31 Days of Frankenstein: Edison and Karloff

It's October! That means it's time for Halloween-loving blogs everywhere to start the Countdown to Halloween. If you're not familiar with the concept, click the link (or the Countdown to Halloween logo at the top of my sidebar) to get all the details. The short of it though is for participating blogs to "post frequently about some aspect of the Halloween season during the month of October." It's as simple as that. The Countdown site lists all the participants, so if you love Halloween, there's a lot more there to look at and read.

I've participated for the last couple of years, first with "31 Monsters of Halloween" and then "31 Things I Love About Halloween." This year I'm going to expand on my Halloween Day entry for the 31 Monsters. Frankenstein's Creature is easily my favorite monster and as I created that post two years ago I was reminded about how many different versions of the character have appeared over the years. I knew I'd eventually want to do a whole month of Frankenstein.

My first plan was to follow the naming convention I'd already established over the last couple of years. The "31 Frankensteins of Halloween" or something like that. But the more I dug into it, the more I realized that I'd never be able to limit myself to just 31 versions. There are too many. So, you get "31 Days of Frankenstein" with each day presenting a couple of versions (except today, when we have three). In the last week before Halloween, we'll go back to three-a-day, just to fit them all in.

A couple of last bits of explanation before we get started: First, this certainly isn't a comprehensive list. There are many, many other versions from films, comics, and books that I either couldn't find good images for or just plain forgot or don't know about. For the most part, these are all interpretations of the real Frank, but there were also a few knock-offs that I couldn't help but include. Finally, I'm presenting the list in chronological order. That means that some of my favorites will be revealed early in the month (like today), but I think it's cool to see how the look of the Creature has evolved through history.

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley (1818)

"His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath: his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriences only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips."

The reason I'm starting with three versions today is because I want to include Shelley's original description. Since this series is mostly about the Creature's visual journey through history (as opposed to evaluating the quality of individual adaptations; though I may do some of that too), I want to have the benchmark handy for comparison.

Frankenstein (1910)



The world's first horror film was produced by Thomas Edison's studio and directed by J Searle Dawley. It's only fifteen minutes long and you can watch the entire thing online. Though the Monster has a comical face (the movie is more interested in the moral aspects of the story than it is in scares), I do love his hands, his wild hair, his hunched back, and the way his clothing all looks held together by ropes. He's not very accurate to Mary Shelley's version (they got the long hair right and the shriveled complexion), but he's iconic anyway. Though certainly not as iconic as our next Frank.



Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein



It's impossible to overemphasize the influence makeup artist Jack Pierce's design of the Monster for Universal had on future versions. It may not have been faithful to Shelley's version, but it was such a powerful depiction that it actually usurped her description as the definitive version for decades. In fact, though it's not used any more outside of Universal (because the studio holds the trademark for that look), it's still the version that most people think of when they imagine the Monster.

Since Boris Karloff was in the makeup for Universal's first three Frankenstein films, I'm including them all in one entry. Early next week we'll take a look at the other actors in Universal's series and compare their looks to Karloff's, but not right away. Pierce's version was already influencing other pop culture Franks (and a knock-off) long before Karloff gave up the platform boots to Lon Chaney Jr.

31 Werewolves | The Big Bad Wolf

Art by Gustave Doré

It's October! And like so many other blogs this month, I'm celebrating the Countdown to Halloween.

If you're not familiar with Countdown to Halloween, it's a marathon in which bloggers celebrate the spookiness of the holiday for the whole month of October. Literally anyone with a blog can join; just click the link above for details.

This is my fifth year participating. In 2009, I highlighted my 31 favorite monsters (Scary Clowns continues to be one of my most popular posts to this day, for some reason). In 2010, I talked about my 31 favorite things about the holiday itself. Then, in 2011, I drilled down into my all-time favorite monster for 31 Days of Frankenstein. As soon as I did that, I knew I had the next two years mapped out, so last year, I spent 31 Days with Dracula and this year I'm completing the unholy trinity.

The thing about the trinity though is that it's based on the most popular Universal monsters: Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf Man. Since Frankenstein's Monster and Dracula are based on public domain characters, it's easy to spend a month exploring different versions of them, but that's not true with Lon Chaney Jr.'s Larry the Wolf Man. So starting this year, I've got to go more general and look at werewolves as a whole. The exciting thing about that for me is that it opens up all sorts of possibilities for future Countdowns: 31 Ghosts, 31 Witches, etc.

