Here’s a first look at The Monster by artist Marek Oleksicki in Frankenstein’s Womb, a graphic novella — fancy-speak for “one-shot comic book” — written by cult favorite Warren Ellis.
The story plays off Mary (then Godwin) Shelley’s purported but unlikely visit to Burg Frankenstein during her elopement/vacation with Percy in 1814. Speculation has it that Mary visited the castle there and heard stories about the blasphemous experimenter Johann Konrad Dippel, providing, two years later, a name and a model for her fictional scientist.
Frankenstein's Womb has Mary visit the old castle and encountering the creature haunting it. Considering how Ellis, on his game, can weave a story with the finesse of a fine watchmaker, this new variation on the Frankenstein myth sounds very promising.
The 48-page, black and white book arrives in comic shops in December, or you can order it through the Frankenstore.
Avatar Press website.
Warren Ellis is ubiquitous on the Net. Here’s his blog.
With thanks to Monster Rally for the heads up.
3 comments:
I am very excited for this.
Was it an unlikely visit in reality? I always found the connections between Mary's Frankenstein and the local legends of Dippel to be pretty staggering.
Danel: Much has been made about Dipple and the castle at Burg Frankenstein, but its all conjecture. The only known fact is that the Shelley party landed at Gernsheim on a September afternoon, to sail again at dawn. It’s possible that the Shelleys made a quick tour of the area and might even have taken a carriage ride out to the castle ruins, but there is no mention of it in their copious diaries or Mary’s letters and detailed travel notes. It’s possible Mary might have heard the Dipple legends, assuming an English-speaking interlocutor, or information translated from German by Percy, but the only scientist she ever mentioned as an inspiration of sorts was Erasmus Darwin. The list of experimenters since associated with the Shelleys and said to have directly influenced Frankenstein is as long as that of the suspects in the JFK assassination.
The Dipple connection is interesting, to be sure, but it is pure speculation.
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