#circus of hubris-ridden Victorian british men

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

Is there already a 2 hour video essay breaking down a bajillion Frankenstein movies chronologically in order of release (not just the Universal ones) focusing on the characterization of The Creature or am I gonna have to make one myself

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

I think Sherlock Holmes should qualify as an honorary mad scientist. I'm a fake mad scientist fan who's never even read The Strange Case of Jekyll & Hyde and only mostly finished the original Frankenstein but I've read a hell of a lot of synopses, adaptations, ect. and watched 20≥ Frankenstein movies, so here's my argument:

•Marvelously intelligent and wildly competent in his chosen field, matched by almost nobody in skill

•Constantly up in all kinds of business that he probably should not be up in

•He has a chemistry set in his home and I think that counts for something

•Cocaine

•Is somehow a massive boon and wild inconvenience to everyone within a 300 mile radius of himself

•He has exactly one friend

•He is a quirky Londoner in Victorian England (by quirky I mean a threat to human life and also he talks to dogs like they're people)

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

I recently found The Glass Scientists and made a friend who is a Gothic Horror enthusiast so yes I am currently embroiled in endless thoughts of deranged Victorian men making poor decisions. What about it

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

To anybody that has watched any Frankenstein movies- respond to this with your favorite ridiculous thing that actually happened in a real non-parody Frankenstein movie. I'll start!

In The Bride (1985) Frankenstein makes two monsters, The Creature, and the Bride. The Creature escapes and is befriended by a man with dwarfism called Rinaldo who names him "Viktor" for victory, and they travel together to join the nearest circus. Meanwhile, Eva, the Bride, stays with Frankenstein and goes through a Princess Diaries arc where she learns how to be a high-society lady. Everything is going smoothly at her first party until a cat interrupts her conversation, at which point she angry screams at it until it goes away. They promptly leave, and on the carriage ride home Frankenstein is like "Hey, um. What the hell was that?" And I swear to God this is her response:

"It frightened me."

"A housecat frightened you?"

"You didn't tell me about housecats. I thought it was a tiny lion."

AND THEN THEY DON'T ADDRESS IT FURTHER

Also Baron Frankenstein is played by Sting

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

I really love the Lodgers, their designs are so varied and fun. I'm planning on drawing the rest of them as well, they're really good as a warm-up. Cantilupe is probably my favorite here, out of everyone we see she gives me the biggest Classic Mad Scientist vibe (barring Frankenstein and Hyde I think)

Misc thoughts under the cut because I love this comic

I love thinking about what the Lodgers are doing while all the primary plot is happening. Like, Jasper would probably hang out with Lavender and Cantilupe a lot for work stuff since they're cryptozoologists as well. Which is a delightful image to me, because he is an extremely mild-mannered werewolf kid hanging out with two very nice women who have the most deranged job in the world. Lavender is very sweet and all, but I don't believe for a second that you become the caretaker of Cthulus and Leviathans without being a little bit terrifying yourself. If not in personality certainly in skill.

Drawing so many of these guys in a row really made me appreciate some of the subtler design features of the whole cast. Like, almost all of the lodgers I've seen have some sort of protective eyewear on their person. The only one here who doesn't is Helsby, but he wouldn't need them, all of his research would be conducted through other types of equipment that you can't exactly carry around (like the diving suit we see him in just before the exhibition!) All the scientists that work with chemicals or other dangerous substances have rubber or leather gloves. Then, when I was looking at the icon of Arythusa's blog, I realized that we haven't seen Jekyll wear those goggles in the comic. Which makes perfect sense. During the events of the story Jekyll is so preoccupied with the social navigation of keeping the Society running that he doesn't have time to do his own experiments. The only times we see him actively brewing something are spur of the moment, like the cough suppressant, or when he's incredibly sleep deprived like in the flashbacks. That missing element from his design also visually aligns him with Lanyon more than any of the lodgers, which is very neat to me. I don't even know if all of this was on purpose, but it's cool regardless.

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

I came in making some REAL confident statements about the Lodger designs and these guys are just proving me so wrong lmao. I still love them though

I still stand by some of my points about the goggles and gloves? In that it makes the Lodgers uniquely science-y. I also still think that the various states of protective wear tells you something about how each of the Lodgers works. But I don't think it's as important as I had previously thought. Still, in the interest of overanalyzing for fun and because this is just how my brain works, on with the show! I have to remind myself that I'm doing this for fun and because I love this comic and art, not because I'm any sort of expert in design philosophy. Which to be clear, I am extremely not. I'm just a massive nerd. I'm overthinking this

Having gotten farther into the cast, I'm noticing three rough categories that you can put the Lodgers into:

Goggles/Gloves. At least partially geared up for their work.

Aprons! They maybe don't have any specialized equipment on them at the moment, but they do have some coverage.

