Frankenstein (given a possibly record-breaking 6 thumbs up!). By the time you’re done, he’ll have you jumping up and down and flapping your arms along with him.

The excellent Vault of Horror recently posted a scoop about an upcoming project of adapting Wake The Dead, the IDW comic book Frankenstein reboot, to the movies. B-Sol links to an informative interview with creator Steve Niles, of 30 Days of Night fame. Also worth noting: A very well done Vault of Horror Top 10 Horror Films List featuring the 1931 Frankenstein at #8, and 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein at #2.

One Neat Thing a Day posted about songs with the word Frankenstein in their titles, complete with YouTube links, and over on the recently redesigned Movie Morlocks, Richard Harland Smith says what he REALLY thinks of the Charles Ogle Frankenstein Monster.

On Yahoo Movies, a trailer for Death Race shows it’s a straight up muscle car action picture that has little if anything to do with the original cult classic Death Race 2000 of 1975. The Frankenstein in this version is… a Mustang.

On Broadway, the much hyped Mel Brook’s Musical Young Frankenstein is getting a major face transplant. Sutton Foster and Andrea Martin, who took turns stopping the show as, respectively, Inga and Frau Blucher, are leaving the show. A mass exodus of talent might follow as the producers (no pun here) have called for a “non negotiable”, wholesale salary slash of 50% when player contracts are renewed this summer. The New York Post carries a terse article about it.

On the cultural front, a fascinating exhibition called The Monster Among Us: Frankenstein from Mary Shelley to Mel Brooks is running at the University of Virginia Rotunda Dome Room until November 2008. Curated by Shannon Gorman, it features materials from the collection of Susan Tyler Hitchcock, author of Frankenstein: A Cultural History. Here’s the Exhibition page, and here’s an article about it.

Meanwhile, last May 17, visitors to the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, England, were treated (and what a treat indeed!) to a one-day only display of an actual, handwritten manuscript page from Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, on loan from the Bodleian Library. The event was accompanied by a showing of the 1931 movie with Boris Karloff.

And, finally, here’s a tip of the Frankenstein flattop to Kitty LeClaw, horror movie coinnoiseuse and hostess of Killer Kittens From Beyond the Grave, for her kind words about this blog, posted under the cockle-warming title of I Left my Heart in Frankensteinia. Kitty recently “invoked” the beautiful Bride, Elsa Lanchester, in acrylic, and displays her paintings here.

The Covers of Frankenstein : Doc Frankenstein No.6

Make that The AWARD-WINNING Covers of Frankenstein!

I was in Toronto last weekend to pick up an award (previously mentioned here) and I was delighted when, during the course of the ceremonies, Steve Skroce won the Joe Shuster Award for “Outstanding Cover by a Canadian Comic Book Artist” for Doc Frankenstein #6.

Skroce is an artist celebrated for his storyboard work on The Matrix films. He co-created the Doc Frankenstein character with Geoff Darrow, and the series is written and published, through Burlyman Entertainment, by the Wachowski Brothers.

Shown here are the award-winning standard cover and the alternate “sketch cover” to Doc Frankenstein #6, published last fall.

I previously blogged about Doc Frankenstein here.

The Joe Shuster Awards for 2008.

Steve Skroce’s Wiki page.

Doc Frankenstein publisher, Burlyman Entertainment.

Genesis of Frankenstein

June 15, 16 and 17 are important dates in Frankenstein history.

In 1816, on the evening of June 16 and late into the night, the very concept of Frankenstein was first seeded.

In the spring and summer of that year, the extreme weather conditions created by the massive Tambora volcano explosion blanketed Europe with violent thunderstorms. Out on Lake Geneva, at Cologny, the vacationing Lord Byron and his guests were confined within the walls of the Villa Diodati. As rain poured and thunder cannonaded across the Jura, Byron, his physician John Polidori, his friend Percy Shelley, Shelley’s companion and wife to be Mary Godwin, and Mary’s stepsister Claire Clairmont gathered around the fireplace and entertained themselves as best they could.

On that appropriately stormy night of June 16, Byron read aloud from a book called Fantasmagoriana, a 1812 French translation of a German collection of ghost tales. Influenced by the stories — as described in the book’s subtitle, of specters, revenants and phantoms — Byron suggested a game. “We will each write a ghost story”, he said.

As Mary wrote in the 1831 introduction to Frankenstein, “I busied myself to think of a story, a story to rival those which had excited us to this task.” It would take a few days before inspiration struck, as Mary claimed, in a waking dream. The first reference to Frankenstein would appear in her diary on June 24.

One hundred and fifteen years later, in 1931, writer-director Robert Florey and a skeleton crew assembled on the leftover sets from Dracula, the stairs cleaned of their cobwebs and the parquet redressed with lab equipment, to shoot the legendary — and lost — Frankenstein test reel, with Bela Lugosi as The Monster. Rehearsals were held on June 15, filming proceeded on the 16th and 17th. Though accounts differ wildly as to Lugosi’s appearance in makeup, the test, reportedly twenty minutes long, was the talk of Universal. Within ten days, James Whale had exercised his power at the studio and taken over from Florey, and the project was on its way.

