Posted by
Daniel Crandall on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 4:20:11 PM
Not quite what Mary Shelley envisioned.
Dean Koontz tried to bring his take on Frankenstein to the small screen. Creative differences with screenwriters and producers, however, ended that project. Thankfully Koontz retained enough rights and was able to pull it back before it was destroyed by small minded Hollywood types. Now he is working with Dabel Brothers, adapting the project to comics.
A brief interview with Koontz is available from WizardUniverse.com. Here are some gems:
"For a novelist, comic books have a tremendous advantage over other
visual media: you don't have to deal with megalomaniacal film
directors, insane studio executives and screenwriters whose sense of
story structure makes "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" seem like a
classic on a par with Shakespeare."
...
"My two-hour screenplay brought a subversive kind of humor to the
Frankenstein legend and juxtaposed the healthy relationship of the two
police detectives with the deeply sick relationships that Victor has
with everyone in his life. The cable network didn't have the guts to
play the humor, to include a genuine love story in the mix, or to
confront the serious issues of cloning, interspecies genetic
recombination and other genetic experimentation based on utopian
visions. They morphed the show into a grungy mess of horror clichés."
...
'Some ineffable quality of manga just seems in sympathy with the
character of Odd Thomas, especially the black and white format, which
is in sync with Odd's clear-eyed view of good and evil."
I've read the Frankenstein books, the first Odd Thomas, and a book titled
False Memory, the latter of which goes after the psychiatric industry and the implanting of
false memories in clients. Based on this very small sample of Dean Koontz's canon, his writing strikes me as carrying some deeply conservative themes. I haven't read
The Good Guy or
The Husband, but I would expect these books to reinforce my perception rather than refute it. I'm glad to see his work coming to comics.
My problem with the Dabel Brothers Frankenstein adaptation is the artist they've chosen for the project. I've never been that impressed with the art in Laurel Hamilton "Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter" books, and the cover art to Frankenstein #1 is just a bit much. Clothing that is painted onto the body?!? Puhleeze.