COUNTDOWN DAY 2: FRANKENSTEIN BY BERNIE WRIGHTSON

Frankenstein's creation is, easily, my favorite character from horror fiction as he is as emotionally striking as he is visually striking. Everyone, and I mean everyone, first thinks of Karloff visually when they think of the creature. That flat-top, the neck bolts, the stitches, the jacket, big boots--they are Frankenstein to the popular culture. Emotionally, he is this nigh mute emotionally unstable monster who shows signs of child-like innocence alongside petulance and cruelty.


Mary Shelley's novel did not describe him so. She left his look to a few lines but his personality and nature was much more fully explored. He became cruel, he grew to hate his creator and people in general due, in most part, to an absentee creator. His "god", his everything rejected him, cast him out as a failure upon first glance. Cruelty was the world he was born into. His development into the creature he became--that cruel, murderous, vengeful monster--was a result of that. It wasn't due to his brain being that of a murderer. His brain became that of a murderer due directly to Victor Frankenstein being an ass of a daddy.


So, anyway, on to the point... Bernie Wrightson decided to draw a series of exquisite pieces of black and white art for a new edition of the Mary Shelley classic. And then decided to interpret the creature his own way. Enjoy some of his work and a brief interview from waaaaay back:


WRIGHTSON ON FRANKENSTEIN: