Boris Karloff: The Blogathon That Wouldn't Die!

With the news this week that our Boris Karloff Blogathon has been Rondo-nominated as Best Fan Event of 2009, also comes a “lost” blogathon post, and a new, late entry to the celebrations.

First up, a Blogathon link I wasn’t aware of until just recently. It’s a gorgeous collection of posters and stills from Karloff’s The Mummy (1932), posted on the fabulous Wrong Side of the Art! blog. Photos include backstage shots with makeupman Jack Pierce and director Karl Freund, and the superb studio portrait of Boris reproduced above.

Wrong Side of the Art! is devoted to the poster and promotional art of cult and low budget films— the kind of films with the best poster art! — and if you visit once, you’ll keep going back, I promise you.

Checking in late, but boy was it worth the wait, Howard S. Berger and Kevin Marr —otherwise known as The Flying Maciste Brothers — offer a fascinating new perspective of James Whale’s Frankenstein films on their unique blog, Destructible Man, devoted to “the Theory and Practice of Cinematic Prosthetic Demise, aka The Dummy Death in Film”.

In step-through screen caps sequences, the Macistes deconstruct the stunt-dummy pitches performed by Karloff’s Monster, notably Colin Clive’s floppy fall from the windmill in Frankenstein (1931) and Dwight Frye’s disarticulated dive off the laboratory tower in Bride of Frankenstein (1935). And speaking of dummies, I was happy to see the cemetery skeleton from Frankenstein’s opening scene get singled out. It’s worth noting that it cameos in the second film, also in a graveyard setting. It’s my favorite Frankenstein prop ever.

In few words, but with tremendous insight, the Macistes suggest that The Monster itself, as a reassembled, reanimated collection of parts is “a kindred spirit of the cinematic FX-dummy from the outset”. And there’s a great visual catch, very astute, on the scene where Frankenstein and his Monster peer at each other through the drumspokes of the ratcheting windmill, equating the effect with that of the zoetrope, an early optical device that prefigured the cinema, and in another brilliant leap, postulating that the flickering images of Frankenstein and his ungodly creation are distorted reflections of each other.

Go read We Belong Dead, on Destructible Man.

Thank You, Arbogast

Arbogast on Film.

FRANKENSTEINIA NOMINATED FOR TWO RONDO AWARDS!

I am delighted to report that this blog has earned TWO nominations for the prestigious Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards “recognizing the best in monster research, creativity and film preservation”.

Frankensteinia is nominated as BEST HORROR BLOG for the third year in a row, and our Boris Karloff Blogathon, held last November, has been nominated for BEST FAN EVENT OF 2009. The Karloff Blogathon brought together over 105 bloggers from nine countries for an amazing total of 292 links honoring Boris Karloff.

Voting for the Rondos — called “the largest online survey of its kind” — is done through email and is open to everyone. The ballot, with simple voting instructions, is here. You can vote in as many or as few categories as you wish.

Should you want to give us your kind consideration and vote for Frankensteinia, you need only send your vote in for Category 15: Best Blog, Frankensteinia and Category 17: Fan Event, Boris Karloff Blogathon. Again, the ballot and instructions are here.

The Rondo Awards website
The Boris Karloff Blogathon Archives.

Jim Harmon, 1933-2010

Frankenstein shares headspace with fellow classic creatures on the cover of Monsters of the Movies No.1, published in June 1974 by Curtis Magazines, a Marvel Comics imprint. Artist Luis Dominguez was a busy contributor to Marvel, DC, Charlton, Gold Key and Warren, producing comics and covers in all genres.

With only nine published issues, Monsters of the Movies remains one of the best of the many titles inspired by Famous Monsters. The magazine’s West Coast editor, Jim Harmon, passed away on February 16.

In the Fifties, a teenage Harmon broke into print in the science fiction digests, but he is perhaps best remembered as a pop culture historian. He wrote knowledgeably and passionately about classic horror movies, pulp magazines, comics, and Old Time Radio. Among his books, The Great Movie Serials, co-written with Don Glut, is a vastly entertaining overview of the classic Hollywood chapterplays. Harmon also contributed an essay about comics to Lupoff and Thompson’s All in Color for a Dime.

Prior to his stint on Monsters of the Movies, Harmon contributed to Burns and Blaisdell’s Fantastic Monsters of the Films.

Related:
The Bride Speaks: Jim Harmon interviews Elsa Lanchester
The secret behind the cover of Monsters Of The Movies No.2

Frankenstein Art Zine

Actor/Heartthrob James Franco is monsterized by Tabor Robak on the cover of Frankenstein, an art zine designed and edited by Justin Bland.

Justin kindly wrote in to say that this very blog was “a huge source of inspiration” for his zine, which is described by Printed Matter as “(using) the clever juxtaposition of images found on the web to explore many of the symbols, archetypes, and themes related to the story of Frankenstein, such as S&M, mad scientists, and the creation of monsters.”

Celebrities glimpsed include Britney Spears, a flat-topped Grace Jones and an eerily masked Michael Jackson. Minimal text includes Mary Shelley’s description of the Monster coming awake, a definition of the Golem and a quote from AIDS 3D on the hubris/nemesis complex that applies perfectly to the Frankenstein theme.

