084 | W W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K
COMPLETE GUIDE
MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN
FROM WORD TO IMAGE:
VICTOR LA VALLE AND
DESTROYER
Novelist Victor LaValle took his very fi rst steps into comic books with
his brilliant Destroyer back in 2017. This story features Dr Josephine Baker,
a black American doctor grieving her dead son, who was murdered by the
police. She’s also Victor Frankenstein’s last surviving descendant. The stage
is set for a tragic and emotional narrative that Shelley would doubtless
have loved. LaValle tells SciFiNow about the comic book’s inception and
its development. HOW DID THIS PROJECT COME ABOUT, AND WHAT DID A COMIC
BOOK ALLOW YOU TO EXPLORE THAT A NOVEL WOULDN’T?
Being a comic book reader since childhood, I’d been trying to kick my way into the medium for years.
But previous attempts failed. I just didn’t know how to tell a story visually when I was younger. I kept
trying to turn it into a novel.
With time I came to understand the beauty of collaboration: words and pictures, not to mention
colours and lettering. When they’re truly working together, they make something spectacular. Having
the Frankenstein story as a kind of spine for my tale helped me to get out of my own way. It just took a
decade or so for me to fi nally fi gure the balance out.DR BAKER’S IMPULSE TO REANIMATE HER DEAD SON IS DRIVEN MORE BY GRIEF THAN HUBRIS.
HOW DID YOU DEVELOP THIS CHARACTER?
If you go back and look at Mary Shelley’s original novel, I do think there’s a similar impulse of grief
that drives Victor Frankenstein, it just gets buried under the hubris. And the movies are pretty much all
about his hubris. In the novel, Victor’s mother dies right before he goes off to college. When he gets
there he becomes determined to fi gure out how to bring the dead back to life. It’s a pretty clear cause
and effect.
Also, Mary Shelley’s mother died [as a result of complications when] giving birth to her so that
thread of grief and longing is deeply autobiographical. For me, it was just a matter of plugging into
that aspect of Victor’s journey. Then it was easy to fi nd the connection between Josephine and Victor
and Mary Shelley, too. Loss can drive a person mad.YOUR VERSION OF THE ORIGINAL ‘MONSTER’ LOATHES HUMANITY AND HAS SPENT 200
YEARS IN ISOLATION. HOW DID YOU DIFFERENTIATE HIM FROM SHELLEY’S CREATION?
Shelley’s creation clearly does hate humanity by the end of the book. Or, at least, he hates Victor. I felt
I was actually getting back to the original by having my creature fi lled with loathing for humanity. It’s
the intervening years of movies and TV shows and comics and literature that have, in most instances,
worked to soften the creature’s feelings.
Also, I’m dubious about the value of human beings these days. It wasn’t diffi cult for me to
understand why the creature would hate us. I hate us, often.THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CURRENTS OF DESTROYER
COULD HARDLY BE MORE TIMELY. HOW DID YOU
APPROACH THIS HUGELY IMPORTANT TOPIC WHILE
RECONCILING IT WITH THE THEMES OF SHELLEY’S
OWN WORK?
Shelley’s novel is deeply political. It’s about man’s scientifi c
hubris, of course, but also about topics like xenophobia and
even veganism. The Creation, in Shelley’s novel, is vegan. I’m
more baffl ed when people siphon all the politics out of their
Frankenstein retellings/reimaginings.
I thought of my comic as a continuation of the gauntlet Mary
Shelley threw down. Her portrait of Victor Frankenstein as a
driven, arrogant, self-involved man-baby could easily be the
story of modern tech-bros like Mark Zuckerberg, who has also
created something without thought of its effect on the world,
and all the damage it may do.HOW DID YOU WORK WITH THE ARTISTS INVOLVED
(DIETRICH SMITH AND JOANA LAFUENTE) TO DEVELOP THE
COMIC BOOK?
The best part of the process came in trading pages with the
artist of the series, Dietrich Smith. I wrote the scripts fi rst, laying
out what I wanted in each panel. Often Dietrich gave me a
gorgeous version of what I’d written. But at other times he took
the essence of the idea and made something substantially
better. I’d use a hundred words to describe an image and he
would sum it up in a single expression on a character’s face. I
was impressed by the visual storytelling about a dozen times
per issue.thirst for knowledge, and being aware of
his own abject nature. He demands a wife to
be made for him because he’s been crushed
by the isolation into which he’s been cast off.
With zombies, you have the horde mentality,
especially with the Romero era, but even if
you’re looking at earlier stuff, there’s the idea
that the zombie is a metaphor for enslavement
and the ideology of capitalist discourse. You
look at zombies with a lot of revulsion, whereas
in Frankenstein, the revulsion around the
monster is mostly from his creator. He doesn’t
necessarily provoke that feeling in the earlier
parts of the novel when he’s learning to read
and things like that, because he’s trying to rise
to that challenge and become more humanised
and socialised. But when you get to the
zombie and the tearing fl esh, the virality, the
disease, and the lack of being able to express
consciousness, that’s when we get the divide. It’s
between the horrors of reanimation and being
reborn, even if you never asked to be brought
back, versus the zombie, who never wanted to
leave in the fi rst place and, when they do come
back, it’s for destructive ends.”
