This gorgeous, new, limited edition Bride of Frankenstein poster by Martin Ansin went on sale today, and promptly sold out!
The Bride’s image was inspired by anatomical drawings and a line from the movie: “The human heart is more complex than any other part of the body”. Note the heart at the top of the poster, with the semi-circle of dots representing the heartbeat monitor seen in the film. Characters appear in medallions, with a heartbroken Monster in the middle.
The poster was screen printed, using metallic inks. A glow-in-the-dark version has the silver and gold colors inverted.
Artist Hansin also created posters for The Wolfman, Phantom of the Opera and Metropolis, all on display on his excellent website.
The poster was produced by Austin, Texas-based Mondotees.
These yellowed clippings are not just from any old scrapbook. This is a page from makeup master Jack Pierce’s personal scrapbook, circa 1939.
The short article pasted at left (click the scrapbook image to enlarge) documents the first haircut, courtesy Pierce, given one-year old Baby Sandy for her role in Unexpected Father (1939), also known as Sandy Takes a Bow. It was the child actress’ second film appearance in her short career as Universal’s answer to Shirley Temple. “Sandy” , born Alexandra Lee Henville, generated tons of press and merchandising, but she only made eight films and was out of showbiz by the time she turned five.
The large drawing of Boris Karloff in Son of Frankenstein was clipped from Feg Murray’s Seein’ Stars newspaper feature.
Frederic “Feg” Murray (1894-1973) was a popular cartoonist and radio personality of the Thirties and Forties. As a young man, he had served in the First World War, then shined as an Olympic athlete, winning a bronze medal in the 110-meter hurdle race at Antwerp, Belgium.
As an illustrator, Murray did a stint as a sports cartoonist with The Los Angeles Times before launching his long-running Seein’ Stars cartoon series, syndicated nationwide by King Features. Modeled on the Believe It or Not format of a large portrait done in pen and ink (in color on Sundays), surrounded by smaller filler pieces, Seein’ Stars was pure movie star trivia:
Fay Wray spends her spare time making sketches in charcoal and weaving Tapestries. She also collects rare perfumes… Ralph Bellamy was once driven by a dead man!! His car swerved erratically into a fieldand finally ended up against a tree, several minutesafter the driver had died of heart failure!... Jean Harlow has a 15-minute workout on a rowing machine before her dip in the pool every morning.
No doubt, studio publicity departments must have fed stories to Murray. Case in point, the Son of Frankenstein piece ran on January first, just as Universal was rolling out the ballyhoo for a January 13 release.
Feg Murray parlayed his success as a famous “stargazer” into a radio career as the host of an interview and variety show called Seein’ Stars in Hollywood, also known as Baker’s Broadcast. In a celebrated episode, on March 13, 1938, Murray’s guests were Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.
Karloff performed a dramatic reading of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Supplication of the Black Aberdeen” and then joined Lugosi in a memorable if awkward duet, the two horror icons warbling, “We’re Horrible, Horrible Men”. Karloff’s lines went, “Though the movies would make me a terrible brute, when my makeup is off I am really quite cute.”
Boris, Bela and the Nelsons posed for a gag shot, and here's a YouTube sound clip of that momentous occasion…
Comic book characters, we know, never really die. A superhero’s suitably spectacular death is invariably followed by reincarnation through some more or less clever ruse, or the character’s powers, his logo'ed costume and worldsaver’s mission are carried on by a substitute alter ego. Superman’s highly publicized demise in 1992 drew mainstream media attention, as did Captain America’s own flirt with the Grim Reaper in 2007, but both characters were soon reactivated. In comic books, death isn’t fatal. It’s just an excuse for a series reboot.
For all the violence inherent to American comic books, rarely has a character’s dispatch been as brutal and apparently irreversible as that visited recently upon Marvel Comics’ Frank Castle, aka The Punisher.
First introduced as a Spiderman adversary in 1974, The Punisher is a former Marine turned vigilante after his wife and child were murdered by the Mob. Recently, after 36 years of dishing out mayhem, the character’s ultimate and very gruesome defeat — chopped and diced into bloody component parts — came at the claws of Daken, problem son of Wolverine.
The Punisher’s scattered remains were collected and taken to a secret sewer laboratory where an extreme makeover was operated, literally, by vampire scientist Morbius. The stitched-up jigsaw result, complete with neck bolts and robo parts mixed in, now stalks the Marvel Universe as FrankenCastle, and serves as the new leader of the Legion of Monsters that includes Dracula, Werewolf By Night, The Living Mummy, and the swamp creature called Man-Thing.
The illustration at top is a variant cover for Punisher no. 10 penciled by Tom Raney, with inks by Scott Hanna and colors by Frank D’Armata. The lab scene is from the June 2010 Franken-Castle no. 17, art by Roland Boschi.
An interview with writer Rick Remender onIGN Comics
Czech artist Tomas Kral was inspired to create this beautiful digital interpretation of the classic movie Monster by posters featuring Boris Karloff.
Although it’s not meant to be a faithful likeness, you can still recognize the actor in the solemn pose and the gaunt face with heavy eyelids. The artist’s preferred tools include Photoshop and the 3D sculpting and painting program ZBrush.
Kral currently serves a serves as senior CGI artist with the Prague-based visual effects company UPP. Recent work includes stints on Roland Emmerich’s 2012 and the upcoming action-adventure film Salt, starring Angelina Jolie.
You can see details and additional renderings of the Frankenstein image, and a host of other extraordinary creatures, on Tomas Kral’s website.
“Edison’s Frankenstein” is a popular name for the first Frankenstein film, made 100 years ago by the Thomas Edison Company. It is also the title of a superb short story by Chris Roberson, currently nominated for a Sidewise Award, honoring Alternative History fiction.
No reference to the movie here, but a judicious title nonetheless for a story set in an alternate timeline where a miraculous substance called Prometheum has made Edison’s electricity useless. Author Roberson generously makes Edison’s Frankenstein available to everyone on his website. It’s a terrific read.
The story was originally published in the December 2009 issue, No. 20/21, of Postscripts, with a cover by Vincent Chong. It is also included in The Year’s Best Science-Fiction #27, edited by Gardner Dozois, to be published in July by St. Martin’s Press.
On a related note, artist-writer-director-actor Noel Tanti who adapted and starred as The Monster in the Maltese-language version of Frankenstein, posted an insightful review of the 1910 Edison Company film on his blog. Another good read.
The Frankenstein Monster has been a reliable pitchman through the years, “scaring up” business for everything from candy and beer to shoe polish and condoms. In 2003, a very laid-back Monster pushed Osteo Bi-Flex, a pain relief supplement for arthritic, achy joints.
The TV ad featured a brief black and white lab scene in the traditional Universal style. The actor wearing the greenish makeup is David Combs.
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“I continue to be amazed, amused, delighted, and awed by Pierre Fournier's blog, Frankensteinia… No one does it better." — Susan Tyler Hitchcock, author of Frankenstein, A Cultural History, Monster Sightings
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