None of the above! Helsby, Bryson, Flowers, and Luckett apply here. Helsby and Bryson make sense, their work doesn't happen within the Society itself, so they don't need to have any of their gear on them, if it's attached to their person at all. Bryson also has the consideration of being a parody of a pre-existing person, and you don't really want to change up the iconic look too much at risk of losing the joke. Luckett is kind of the same way I think, in that he's a homeopathic scientist. Literally the point is to use as little as possible. Though he should probably invest in some fireproof duds. Not entirely sure about an in-universe reason for Flowers, I think just putting in more detail would've made her feel overstuffed and busy. Sometimes you just gotta go with what looks best on the page!

I keep giving the female Lodgers really fun dynamic poses and then remembering that I have to cover it with their massive skirts lmao

I don't think Luckett is as irresponsible as him flicking fire into who-knows-where implies but I thought the pose was cute, alright? Also the thumbs up is definitely in response to someone asking what he was doing. He did not hear the question, his ears are still ringing. This will continue for at least the next 15 minutes.

Between the umbrella and the rosy cheeks and the candy I feel like Doddle is what would happen if Mary Poppins took over for Willy Wonka. Step 1 is implementing a billion child safety measures and making this madhouse OSHA compliant. But like, in a fun way

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

More Lodgers! I think Mosley is my favorite of this batch, both pose and design-wise. I'm drawing them in order of introduction, and it's almost like a cool little Easter egg hunt looking for different angles and full-body panels of characters that don't show up a ton.

(Edit! I updated the drawings, it not matching the other set was bothering me)

Thoughts under the cut again

Back at it again with the goggles and gloves! Except for Mr. Griffin which is interesting. Could be for lots of reasons, like pulling descriptions from The Invisible Man, or maybe his work doesn't require a lot of physical risk, or maybe they just didn't want all the Lodgers to feel too samey. He's still aligned with the Lodgers aesthetically through the apron, which Bird also wears. Neat! I'm very entertained by the different types of eyewear too. Some have goggles, some have binoculars, and some have layers of magnifiers like jeweler's glasses (of course I always think of the Toy Story 2 scene). I'm sure some of them have super specialized equipment too, like Maijabi probably has some sort of spectral filter lens or something.

God what I would give to pick Sage Cotugno's brain about some of these designs because I am fascinated by Mosley. They technically didn't have to go through and give each lodger such a strong sense of personality but I adore that they did! Mosley in particular reminds me of Mole from Atlantis, with the scarf and the multi-layered goggles and the digging. And Helsby wouldn't be out of place at the Benbow Inn! Know that I mean this as incredibly high praise, I could talk about the designs in Treasure Planet for days. Point is that both those movies have an incredibly strong visual identity, primarily through the character designs and architecture, and this comic feels the same way to me.

My personal favorite rogue scientist is next up! I love her design so much and I'm so excited to draw her. Also, how in the hell do you end up with "make spy bugs" as your job?? And where can I sign up?? Miss Flowers please

Mosley has my favorite pose but Griffin has my favorite face. Look at him. Grouchy bastard

I realize that I've been labeling all the Lodgers as "doctor" but it's entirely possible that some of them probably don't have doctorates. Y'know. The thing that makes you a doctor. Then again Frankenstein dropped out of college and we all call him "Dr" so I don't see why these fine people shouldn't get the same respect! Dunno if this applies to Victoria Frankenstein though. She's crazy enough to have also finished college while all the other shit was happening.

(yes I know that Frankenstein technically had all the knowledge and the expertise and was miles ahead of literally everybody else and only dropped out because he was busy proving that death is merely a temporary state and God means nothing in the face of human ingenuity and all that, but the bastard still didn't graduate and also he's an asshole so I'm gonna pick on him)

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

Miss Flowers is a disney princess to me. I love her so much. She literally doesn't do anything unique within the story but her iconic fashion, morally questionable career, and deep under-eye bags have captivated me. She's a mechanic/inventor. She loves bugs. She's bisexual. Literally what more could you ask for

Out of all the Lodgers I want to know what her deal is the absolute most. Most of the Lodgers I can kind of figure out how they would get into their niche. Plants, animals, the ocean, space, robots, electricity, blowing shit up, chemistry, ghosts- I can picture a pretty simple path that leads to a passion for all of those things. But what in the hell happens to you to make you, of your own accord and for no higher body or purpose, say to yourself "I want robot spy bugs with speech capability and holograms" and literally just that. That's her whole job. That's so specific. How do you get there. I love it

I didn't notice it until I was drawing her, but she breaks the goggles/gloves rule. She has gloves, but they appear to be day-wear, not ones you'd use for work. I was thinking about why she still blends in with the other Lodgers, and I think it's because of her eyes. It's the same with Griffin, he has those little black spectacles instead of any kind of goggles. Flowers has those really intense eye bags. The hat also helps I think, it's a bit of a similar shape to Tweedy or Maijabi's, or even Jasper's hat. At least, when contrasted with the very formal classically Victorian top hats that Lanyon and Jekyll wear. I'm absolutely overanalyzing this stuff, but I do think it's really cool when you find patterns like this, even when they don't matter a ton. I like when I can find those bits of cohesion.