Unlike 31 Days of Frankenstein and Dracula (where I wanted to provide as complete an historical overview as I could of those characters), for 31 Werewolves I'm limiting myself to just 31 specific versions. These aren't the 31 most important or even my 31 favorites, though many important and favorite ones will appear. For some of them, I let their prominence in pop culture override historical importance and my own taste. I also wanted to hit a variety of media, so I left out some great movie werewolves in order to fit in some literary, comics, and even musical versions. Feel free to yell at me if I leave out something I shouldn't have. I'm gonna hit them in chronological order, so you'll know when I've moved past something I should've mentioned. If I get enough complaints about a particular thing, I may circle back and add it as an extra.

To kick things off, I had to start with "Little Red Riding Hood." It's not the oldest werewolf story (those appear in ancient Greece), but it's the most popular, longest-enduring one. The well-known version that appears in children's books features a talking wolf instead of an actual werewolf, but the earliest versions often had a werewolf or an ogre as their villains and it's likely that the werewolf eventually became an anthropomorphic animal.

The story is all about the danger of the Wild and that's essentially what werewolves are about too, so it's a natural fit. I imagine I'll have more to say about wildness and control as the month progresses, so I don't want to shoot that arrow too soon, but it's what fascinates me most about these creatures.

I've included a werewolf version of the story from France below. If you want to read other versions though, including those by Charles Perrault (the first to write down and publish the story) and the Grimm Bros., D. L. Ashliman's folktexts has you hooked up.

There was a woman who had made some bread. She said to her daughter, "Go and carry a hot loaf and a bottle of milk to your grandmother."

So the little girl set forth. Where two paths crossed she met the bzou [werewolf], who said to her, "Where are you going?"

"I am carrying a hot loaf and a bottle of milk to my grandmother."

"Which path are you taking?" said the bzou. "The one of needles or the one of pins?"

"The one of needles," said the little girl.

"Good! I am taking the one of pins."

The little girl entertained herself by gathering needles.

The bzou arrived at the grandmother's house and killed her. He put some of her flesh in the pantry and a bottle of her blood on the shelf.

The little girl arrived and knocked at the door. "Push on the door," said the bzou. "It is blocked with a pail of water."

"Good day, grandmother. I have brought you a hot loaf and a bottle of milk."

"Put it in the pantry, my child. Take some of the meat that is there, and the bottle of wine that is on the shelf."

While she was eating, a little cat that was there said, "For shame! The slut is eating her grandmother's flesh and drinking her grandmother's blood."

"Get undressed, my child," said the bzou, "and come to bed with me."

"Where should I put my apron?"

"Throw it into the fire. You won't need it anymore."

And for all her clothes - her bodice, her dress, her petticoat, and her shoes and stockings - she asked where she should put them, and the wolf replied, "Throw them into the fire, my child. You won't need them anymore."

When she had gone to bed the little girl said, "Oh, grandmother, how hairy you are!"

"The better to keep myself warm, my child."

"Oh, grandmother, what long nails you have!"

"The better to scratch myself with, my child!"

"Oh, grandmother, what big shoulders you have!"

"The better to carry firewood with, my child!"

"Oh, grandmother, what big ears you have!"

"The better to hear with, my child!"

"Oh, grandmother, what a big nose you have!"

"To better take my tobacco with, my child!"

"Oh, grandmother, what a big mouth you have!"

"The better to eat you with, my child!"

"Oh, grandmother, I have to do it outside!"

"Do it in the bed, my child!"

"Oh no, grandmother, I really have to do it outside."

"All right, but don't take too long."

The bzou tied a woolen thread to her foot and let her go. As soon as the little girl was outside she tied the end of the thread to a plum tree in the yard.

The bzou grew impatient and said, "Are you doing a load? Are you doing a load?"

Not hearing anyone reply, he jumped out of bed and hurried after the little girl, who had escaped. He followed her, but he arrived at her home just as she went inside.

Countdown to Halloween!

James Bond will return!

But first, we have some Halloween to take care of.

So, my James Bond project hit a giant speed bump. More of a speed mountain, really.

