Announced today, it looks like Jamie Rich and Megan Levens are bringing a new twist to an old classic with their series “Madame Frankenstein.”
Starring Vincent Krall instead of Victor Frankenstein and featuring a re-tooled version of Mary Shelley’s classic, Krall apparently sets to out to create his “perfect woman” out of the body of his recently dead love. It essentially sounds like “What if like Frankenstein, but with more love?”, which is a pretty reasonable angle to explore from the classic story. Of course, when Rich adds that his co-creator Levens came at it from a My Fair Lady angle, it certainly adds an interesting perspective.
And really, you have to sympathize with Krall. After all, he’d grown accustomed to his dead lover’s face.
The book sounds like an interesting addition to Rich’s catalogue, though, and certainly falls in line with his previous themes of exploring relationships through different perspectives (see: his books at Oni). Add to that newcomer Megan Levens on art and it’s an exciting proposition for a series. I especially like Levens pointing to classic Hollywood as a visual inspiration, which is very appealing — so we’ll ignore the part where no characters are apparently named Frankenstein in the book, because assuredly everyone knows that the Monster in that story was just called the Monster. Unless the dead lover is named Victoria Frankenstein or something, in which case I’d get it.
So it’s a bit of a classic horror with some modern ideas, and it will see a release this coming May when the rain in Spain falls mostly on the plain. For the full press release from Image, please see below.
Image Comics Press Release
Sure to send a shiver down any reader’s spine, Image Comics’ new series MADAME FRANKENSTEIN is an all-new vintage-style horror drama series from Jamie S. Rich (You Have Killed Me) and newcomer Megan Levens. In 1932, Vincent Krall sets out to create his perfect woman by reanimating the corpse of his recently deceased lover. But he soon begins to realize that perhaps man was not meant to peer beyond the veil between life and death.
“I have always been fascinated by the Frankenstein legend and the deeper mythological meanings in Shelley’s original novel, so when Megan came to me with her concept for a My Fair Lady-style appropriation of the concept, it took me all of two seconds to say yes,” said Rich. “There seemed to be so much potential there, both in terms of exploring the thematic depths of the story and playing around with the look and feel of classic horror. The downfall of Victor Frankenstein was that he played God and tried to build his own version of man. His hubris was in thinking too highly of his own capacity for creation. Our mad doctor’s bigger mistake is underestimating the power of women.”
The time period and setting also helped to inspire the artwork in MADAME FRANKENSTEIN. “I’ve always been strongly drawn to the moody, old-Hollywood glamour of the classic Universal monster films, and I felt that aesthetic would be a perfect match for the elements of horror and romance in this story,” said Levens. “The period of the early 1930s gave me so much to work with visually, as the architecture, costumes, and even minute details like glassware and wallpaper helped ground the fantastic elements of the story in a reality that still feels a bit removed from the world of the reader. But the aspect of those films that appealed most to me was that they derived their sense of horror from the emotions of the characters. Even the monsters were shown feeling fear, love, and loneliness… and a monster you can empathize with is perhaps the most terrifying of all.”
A dark exploration of one man’s manic obsession to build the perfect woman, MADAME FRANKENSTEIN is a terrifying retelling that would do Shelley proud. The first issue of MADAME FRANKENSTEIN arrives in stores on 5/7 and will be available for $2.99. Cover A by Joelle Jones and Nick Filardi can be pre-ordered using Diamond Code MAR140478. Cover B by Christopher Mitten can be pre-ordered using Diamond Code MAR140479.