Frankenstein was inspired by a book of quaint ghost stories and a parlor game for bored and excitable intellectuals. On the very same day, one hundred and fifteen years later, Robert Florey directed the screen test for the first talking Frankenstein picture.

The first event was the genesis for Frankenstein. The second one made Frankenstein an icon.

Previous posts: The Villa Diodati. Mount Tambora.

Fantasmagoria is available again, complete and in a new English translation.

Mystery and Imagination: Frankenstein (1968)by Marc Berezin

Through the years, Frankenstein has proven to be a favorite subject for television anthology shows. Guest Blogger Marc Berezin reviews an intriguing and rarely-seen British adaptation from 1968.

It’s generally assumed that the first Frankenstein film attempting a fidelity to Mary Shelley’s original story was the 1973 Dan Curtis/ABC-TV version. However, that distinction ought to go to another small-screen version that preceded it by a few years.

Mystery and Imagination was a gothic horror anthology series broadcast on British ITV stations from 1966-68 and 1970 and produced (in black and white) first by the Associated British Corporation Television and then by Thames Television. The 71-minute November 11, 1968 episode was an adaptation of Frankenstein, written by Robert Muller and directed by “Voytek” (Voytek Roman).

For the first time, the doomed characters of Clerval (Neil Stacy), Justine (Meg Wynn Owen) and young William (Frank Barry, here called “Wilhelm”) were portrayed close to Shelley’s text, and Elizabeth (Sarah Badel) finally is really murdered by her husband’s creation. Nevertheless, as in the 1973 and 1984 telefilms, the low budget videotaped nature of the production precluded a trip to the North Pole.

This rendition is also noteworthy for its own distinctive take on the Frankenstein mythos. The close identification between Creator and Creation had already been touched on in previous adaptations, such as the 1910 Edison film where The Monster is a manifestation of Frankenstein’s baser nature; the mirror comparison scene in Son of Frankenstein (1939); Frankenstein 1970 (1958) in which the Monster is revealed at the end to resemble a younger version of the scientist, and Revenge of Frankenstein (1958) where the doctor becomes his creation. Further reflecting the popular confusion of the name "Frankenstein”, the 1927 Peggy Webling play had the creator intentionally share his name with his creation.

All this is now taken a step further: both Victor Frankenstein and “the Being” (so named in the credits) are portrayed throughout by one actor, Ian Holm. The Being’s facial makeup consists of a disfigured left side (resembling a bad skin condition) along with forehead stitches, but still he appears nearly identical to Victor.

The Being is assembled in a rather sparsely furnished lab with the aid of a hunchback named Fritz (Ron Pember, in a nod to the 1931 film). Victor is upfront in his challenge to God, whom he wishes to “meet on equal terms”. Indeed, he clearly usurps the role of Deity by fashioning his man in his own image.

When the bandaged being is hoisted upward with its arms spread apart, Victor stands opposite, mimicking this pose. The usual electric storm animates the Being, who is capable of halting speech from the first, asking (before Victor drives it away): “Who am I?”

Another distinction is the blind man sequence. Whereas all other versions depict encounters with a sightless person as idyllic until broken up by sighted intruders, here the Being itself sours the relationship when it asks, “Who is God?” Informed by the blind elder (Gerald Lawson) that “God gave each of us the gift of Life”, it recalls its own errant creator and declares: “God…bad!” This blasphemy so upsets the pious host that his returning son needs little provocation to drive the now unwelcome visitor away.

Following the murder of Wilhelm, the framing and execution of Justine, the aborted creation of the female companion, and the murders of Clerval and Elizabeth, Victor and his creation face each other one last time. The Being has disarmed Victor — “Fire your bullet – You will destroy yourself!” — and, with the pistol that Victor could not bring himself to use, kills its willing God/victim after prophesizing its own fate: “They will destroy me… Men born of women… And will themselves become murderers.”

The Being then walks into the shadows in an ambiguous fadeout.

On the whole, this version of Frankenstein is well-executed and enjoyable to watch. As noted earlier, it is hampered by the budget — there are few outdoor scenes — but makes successful use of split photography and body doubles to create an illusion of the two characters interacting with one another.

There is also an effective use of a heartbeat on the soundtrack, warning us of the Being’s approach. Holm, who would play the scientist’s father 26 years later in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994), is a fine actor in both roles, but lacks the physically imposing stature that would make the Being more frightful. Since the light makeup is designed so that the creation be identical with the creator, it is difficult to imagine how the public at large would be terrified by what basically looks like a disfigured version of the diminutive Holm (the being is frequently filmed from the ground up to create an illusion of height). Furthermore, other than Frankenstein’s rejection and the disastrous encounter with the blind man, the audience is not shown how the Being becomes a vengeful killer — no irate villagers, not even having stones thrown.

