Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus

   Tonight's Halloween themed comic is a from a grab bag. (I know, but I just love grab bags.) This 1994 one-shot by Caliber Press seeks to recount the terrifying events of Mary Shelley's original novel without any of the trappings of Hollywood. I had to read Frankenstein for a college course years ago. While I do not remember that book verbatim, I would have to say that the editors and writer, Eric Johnson, of this comic did a pretty good job at that goal. One thing I feel that they failed at was the art.
    First of all, the painted cover by Vincent Locke was fantastic. There's actually an ad in the back of the comic for an autograph lithograph of the cover image and if it wasn't 22 years old, I'd actually try to send away for one. But the interior art wasn't so great.
    I try really hard to be fair with artists. They do something amazing with their hands that I could only dream of. But I have carpal tunnel and they toil away for hours/days/weeks at a project doing something that would have me in tears if I tried for more than 5 minutes. But something with this artwork was off.
    The characters looked static. It reminded me of the artwork used in textbooks for 5th graders. There's not much depth and with such thin ink lines, not much of a 3-D quality either. Plus the Monster and all of the females in this story's hair is thick and tubular like it's made of those foam noodles you take to the pool. The scenery wasn't much better- except for the opening and closing scenes set in the frigid Arctic Circle. Those are actually pretty sweet.
     Not a terrible read, (plus it's a little creepy fun) especially for something that I got as a total surprise and probably for only about 50 cents or so.

    Worth Consuming

    Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.