I blame a couple of things. First, the end of August got super busy with End of Summer activities and I slowed down my reading of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. But probably more impactful was finally hitting the Dr. No movie in my schedule. I started the Bond project because I wanted to blog through the movies, but I wanted to do that after a fresh look at the books since those have always informed my opinions of the films. When I discovered what looked like an actual character arc through the book series, I got excited about that and was looking forward to OHMSS, which I imagined to be the top of that arc. When I got to it, I was raring to go. But then I watched Dr. No and had such a ball blogging about it that I suddenly got bored with the idea of going back to the novels again.

Don't worry. I'm still reading OHMSS and I'll finish blogging through the Fleming novels and all of the films. But the scope of the project has changed and I'm not going to make myself do a bunch of stuff that I'd planned to do. I feel like I've said what I want to say about the newspaper strips, for instance. I'm still planning to read those, but I'm not going to force myself to write about them if I don't notice anything new. I'm also not going to blog through the non-Fleming novels. I'd still like to read those too, but I know that when I finish Man with the Golden Gun I'm gonna want a break. I made a trip to our local mystery bookstore a few weeks ago and picked up a bunch of stuff I can't wait to dig into, so I'm not going to put that off while I force myself to endure Q'ute. Not having to blog all that relaxes my schedule so that I won't get burned out and leaves me extra time to do some things I want to do like the Countdown to Halloween.

I'm doing this year's Countdown a little differently from the last few years. Instead of picking a monster and writing about various iterations of it over the next 31 days, I'm going to watch a ton of horror movies and write about those. The plan is to do that for 31 movies, but I'm not going to beat myself up if I miss a day or two. There's some awesome Kill All Monsters stuff brewing that I shouldn't talk about yet, but it involves deadlines and I need to make sure I hit those. There should be plenty of time to do that and watch/blog about 31 horror movies, but if I ever end up in a spot where I have to make a choice... well, you know.

One way or the other though, this blog's about to get a lot busier. Hope you're up for some Halloween, then we'll get back to Bond in November and take another break in December for the next installment of the Christmas Carol project. We've also got new posts scheduled from GW Thomas, who's guest-blogged here about space pulp a few times and has lots more to say. Fun times ahead.

31 Things I Love About Halloween: Scarecrows

This probably counts as another decoration, but it's the last one I'll sneak into the list. I mentioned last year when I was counting out 31 Monsters of Halloween that scarecrows are one of my favorites. Probably thanks to Dark Night of the Scarecrow, but also thanks to a very cool scarecrow costume I got to wear for Halloween one year as a kid. I won first prize at a party with that baby and didn't want to take it off even though I leaked straw everywhere I went.

31 Days of Frankenstein: Do Not Build an Unwritten Graphic Treehouse

My schedule got away from me the last couple of days of October, mostly because of Halloween. I'm very sorry about that. I'm backdating these last two Frankenstein posts to keep myself organized. Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

Graphic Classics, Volume 15: Fantasy Classics (2008)

If you've never read one of the Graphic Classics volumes, you're missing out. Most of them are themed around a single author; many of them horror-related like Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Recently though, they've produced some genre-themed volumes like Adventure Classics, Science Fiction Classics, and Gothic Classics. Each volume features one or two popular stories as well as adaptations of lesser-known works, so reading them is always an educational experience. And since editor Tom Pomplun always chooses fantastic, stylish artists, they're as fun as they are informative.

There are two Frankenstein-related stories in Fantasy Classics, both written by my pal Rod Lott from Bookgasm and Flick Attack. The first is a short prologue in which Rod and artists Mark A Nelson tell the story of that night at Lake Geneva when Byron issued his famous challenge that inspired Mary Shelley to create her masterpiece. The second - illustrated by Skot Olsen - adapts the novel itself.

Nelson's style is literal and gothic, but Olsen has a humorous cartoonish look that's surprising for such a dark story. As someone who's seen a lot of adaptations of Frankenstein, I found it refreshing, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as someone's first exposure to the story. It's meant to be a new take on the familiar tale, leading the reader to discover Fantasy Classics' more obscure stories like L Frank Baum's "The Glass Dog" or Rappaccini's Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The Unwritten #3 (2009)



The Unwritten is a comic book series about a man named Tom Taylor whose father wrote a series of Harry Potter-like books about his son, sort of the way AA Milne based Christopher Robin on his own boy. As an adult, Taylor makes a living doing convention appearances until events transpire to make him (and the world) question just how made up his dad's novels were.

