Studies in Crap ruins Halloween with Paint Me the Story of Frankenstein
Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power.
 |
Paint Me the Story of Frankenstein
Authors: Dennis Green (text) and Derek Fox (art)
Date: 1976
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlop
The Cover Promises: “A book to scare you out of your wits! And who paints the pictures? YOU!”
Or: Oddly bossy kids-book fun in the tradition of “Dance Me the Tale of Paul Bunyan” and “Pee Me in the Snow the Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Discovered at: Half Price Books, Overland Park
Either a dream-along treat for imaginative kids or some cynical feat of art-job outsourcing, Dennis Green and Derek Fox’s Paint Me the Story of Frankenstein insists that readers participate in a mad scientist’s act of unholy creation. The book’s shoddiness notwithstanding, that’s kind of cool, and your Crap Archivist supports the authors’ decision to force kids’ imaginative participation in Mary Shelley’s story through painting rather than corpse-exhuming.
Green and Fox hew closely to Shelley’s original. As always, Dr. Frankenstein quickly learns the first lesson of R&D: When crafting an abomination before God, manage expectations, even in the prototype stage.
 |
NOTE: this scene takes place not long after Dr. Frankenstein quit The Guess Who.
