Radiant Comics

I’m back from the comic shop this week and I got nine new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Mara – 1

Fatale – 11

The Walking Dead – 106

Supreme – 68

Mind the Gap – 7

Clone – 3

Savage Dragon – 184

Point of Impact – 4

Shadowman – 3

”Gil Kane – Artist Edition – Spider-Man”

And now for a review of something I’ve read recently.

”Frankenstein Alive, Alive!” Issues 1-2 by Steve Niles and Bernie Wrightson

I’m going to write a little review of this comic after only two issues because I’ve already been impressed by it and it’s a long time inbetween issues so why not write a little something now. Bernie Wrightson famously illustrated the original “Frankenstein” novel by Mary Shelley back in the 1970s. I still have my copy of it and the illustrations are as stunning as ever. That was illustration and not cartooning but still a lot of people consider that the high point of Wrightson’s work. I can see why. He’s done other comics since those day but nothing that has been a favorite of mine. This is now my new favorite Wrightson comic.

First off the writing is good. The story picks up where the novel ended except the monster did not die. He finds a new life not as a monster but as a circus freak. And then at the end of the first issue we flash back to his attempted suicide at the end of the original novel by exposing himself to the arctic ice. The second issue is the tale of him being rescued from the ice and waking up. It’s a bit of an odd structure for the first two issues of a comic that came out six month apart but it’s still good. Niles captures the flavor of the original with both narrative and dialogue. I’ve read a few good things by Niles and this is more good stuff.

Of course it’s Wrightson’s drawing that really sets the tone for the comic. It looks like it took him six months to draw each issue. It’s lush and illustrative stuff yet still has excellent story telling. If this comic were a football game it would be what’s known as a “Statement Game”. That’s when a team that has been criticized for not playing as well as their critics expect them to come out and play their best to show the world how good they are. Wrightson is showing us how good he is.

The whole book is done in black and white with grey tones and the brushwork is out of this world. Especially in the second issue there is an astonishing amount of detail. And by detail I mean he actually draws things and not just random crosshatching. He clearly loves to draw laboratories and libraries.

This is the kind of comic that a lot more people should check out then probably are. Some are probably “Waiting for the trade” and IDW will in all likelihood have one out eventually but the wait might be a long one and this is worth reading now. Other people might not even know it exists. I advise lapsed Wrightson fans, like myself, and everybody else to give it a look. Good stuff.