Monday, April 22, 2013
The Electric Beauty
Put simply, I love reading. There's a joy that can't be explained when the words from the pale yellow pages transform into a never-ending picture in your head. I also love reading comics because I love seeing my favorite characters come to life not only in my head but right in front of me on paper. It's an art form that In Frankenstein: The Graphic Novel, there's a scene on page 15 that completely took my breath away because that's when the idea of electricity and the beauty that Victor was seeing really stood out to me because you can imagine the scenes chapter by chapter in your head, but sometimes, words do not replace the beauty of an art work. . It's the part in the comic where Victor is telling his story, beginning with his life. He goes on to tell about a huge thunderstorm that overcame his home growing up and the lightning that struck the tree outside. When I got to that page, the colors were so vibrant that I couldn't look away. The lightning was characterized by a "KARAK!" and the bright white of the lightning against the dark broken tree trunk pulled me in. For a brief second, the artist was able to pull me away from my world into the world of color and entrance me in the beauty, and for that little while, I knew why Victor was so consumed by the idea of lightning and electricity. The depiction of the lightning hitting the tree held so much power and yet elegance, and that was what Victor saw in it, the beauty of the natural electricity. Just for a second, all of that came to life, and I understood.
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I too am a fellow book lover and graphic novels are some of my favorite things to read since the pictures are usually a fantastic compliment to the words, if it's done right. Frankenstein's Womb kept me up till almost midnight because of the subject matter, especially the scene where the creature is revealed to be a child of sorts to Mary, had my jaw dropping to the floor. The parent-child relationship gives the Creature what it never received in the story, which was a caring, compassionate soul to relate to him. This was such a fantastic compliment to the book especially the Creature and Mary's scenes together were simply spell binding, in relation to the novel Mary seems to take up the guise of Victor Frankenstein, or more realistically a more caring Victor Frankenstein that gives the Creature a compassionate nature and a listening ear. The fact that Mary is pregnant at this time gives a maternal sanctity to the piece, and the fact that Mary is allowed to see her own birth, and her mother was just a stroke of such genius it brought tears to my eyes. There was a piece of poetry from "The Crow" that I think is appropriate "mother is the name for god,on the lips and hearts of all children" and I think this captures the nature of Frankenstein's Womb in that Mary as a mother is the "parent" to the Creature, not a creator as Frankenstein thought himself, Victor could seperate himself emotionally from the creature because there wasn't any true attachment to eachther than Victor's desire for fame, but Mary's emotional attachment to her child, her mother, and the Creature show us a more sensitive look at not just the Creature but at Mary's emotional attachment to the Creature as her child.
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