Several of Bernie Wrightson’s original “Frankenstein” drawings, on display at Mia.
On March 19, news broke in the comics community that one of their own had passed, if indeed he had any peers. “As it comes to all of us, the end came for the greatest that ever lived: Bernie Wrightson,” tweeted Guillermo del Toro. Later, he pledged not to tweet for the next 24 hours—a digital moment of silence.
Wrightson, who died of brain cancer at 68, had created one of the most influential comic-book characters: Swamp Thing. He also illustrated the works of writers like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman. But perhaps his greatest collaboration was with a writer long dead: Mary Shelley. He worked on illustrating her Frankenstein novel for seven years, without pay, through various roadblocks, including the loss of drawing ability in his dominant hand—he finished the series of 50-plus illustrations with his other hand.
Published in 1983 by Marvel, the Frankenstein drawings have been called the pinnacle of the comics art, a masterwork that fed del Toro’s Frankenstein fascination. He eventually acquired some of the original drawings and, in a rare public showing, nine of them are on display in “Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters,” the exhibition on del Toro’s influences that runs through May 28 at Mia.
Del Toro had hoped that Wrightson would design the Frankenstein monster for his long-planned movie of the book. “It will be a completely different monster,” he told MTV in 2008. “If you know Bernie and how he designs, that’s the creature I want to do.” Perhaps the movie, if it’s ever realized, will now be a tribute rather than a collaboration.