THE FEW DROPS THAT REVIVED ME...

 

Here is an example of how I made Frankenstein my own without adding text. In this abridged version, there is text that has been removed so that I can deliver 200 pages of art. For the most part, the text that we chose to omit was descriptive and found the book would have a strong visual side to it by depicting these words in illustrations. At times, I've made some changes to make the world more Gris Grimly. For example, instead of riding in horse drawn carriages, their "carriages" are rusty steam driven hot rods. Justine is executed by electric chair rather than hung. These, and more alike, are ways I've chosen to delineate from Mary Shelley's vision.

In this scene, which comes towards the end of the book, Victor follows the wretch all over the north eastern hemisphere. There is a moment where he is in the desert (which I visualize as being Karakum) and mentions that rain came always when he needed it. I chose to depict this scene differently. The cloud and rain that comes is a mirage. He is parched and close to death, but the rain that comes is an hallucination brought on by this state and his delusional self righteous quest. Just when he can travel no further, he believes that God quenches his thirst so he can press on. But we see that there is no rain at all...he is just loosing his mind.

Here is the text that is represented in this page:

"I pursued him; and for many months this has been my task. Guided by a slight clue, I followed the windings of the Rhone, but vainly. The blue Mediterranean appeared; and, by a strange chance, I saw the fiend enter by night, and hide himself in a vessel bound for the Black Sea. I took my passage in the same ship; but he escaped, I know not how. 

Amidst the wilds of Tartary and Russia, although he still evaded me, I have ever followed in his track. Sometimes the peasants, scared by this horrid apparition, informed me of his path; sometimes he himself, who feared that if I lost all trace I should despair and die, often left some mark to guide me. The snows descended on my head, and I saw the print of his huge step on the white plain. To you first entering on life, to whom care is new, and agony unknown, how can you understand what I have felt, and still feel? Cold, want, and fatigue, were the least pains which I was destined to endure; I was cursed by some devil, and carried about with me my eternal hell; yet still a spirit of good followed and directed my steps, and, when I most murmured, would suddenly extricate me from seemingly insurmountable difficulties. Sometimes, when nature, overcome by hunger, sunk under the exhaustion, a repast was prepared for me in the desert, that restored and inspirited me. The fare was indeed coarse, such as the peasants of the country ate; but I may not doubt that it was set there by the spirits that I had invoked to aid me. Often, when all was dry, the heavens cloudless, and I was parched by thirst, a slight cloud would bedim the sky, shed the few drops that revived me, and vanish. 

I followed, when I could, the courses of the rivers; but the demon generally avoided these, as it was here that the population of the country chiefly collected. In other places human beings were seldom seen; and I generally subsisted on the wild animals that crossed my path. I had money with me, and gained the friendship of the villagers by distributing it, or bringing with me some food that I had killed, which, after taking a small part, I always presented to those who had provided me with fire and utensils for cooking."