Only about eight of the original 24 episodes of this well-crafted series survive. The few that do, including Frankenstein and the Denholm Elliot-starring Dracula, have circulated among collectors as grainy unauthorized videotapes and DVDs. It is well worth searching out reliable sources for these highly recommended items.

UPDATE: The surviving episodes of Mystery and Imagination, including the Ian Holm Frankenstein reviewed here, are to be officially released on DVD in the UK on March 23, 2009. Here’s the Amazon UK link.

Mystery and Imagination series IMDB page, episode guide, and an article on Television Heaven. Frankenstein episode IMDB page.

Marc Berezin is our first returning Guest Blogger. He previously contributed The Patchwork People of Oz, a fascinating survey of Frankensteinian characters in the stories of L. Frank Baum.

Dean Koontz's Frankenstein: The Comic Book

Suspense and horror writer Dean Koontz’s post-modern reboot of Frankenstein was launched in 2004 simultaneously as a TV movie and a novel by Koontz and Kevin J. Anderson.

The film, directed by Marcus Nispel and starring Vincent Perez as the noble Monster — here called Deucalion (in mythology, the son of Prometheus) — was critically panned and a mooted series was abandoned. Koontz walked away from the film due to creative differences and concentrated on turning his original concept into a book trilogy. Following Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein: Prodigal Son in 2004, the second title, City of Night, co-written with Ed Gorman, appeared in 2005. The final volume, Dead and Alive, is due out in early 2009.

Now, Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein is being adapted to comics by writer Chuck Dixon and artist Brett Booth, both highly regarded in their field. Prodigal Son #1 (of 6) is out now from Dabel Brothers, and the collected series will be issued as a graphic novel from Del Rey Books.

The Dabel Brothers site features an interview with Dean Koontz and links to related material, including a very nice image gallery.

The Famous Monsters of Filmland site carries an interview with comics writer Chuck Dixon.

The art here at left is by Brett Booth. The illustration at top is an alternate cover by Arthur Suydam.

The Covers of Frankenstein : Master Movie Monsters

Perhaps he’s just a glum ghoul, but I always thought of the creature roughly caricatured here by M. Seltzer as a Frankenstein movie-inspired monster, with that tall billboard forehead and overhanging brow.

Published by Merit/Camerarts out of Chicago in 1965, this paperback original by Brad Steiger is a quick and fairly entertaining read, striding briskly through the history of horror films, cleaving largely to the familiar titles and the name stars like Karloff and Lugosi. Steiger displayed good knowledge and genuine affection for his subject, but there was nothing really new in here for genre fans, all of the material having already been mined by the then popular monster magazine.

In his introduction, Steiger staked the high ground, promising “no cute captions, no poisonous puns, no deprecating delivery of information”. Otherwise Master Movie Monsters actually reads like an issue of an average monster mag, with short-short chapters (one, on vampire films, runs barely two pages), and photo sections — a little murky on the cheap newsprint interiors — making up half of the book’s 122 pages. Arguments made are typical of the writings on horror films in the sixties, promoting monster movies as serious cinema and necessary catharsis, and decrying a “plague” of increasingly cheap sequels, culminating in “the final indignity of mockery and laughter when they (the Master Monsters) were forced to meet Abbott and Costello”. That was the conventional wisdom of the times, and it would be a few more years before the qualities of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein would come to be appreciated by serious critics.

Teen-age monsters are similarly snubbed, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) is singled out as a memorable but “minor” Master Monster, with the fifties belatedly redeemed with the “much-awaited Renaissance” signaled by Hammer Films and AIP’s Poe films.

Master Movie Monsters was author Brad Steiger’s second book, and a second pass at the subject following his Monsters, Maidens & Mayhem – a Pictorial History of Hollywood Film Monsters (also 1965). Steiger went on to an amazingly prolific career as a book writer, with 166 titles — currently — to his name. He specialized in the paranormal, cryptozoology, UFO research, also writing true crime and even biographies. His bio of Rudolph Valentino served as the basis for the 1977 film directed by Ken Russell. Steiger’s most recent titles deal with spirituality.

Brad Steiger’s official website. Steiger’s biography, with a complete list of published works.

First Look: Marion Mousse's Frankenstein, Volume Three

Above: Monster and Maker meet on the ice fields.

This rejected early test cover by artist Marion Mousse gives us a tantalizing first look at what's in store for the third and final volume of his excellent graphic novel adaptation of Frankenstein. The official cover will be revealed soon. Publication is scheduled for late August, from Delcourt of Paris.

An added treat, the doodle at left is a first glimpse at Mousse's next opus, an adaptation of Gaston Leroux’ Phantom of the Opera.

I previously blogged about Marion Mousse’s Frankenstein, Volume One here and here, and Volume 2 here.

Marion Mousse’s very irregular blog. Editor Delcourt.