This is as good as it gets. Although technically it is Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, Bernie’s artwork takes it to an entirely different level.

Let me tell you a little story…

I fell in love with horror comics around 1970, primarily due to the existence of two amazing titles published by Warren Publishing. They were “Creepy” and “Eerie”. Each was published bimonthly and they were staggered so that, together, they came out monthly. Get it? So one month would be “Creepy” and the next would be “Eerie” and the next “Creepy” again, and so on. ( I Will be talking about these a lot in future posts)

For a few years I was completely enamored by these magazines. Thicker than normal comics, but still comic-like. They where little black & white gems in a sea of otherwise, well… crap. I tried other horror titles and they all sucked. (All the ones I had access to. There may have been good ones that I didn’t know about, but I digress…)

The years slogged on, and I became less interested in these magazines until, somewhere around 1975 I stopped getting them.

For years I assumed that I had grown out of them. And I further assumed that they hadn’t really been that great, simply that I had been at just the right age to have liked them. Because later issues that I got just didn’t do it, for me.

More recently, I was remembering how much I used to love these things. Since I didn’t have them anymore, I went on a Creepy/Eerie hunt at the local shops. I found a few and bought them. They were disappointing. But they were also published in the 80s! Amazing to me, because I thought they had stopped much earlier. Still, I thought that I wanted to see the old ones, the ones that I had ACTUALLY had. After a bit of Ebaying I found some.

And guess what? They were stunning. Absolutely breath-taking. There was brushwork like I have seldom seen, and the use of grayscale was almost supernatural. These things should have a course taught around them. Even the stories were really good.

So, it turns out, that I had not out-grown them. They had changed into something different, and had become less interesting.

So, how does this relate to the subject of this post? Well, it should be very obvious that one of the things that changed in the magazines was the staff. In the best issues, and in the best times there were a handful of artists that performed miracles with ink and paint. I WILL be hitting each of them on this blog in time, but the one I MUST start with is Bernie Wrightson.

Looking through these old comics I realized that Mr. Wrightson almost single-handedly defined the comic zombie. His original stuff is like a reference book on every technique one would ever need to create really good horror images. Like I said, it doesn’t get any better than this.

In the 70’s, Mr. Wrightson decided to illustrate “Frankenstein”. He was not under contract for it, and no one was ‘art directing’ him. This is pure uncut Wrightson at his best. Many people consider this to be his greatest work. Many consider it to be the best book ever made in the history of all printing. (that last one would be me)

I had read about it and heard about it and looked for it and drooled about it, but I could not GET IT! It was long OOP and completely unobtainable. Until…

The hero enters the village riding a dark horse with a sly grin and a subtle metallic odor. (terrible sentence structure) But my subtle point is in 2008 Dark Horse publishing reprinted it! It is big and gorgeous and reasonably priced and I strongly suggest that you buy it immediately before you do anything else. (if you are even remotely interested in this sort of thing) Not only will you have some of the best artwork by one of the best artists in the genre, but you will have a classic of literature as well. And did I mention that the intro is by Stephen King? Well, it is.

The moment I found out it was in the shop I bought it, paying the entire $29.95 cover price plus tax. Over thirty bucks I spent on it. And I am exceedingly pleased with it. Now before I give you the good news, let me show you this clip from a published write up of it… Few works by comic-book artists have earned the universal acclaim and reverence that Bernie Wrightson’s illustrated version of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein was met with upon its original release in 1983. Twenty-five years later, this magnificent pairing of art and literature is still considered to be one of the greatest achievements made by any artist in the field. Now, Wrightson and Dark Horse Books are collaborating on a beautiful new hardcover edition of the book, published in a larger 9′ x 12′ format intended to show off the exquisitely detailed line art of one of the greatest living artists in comics today. This book includes the complete text of the original groundbreaking novel, and the original forty-seven full-page illustrations that stunned the world with their monumental beauty and uniqueness.

Now here’s the good news. If you buy this thing through my link (it goes to Amazon) you can get it for less than $20!) This is not a special deal just through me. Anyone can get it cheap through Amazon, but if you buy through my link it helps to support this blog and will let me know that there are people out there other than just me, who care about good horror comics and that I should really keep this up.

Oh yes… if you add something to the order to get the final total to at least $25 then the shipping can be free. The details are on Amazon about that.

Here’s the link. Click on it now and then feel free to browse around. This link will take you off my site. So you could open it in another tab if you wish.

Keep an eye out for the next interesting thing here. (hint-it’s what Dark Horse is up to right now)

Thank you so much for reading this, and please let me hear from you by making a comment.

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