InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Bea Arthur!"

jlroberson (jlroberson) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-09-13 05:06:00

Current location:	Seattle
Current mood:	calm
Current music:	Thom Yorke/UNKLE, "Rabbit In Your Headlights"
Entry tags:	char: dr victor frankenstein, char: frankenstein's monster, creator: berni wrightson, creator: mary wollstonecraft shelley, series: horror week

Mine for Horror Week: Wrightson's FRANKENSTEIN
My contribution to horror week. Nice juicy scans of five of the illustrations Berni Wrightson did for FRANKENSTEIN.
Along with "the Black Cat," this is the apex of his career, for me.

The style Wrightson chose to use was following the approach of Franklin Booth(and led me to studying him), which is
mistakenly called crosshatching, and there is plenty of that too, but what's surprising is that, when you look at it closely,
it's more made up of parallel lines than anything else.
Side personal note: When I was first reading comics with an eye to maybe being an artist myself, this, Dave Sim, and
Bissette/Totleben all hit me at the same time and warped my hand for life. This stuff is dear to my heart. Enjoy.
(And for those interested in seeing the rest, I think it's only fair to leave this link. )

And the greatest single piece of them all. I've nearly gone blind failing to imitate this kind of linework.

(c)Berni Wrightson.

(Post a new comment)

	joseph_k101 2009-09-13 12:59 pm UTC (link)
	That is some gorgeous artwork! Excellent stuff! (Reply to this)

	http://users.livejournal.com/_dante_sparda_/ 2009-09-13 01:21 pm UTC (link)
	Holy sweet freaking god, that is some bloody fantastic work. :o (Reply to this)

	icon_uk 2009-09-13 01:34 pm UTC (link)
	I have the portfolio that came out for this years ago. Bloody wonderful stuff! (Reply to this)

	volksjager 2009-09-13 01:37 pm UTC (link)
	BW's finest work. (Reply to this)

	heat16 2009-09-13 01:39 pm UTC (link)
	My dad whorships this book. Gave me his copy when I was 7. Probably the best art Wrightson has ever produced. (Reply to this)

	daniellau 2009-09-13 02:19 pm UTC (link)
	You've outdone me with this one. Breathtaking. Pity it's not a comic, but I guess the word balloons would be a stain on these. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	daniellau 2009-09-13 02:20 pm UTC (link)
	P.S. let's have as many cool takes on Frankenstein as possible for Horror Week! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	nezchan 2009-09-13 02:21 pm UTC (link)
	I have been coveting this book for years. One day, I shall have a copy of my own. One day... (Reply to this)

	taggerung301 2009-09-13 02:59 pm UTC (link)
	looks at this looks at own sketchbook *breaks down crying (Reply to this) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-09-13 03:26 pm UTC (link)
	I wouldn't worry, there probably aren't more than a dozen professional artists who wouldn't do the same, and those who wouldn't are the sort whose opinion isn't worth the having. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	abbadie 2009-09-13 07:41 pm UTC (link)
	I was once optioned for work at a comic intended for`public awareness, which had been started by Ruben Lara, creator of the mexican comic Chanoc. He showed me some "rough sketches" he'd made for the following issue: the pencils were intrincately and realistically detailed, with careful shading, worthy of those old Creepy pencils-only stories. Now THAT is de-moralizing. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	jlroberson 2009-09-14 01:41 am UTC (link)
	Yep, that's pretty much always been my reaction... (Reply to this) (Parent)

	geoffsebesta 2009-09-14 06:50 am UTC (link)
	check my response below... (Reply to this) (Parent)

	parsimonia 2009-09-13 03:19 pm UTC (link)
	Wow. That is amazing. I'm trying to remember what scene that first scan is depicting. Is the woman being hanged Justine? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-09-14 12:34 am UTC (link)
	Yep, that's her hanging for William's death, which the monster committed. (Reply to this) (Parent)

foxhack
2009-09-13 05:15 pm UTC (link)

My first exposure to Wrightson was through several Stephen King books. He did illustrations for The Stand: Complete and Uncut (paperback) and some volumes of The Dark Tower. It took me years and a few S_D posts to realize just who he was and how much he's done.

The man has used more ink in a painting than an entire small country's government does in a year. And not a single drop is wasted on him.

(Reply to this)

	greenmask 2009-09-13 06:12 pm UTC (link)
	Oh, gorgeous. Just magic. (Reply to this)

	brandiweed.livejournal.com 2009-09-13 06:17 pm UTC (link)
	I bought the full book in college (waaaaaaay back in 1986). Turns out they were teaching Frankenstein as part of Freshman Rhetoric (English). I ended up showing it to my teacher, and while she admitted that we needed the little paperbacks with the academic introduction, she asked me to find her a copy. And I did. I wonder if she still has it? (Reply to this)

Damn that's good.

nefrekeptah
2009-09-13 07:11 pm UTC (link)

On a related note, I don't know what's more surprising about Frankenstein, that it was written by a 19-year old woman more or less on a whim, that it has never left publication since, or that many people dismissed it when it was first published because it had the audacity to be written by a woman.

...no wait, that last one I can understand perfectly, considering the time period.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Re: Damn that's good.

parsimonia
2009-09-14 01:25 am UTC (link)

Well, it does make a bit more sense with respect to why she wrote it when you consider that a number of people in her life had died or committed suicide, and IIRC she had a baby who died as well. Combine that with talking to people about ghost stories and reading about emerging science at the time, she apparently had an image of a mad scientist feverishly at work and she thought it would be scary and fascinating to make the story about a scientist discovering the essence of life.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	stratosfyr 2009-09-13 09:43 pm UTC (link)
	Verrry nice. Cross-hatching sans cross is just plain 'hatching.' It's much more difficult to get the shading right without the angled second pass. I'm extra impressed that he was able to stick with it for almost the whole thing. (Reply to this)

	mysteryfan 2009-09-13 10:12 pm UTC (link)
	Oh! Seriously gorgeous art! Thanks for sharing. (Reply to this)

	geoffsebesta 2009-09-14 06:49 am UTC (link)
	I met Mr. Wrightson a few years ago and asked him how long it took to draw the scene in the lab. He said two months. That made me feel better about myself and life in general. (Reply to this)