The 44-page zine can be viewed online. A hard copy, all of $5, can be ordered through Printed Matter.

Justin Bland's website.

The Covers of Frankenstein : Universal Weekly, March 1935

The Monster’s unrequited valentine, his Bride Not To Be, graces her first magazine cover, the March 2, 1935 issue of Universal Weekly. The exhibitor’s magazine promoted the film over several weeks, building up to its April 22 release.

Inside this particular issue is a unique black and white ad, a two-page spread featuring a fabulous, full-length painting of the bulky Monster, big boots and all, against a ghostly glamour portrait of The Bride.

There’s not a lot of information available on artist Fred Kulz. He can be traced back to the early 1900’s, as a book and music sheet illustrator. By the Thirties, he was a house artist at Universal. It is Kulz who, in 1931, painted the first Universal Frankenstein ad, the famous pre-production “striding giant” poster that prematurely touted Bela Lugosi as the film’s star.

Kulz left Universal and dropped out of sight after the Laemmle family lost control of the studio in April 1936. A terse notice in the November 10, 1936 trade magazine Boxoffice reported, “Dick Rogers has been added to the staff of Universal’s art department, replacing Fred Kulz.”

Related:
Early Promotional Art, 1931

Foldee Frankenstein

A Frankenstein Monster by Wally Wood.

Comic Book Foldees were bubblegum cards issues by the Topps Company in 1966. The novelty set featured a large card with a DC Comics superhero on one side and two unrelated characters on the reverse. Separated horizontally, the top and bottom halves of the cards would fold and overlap each other, creating “funny pictures”. The Flash would appear to have the legs of Tarzan, or the torso of a generic spaceman. Robin The Boy Wonder’s legs would fit a robot torso, or Benjamin Franklin flying a kite. Characters in the set included a Castro-like “Cuban Dictator”, “Honest” Abe Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant and a “Fanged” Dracula. One of the more bizarre combos had The Atom matched with Fido The Pooch and… Mahatma Gandhi.

Pictured above, Foldee number 8 in the 44-card set has The Green Lantern backed a bikinied “Bathing Beauty” and a “Scary Frankenstein”. Folding would give you a “Scary Green Lantern”, a “Beautiful Frankenstein¨, and so on, nine combinations in all.

The Foldees were illustrated by the celebrated Wally Wood, a regular and welcome contributor to many Topps card sets. Among others, Wood designed and storyboarded the famous Mars Attacks! set painted by Norman Saunders.

With big time thanks to Rob Kelly for the image.

The Art of Frankenstein : Francesco Francavilla

Comic book artist Francesco Francavilla offers up Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein, one of an illustrated series of movie Mad Doctors that include Charles Laughton’s Dr. Moreau, Bela Lugosi’s Dr. Zorka, and an invisible Claude Rains.

Francavilla’s art is steeped in pulp sensibilities and an obvious love for matinee serials, vintage horror and science fiction films. His Mad Doctors series shares space with his sketches and imaginary or alternate film posters on his Pulp Sunday and Sketch blogs.

Francavilla is currently illustrating Dynamite Force's Zorro comics, scripted by Matt Wagner. He was also involved with Frank Frazetta’s Dracula Meets the Wolfman comic written by Steve Niles for Image Comics.

Francesco Francavilla’s copious website carries links to his blogs and online galleries.

Daughters of Science and Madness

“In London, we formed a club. It's very exclusive. There are only six members… We need each other. None of us has sisters, except Mary and Diana in a way, so we take the place of sisters for each other. Who else could share or sympathize with our experiences?”

Currently up on Strange Horizons, the online magazine of speculative fiction, is a short story by Theodora Goss entitled The Mad Scientist’s Daughter. Daughters, actually. The members of this very exclusive London club are Catherine Moreau, Beatrice Rappaccini, Mary Jekyll, Diana Hyde, Justine Frankenstein, and a Mrs. Arthur Meyrink (formerly Helen Vaughan, of Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan).

It’s a perfectly brilliant story, complete and satisfying in itself, but I can’t help saying I’d love to read more, much more, about this League of Extraordinary Monster Ladies. Take, for instance, the teatime discussion about taking over the world…

Go read The Mad Scientist’s Daughter.

Strange Horizons website.

Theodora Goss website.

Frankensteinian : Caprica

Set half a century before the events depicted in the critically acclaimed Battlestar Galactica (second series), Caprica launched in January on Syfy, the unfortunately named specialty channel formerly known as SciFi. In the pilot episode, pre-released in April 2009 on DVD and digital download, a scientist resurrects his dead daughter by downloading her recorded consciousness into a Cylon robot.

If the premise reminds you of movie Frankensteins swapping brains into artificially created bodies, I urge you to read reviewer Sarah Stegall’s analysis of the episode, Everything is Connected, posted on SFScope. It’s a sharp, compelling exploration of Frankensteinian references encompassing James Whale’s film and tracking all the way back to Mary Shelley and the real-life reanimation experiments, circa 1803, of Giovanni Aldini.

Segall’s piece is beautifully written and it places Caprica squarely in the Frankenstein lineage.

Caprica episodes are online, but only viewable if you live in the US.