Just picked up Ellis' Frankenstein's Womb from Kino and read it in one sitting. It's awesome. Ellis is really going into history these days. Stories about Mary Shelley and how she came to write Frankenstein are not unknown. There's Gothic (1986) directed by Kent Russell and starring Natasha Richardson as Mary. I saw that in the late 80s at one of the Singapore Film Society screenings when the Gothic Institute was at the Singapore Shopping Centre. (a no-prize if you can tell us where that was)
[others: Haunted Summer (1988) and the sci-fi Frankenstein Unbound (1990)]
I won't spoilt it for you, but this is one of the best treatise about fate, destiny and modernity I have read in recent times.
The art by Marek Oleksicki is impressive too.
If you like this, try Ellis' Crecy as well. That's about the 1346 battle between the Britons and the French, which "changed modern warfare forever". And also Aetheric Mechanics.
"It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist. Or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should only be organised dust ready to fly abroad the moment the spark goes out which kept it together. Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable and life is more than a dream."
I'd probably read more of Ellis' work if they were not published by Avatar... with their irregular shipping schedules and multiple variant covers.
ReplyDeleteI'd also recommend Graphic Classics: Gothic Classics for the Mary Shelley and Frankenstein background as well as the handsome volume of Frankenstein with Bernie Wrightson illustrations.