By the third issue, Taylor is trying to learn more about his father's work and visits Villa Diodati, that Lake Geneva mansion where Mary Shelley dreamed up Frankenstein and - not coincidentally - Taylor's dad wrote his novels. It was also the last place Wilson Taylor had been seen before mysteriously disappearing at the height of his popularity. The Monster doesn't make an appearance in the story itself, but according to Chris Murphy at Comics Alliance, there's a short, illustrated scene from Frankenstein and Unwritten uses the Monster as an analogy for creations that slip out of their creators' control, much like Wilson Taylor's books appear to have done. I've been wanting to read The Unwritten since it was first announced and Murphy's article has revitalized that interest.

Do Not Build a Frankenstein (2009)



An important book. You wouldn't think that this is a message people still need to hear, but mad scientists are pretty dense. Hope it finally sinks in.

The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror" (2003-2010)

I think the first time The Simpsons directly spoofed Frankenstein was Treehouse of Horror XIV when Dr. Frink revived his dead father to disastrous consequences. That wasn't the only time the Monster's appeared on the show though.

In the opening for Treehouse of Horror XX, he tries to terrorize Springfield with some monster buddies and gets made fun of for being too old-fashioned. He, Dracula, the Wolf Man, and the Mummy get new, hipper costumes (the Monster dresses up like Spongebob) and head to the Simpsons house for a costume party before getting busted by their wives. He showed up again in last year's Treehouse of Horror XXI, again in the opening sequence, during a spoof of The Office that featured various monsters working at Monster Mifflin.

31 Days of Frankenstein: Muppet Halloween

The Halloween That Almost Wasn't (1979)



By the late '70s and early '80s, no one was taking the classic monsters seriously anymore. They'd been replaced by demons and serial killers and banished to children's programming and comedy bits. The Halloween That Almost Wasn't represents the former group, although according to the indispensable Frankensteinia, it's a very entertaining example.

Judd Hirsch plays Dracula and rounds up a bunch of other spooks - including Universal's version of the Frankenstein Monster - to convince Mariette Hartley's witch character to fly across the moon and kick off Halloween. There's slapstick, adorable moppets (not muppets; be patient), and disco. John Schuck, who played the Monster, went on to play bit parts in various Star Trek TV shows and movies (he's probably best known as the Klingon ambassador in Star Trek IV and VI) as well as Herman Munster in the reboot series, The Munsters Today.



The Muppets Go to the Movies (1981)



As part of the promotion for The Great Muppet Caper, ABC aired a one-hour TV special called The Muppets Go to the Movies in which Lily Tomlin and Dudley Moore helped the Muppets honor classic films like The Three Musketeers, The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, Tarzan movies, and of course Frankenstein. The "Nephew of Frankenstein" bit featured Fozzie as the title character who interrupts his uncle (Dr. Strangepork from "Pigs in Space") in the creation of his Monster (played by Mulch, who's probably most famous for playing the Hunchback Notre Dame and chasing Debbie Harry around as she sings "One Way or Another" on her episode of The Muppet Show.)

It wasn't the only time the Muppets and Frankenstein hooked up. Miss Piggy and Kermit reenacted a scene from Bride of Frankenstein for the 1982 Miss Piggy calendar, the Monster's shown up in a couple of episodes of Muppet Babies, and IMDB mentions an appearance in next month's The Muppets.

The 31 Monsters of Halloween: The Phantom of the Opera

I'd post pictures of other Opera Ghosts, but none of them deserve to stand next to this guy.

The 31 Monsters of Halloween: Frankenstein's Monsters

Frank and Vampi by Kevin Nowland.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

The 31 Monsters of Halloween: Godzilla

I would've included more of his friends, but really I could do 31 posts on just them. Maybe next year...

The 31 Monsters of Halloween: Aliens

Yeah, I know that yesterday's monster also technically fits this category, but my original plan was to just have the Sigourney Weaver aliens today. Thought of a couple of more that I wanted to throw in though.

The 31 Monsters of Halloween: Dracula

One more day to Halloween, ya'll! One more day!

The 31 Monsters of Halloween: Goblins

You remind me of the babe.

The 31 Monsters of Halloween: Devil Children

The 31 Monsters of Halloween: The Creature from the Black Lagoon

The 31 Monsters of Halloween: The Blob

The 31 Monsters of Halloween: Zombies

The 31 Monsters of Halloween: Swamp Creatures

The 31 Monsters of Halloween: The Mummy

Illustration by David Huyck.

The 31 Monsters of Halloween: THEM!

The 31 Monsters of Halloween: The Unseelie Court