Monster & Madman

/ Alex Good

Monster & Madman

A simple idea nicely turned out.

I want to emphasize the latter part. I like the look of this three-issue comic. Damien Worm’s art is very dark, as you’d probably expect just from the cover. It reminded me a bit of Dave McKean’s work on Arkham Asylum. There are pages where figures and faces are hard to make out, but that fits with the overall atmosphere. Frankenstein’s monster looks a bit too much like a buff goth dude, and his bride is a Marilyn Manson clone, but John Moore (formerly a doctor, now a mortician and part-time serial killer) is convincing as Saucy Jack. I only wondered why he never appears in the wonderful mask he’s wearing on the cover and in some of the drawings in the supplemental materials. I wanted to see more of that.

The let down here is the simple idea I mentioned, and the text by Steve (30 Days of Night) Niles. Basically the Monster tried to kill himself in the Arctic but wasn’t successful so he hitched a ride back to England where he winds up sharing digs with Dr. Moore, who is Jack the Ripper. Dr. Moore studies the Monster and decides he can make him another bride, this time out of the remains of the Ripper’s victim. This doesn’t go that well because (this is a point made earlier in the book) these reanimated people carry with them the memories of the former inhabitants of their dead flesh. So the bride obviously doesn’t care for Dr. Moore because he’s the guy who killed her. Which leads to a falling out between the Monster and Jack and then the Monster kills his bride because she doesn’t want to be alive anyway and he knows that dead is better.

That’s more like a premise than a story, and it doesn’t feel like much happens here. I also thought some of the writing was in need of an editor. The first words are “The Monster’s creator was dead, father, murder, creator and destroyer of life.” Was that supposed to say “murderer”? Because I don’t see how it makes sense as it is. Then later we get this narrative passage: “As the crewmen laughed and boasted, the Monster would hide in the dark, living conjure images of the bride he’d almost had . . .” What does “living conjure images” refer to? I can’t even think of a way to correct this to the point where it means anything. “Conjuring living images”? Beats me.

So it’s not very long, and like I say I don’t think it has much of a story to tell, but I think it’s the comic Niles and Worm wanted to make. It looks good, but I just didn’t think it was bringing anything new to the table or doing anything special with these classic characters.

Graphicalex

34 thoughts on “Monster & Madman”

  2. I were able blurg grrrr rice toilet paper!

    Hey, I can write just like famous, published comic book artists. I’ll be famous and rolling in money in no time! Then I can BUY Canada and make you guys the 55th state 😉

    I like the idea of combining Frankenstein (I’m not going to get all pedantic about him being The Monster, at least not here) and Jack the Ripper. Do they give any rationalization for how they animate the bride? Because Frankenstein not only used lightning, but a whole process.

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