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‘Frankenstein for Mayor:’ Comic Book Review

Political power in the city of Transylvania has been concentrated in the hands of Mayor (formerly Count) Dracula and now serves the interests of only one third of Transylvania’s population. Tired of their interests taking a back seat to those of the Vampires, and aware of rising political tensions and that real oppression may be only just over the horizon, the Werewolves and Witches decide to take matters into their own hands, after a fashion: They resurrect Frankenstein (He can’t go by “monster” forever.) who, being a one-of-a-kind supernatural being, is without a natural political alignment, and so potentially a very balanced (or at least a more balanced) candidate for mayor. This is where installment #1 of Chris Allen, Jack Wallace, and Rei Lay’s Frankenstein for Mayor leaves its readers.

Frankenstein for Mayor is a Kickstarter-funded project, with about two weeks remaining on the campaign, and an overall goal of $2000. (You can read pages 7-17 on the Kickstarter page, which is a generous portion of the first installment, and should give you a good sense of whether you’d like to support the project as it moves into the second and third segments.) Despite the relatively low budget, Frankenstein for Mayor feels like a professionally produced text; the lines are all clean, colors are all bold, and the text makes good use of shading, shadows, and extra-detail lines (like those used to sharpen facial expressions, or to indicate wrinkles).

The online preview does a good job of showcasing some of the more mature themes in the text (ritual sacrifice, nudity, sex, devil-worship), making it a good place for potential readers to start. What you might not pick up from the preview, however, is that the text transitions to a more serious and less sensationalized tone by the end of issue #1. My impression at the end of this text was that, though the preview highlights the sexier elements, at its core this is really a text about politics and power. The style, mentioned above, remains consistent throughout, sometimes to a fault; the very polished, glossy feel of the text doesn’t always suit the underlying tensions in the content and is most appropriate towards the end of the text, where the tone is most serious and tense. So far, the series hasn’t delved into the meat of its conflict, but I remain excited to see how well Allen, Wallace, and Lay execute the political critique that Frankenstein for Mayor seems to be setting up.

Jocelyn Sakal Froese, Fanbase Press Guest Contributor

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