Frankenstein’s rage-fi lled ‘child’ is a murderer
with a bitter loathing of his selfi sh and arrogant
creator. Why do we fi nd him such a compelling
object of sympathy, when we cheerfully watch
nameless hordes of undead get mown down
by the heroes of countless zombie fl icks? “The
creature is made monstrous, because his creator
is so monstrous. He’s an innocent, and zombies
are not innocent, because most of the time
they’ve lived their lives and are brought back
by supernatural or celestial means, depending
on which narrative you follow. There’s
something corrupt about the
fl esh, whereas the creature’s084
COMPLETE GUIDE
MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN
FROM WORD TO IMAGE:
VICTOR LA VALLE AND
DESTROYER
Novelist Victor LaValle took his very fi rst steps into comic books with
his brilliant DestroyerDestroyerDestroyer back in 2017. This story features Dr Josephine Baker, back in 2017. This story features Dr Josephine Baker,
a black American doctor grieving her dead son, who was murdered by the
police. She’s also Victor Frankenstein’s last surviving descendant. The stage
is set for a tragic and emotional narrative that Shelley would doubtless
have loved. LaValle tells SciFiNowSciFiNowSciFiNow about the comic book’s inception and about the comic book’s inception and
its development. HOW DID THIS PROJECT COME ABOUT, AND WHAT DID A COMIC
BOOK ALLOW YOU TO EXPLORE THAT A NOVEL WOULDN’T?
Being a comic book reader since childhood, I’d been trying to kick my way into the medium for years.
But previous attempts failed. I just didn’t know how to tell a story visually when I was younger. I kept
trying to turn it into a novel.
With time I came to understand the beauty of collaboration: words and pictures, not to mention
colours and lettering. When they’re truly working together, they make something spectacular. Having
FrankensteinFrankensteinFrankenstein story as a kind of spine for my tale helped me to get out of my ow story as a kind of spine for my tale helped me to get out of my own way. It just took a n way. It just took a
decade or so for me to fi nally fi gure the balance out.DR BAKER’S IMPULSE TO REANIMATE HER DEAD SON IS DRIVEN MORE BY G RIEF THAN HUBRIS.
HOW DID YOU DEVELOP THIS CHARACTER?
If you go back and look at Mary Shelley’s original novel, I do think there’s a similar impulse of griefWWW.SCIFINOW.CO.UKthat drives Victor Frankenstein, it just gets buried under the hubris. And the movies are pretty much all
about his hubris. In the novel, Victor’s mother dies right before he goes off to college. When he gets
there he becomes determined to fi gure out how to bring the dead back to life. It’s a pretty clear cause
and effect.
Also, Mary Shelley’s mother died [as a result of complications when] giving birth to her so that
thread of grief and longing is deeply autobiographical. For me, it was just a matter of plugging into
that aspect of Victor’s journey. Then it was easy to fi nd the connection between Josephine and Victor
and Mary Shelley, too. Loss can drive a person mad.YOUR VERSION OF THE ORIGINAL ‘MONSTER’ LOATHES HUMANITY AND H AS SPENT 200
YEARS IN ISOLATION. HOW DID YOU DIFFERENTIATE HIM FROM SHELLEY’S CREATION?
Shelley’s creation clearly does hate humanity by the end of the book. Or, at least, he hates Victor. I felt
I was actually getting back to the original by having my creature fi lled with loathing for humanity. It’s
the intervening years of movies and TV shows and comics and literature that have, in most instances,
worked to soften the creature’s feelings.
Also, I’m dubious about the value of human beings these days. It wasn’t diffi cult for me to
understand why the creature would hate us. I hate us, often.THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CURRENTS OF DESTROYER
COULD HARDLY BE MORE TIMELY. HOW DID YOU
APPROACH THIS HUGELY IMPORTANT TOPIC WHILE
RECONCILING IT WITH THE THEMES OF SHELLEY’S
OWN WORK?
Shelley’s novel is deeply political. It’s about man’s scientifi c
hubris, of course, but also about topics like xenophobia and
even veganism. The Creation, in Shelley’s novel, is vegan. I’m
more baffl ed when people siphon all the politics out of their
FrankensteinFrankensteinFrankenstein retellings/reimaginings. retellings/reimaginings.
I thought of my comic as a continuation of the gauntlet Mary
Shelley threw down. Her portrait of Victor Frankenstein as a
driven, arrogant, self-involved man-baby could easily be the
story of modern tech-bros like Mark Zuckerberg, who has also
created something without thought of its effect on the world,
and all the damage it may do.HOW DID YOU WORK WITH THE ARTISTS INVOLVED
(DIETRICH SMITH AND JOANA LAFUENTE) TO DEVELOP THE
COMIC BOOK?
The best part of the process came in trading pages with the
artist of the series, Dietrich Smith. I wrote the scripts fi rst, laying
out what I wanted in each panel. Often Dietrich gave me a
gorgeous version of what I’d written. But at other times he took
the essence of the idea and made something substantially
better. I’d use a hundred words to describe an image and he
would sum it up in a single expression on a character’s face. I
was impressed by the visual storytelling about a dozen times
per issue.in FrankensteinFrankensteinFrankenstein