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

Ive been watching Frankenstein movies again (I think I'm gonna have to make some kind of something about it, but I also have never made a video for the internet before so... To be determined?)

Anyways- I have a new recommendation for Frankenstein nerds with time on their hands! And I haven't seen much about it?? Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but even the 1994 Kenneth Branagh version has something of an audience, and I think this one deserves at least that amount of attention.

Drumroll please!!

"Frankenstein" 2004, Directed by Kevin Connor

Now I think the reason this one is so unwatched is because it's actually a TV movie broken into two "episodes". The whole thing is about 3 hours long. And weirdly enough, aired on Hallmark??? But guys it's like. Really really good. Like, REALLY really good.

Some highlights for me personally include:

Henry Clerval! He's here! He's jolly! He's a little bit of a menace! Genuinely though he has a wonderful sense of charm and charisma to him, which works really well against the naturally more serious and dramatic Victor. Plus he's a history nerd with a bad relationship with his dad who doesn't want him to go to college. So naturally he hops on Victor's carriage mid-ride to Ingolstadt. What a guy

Elizabeth! Her relationship with Victor feels natural, but she also feels like her own person. Also they don't frame it like they're siblings (looking at you Kenneth). It feels more like they're childhood sweethearts who happen to live together, there's never a point where they refer to each other as siblings, there was never an intention from the parents to make them siblings, it just feels way less icky than many other adaptations. (It's still kinda weird though just on principle) I think she could've been explored more but she's fun when she's on screen. She paints, she jokes around, she has goals and expectations, I like her.

The portrayal of Victor is one of the most successfully sympathetic I've ever seen. It is very very easy to make Victor an asshole. Which he is, but it's easy to make him the wrong kind of asshole. Petty and vindictive, eager to run away from responsibility and denying the consequences of his actions. That's not him here. It's more that he's overwhelmed. He's completely over his own head. There's a lot of emphasis put on the fact that Victor is mentally unwell after his experiments. He's completely broken himself down, the minute the lightning thing doesn't work he flies into a rage. And then when the Creature starts breathing, he sees it for a few seconds and then blacks out. As far as he knows, he hallucinated the thing getting up (and he continues to experience paranoid hallucinations throughout the story, it's not a one time assumption). He still abandons the Creature, but it's not because he hates it, it's because he's exhausted and overwhelmed and literally doesn't know what's real. And that goes a long way in making the two feel equally sympathetic, which I think is very important.

This portrayal of The Creature is also one of the most successfully compelling I've ever seen! His performance is very gentle and quiet, which I think makes his rage and torment all the more intense. It's pretty common for the Creature to speak in a deep growl or low-toned monologues, but Luke Goss keeps his voice light and soft, which really really works. Plus I think his makeup and costuming is excellent. They stick way closer to the book description. He has a very pretty well-shaped face, but his skin is dry, grey, and cracked. His eyes are bright but sunken in shadow, and stitches poke out from just under his hairline. At the same time it's believable that Victor designed him to be beautiful, and that strangers would find him unnerving.

It's definitely too long, but it's a good time! You can also just find it on YouTube for free so, bonus points for that

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

I'm gonna put the relevant custom tags to this account here as they become relevant because I am a tumblr boomer and this site confuses me greatly. (I'm not gonna put them in the actual tags nobody looking through those want to see this)

Also, here are the fandoms that I post about for quick reference (which will be updated as time goes on): Ace Attorney, Ever After High, Dimension 20, The Owl House, Adventure Time, Critical Role, Animorphs, Good Omens, Our Flag Means Death, Hatchetfield, The Glass Scientists, Lisa Frankenstein, Dandies in Danger, Gravity Falls

-franny being a lovable menace (ace attorney time-skip Franziska and Pearl having weird little adventures)

-coffeepaintart (art tag)

-talking for too long about stuff (self explanatory)

-yes I have thought about this cartoon for children designed to sell dolls from almost a decade ago for far too long why do you ask (eah stuff, mostly redesigns)

-commission stuff (self explanatory)

-Evelyn and Caleb headcanons because the Clawthornes occupy my brain 24/7 (what it says on the tin, Owl House headcanons content)

-circus of hubris-ridden Victorian British men (once every 6 months or so I spiral down a Gothic horror rabbit hole and this is what happens)

- I need it for reasons thank you (I have lost all creative ability and need some outside input to jumpstart my rusted up brain)

- wow there was a lot of jazz hands during that murder (Hatchetfield stuff)