By Zack Quaintance — Heavy Metal’s Magma Comix imprint is getting ready to release The Modern Frankenstein #1, from writer Paul Cornell, artist Emma Vieceli, colorist Pippa Bowland, and letterer Simon Bowland. The book, as its title implies, is heavily influenced by the classic story, taking some of the horror elements and infusing them with a new romance story. Today, we have a great chat with Cornell and Vieceli about the series.

Check it out below!

INTERVIEW: Paul Cornell and Emma Vieceli talk The Modern Frankenstein

ZACK QUAINTANCE: Modern Frankenstein obviously draws inspiration from Mary Shelley’s book...can I ask you both about your relationship with that novel?

PAUL CORNELL: It’s a very good book, because it’s science fiction, and hardly bothers with the gothic. In fact, it’s the first sci-fi novel because it poses a new question about the effect of science and technology and then asks ‘if that, what then?’ It also deals with something that Shelley’s generation thought was on the verge of happening, because they’d seen the limbs of dead animals twitch with applied electricity and thought the dead were about to start being reanimated. Victor Frankenstein has created, in effect, a new person without being willing to fully take responsibility as a father, and that’s a theme that stands the test of time.  

EMMA VIECELI: I'll admit I've not read the original since I was in my teens, a fair while ago. But I think of Frankenstein as seminal science fiction, worthy of its position, and possibly the first time I really engaged with science fiction and the human condition in a book.   

ZACK: How did you both approach the body horror elements? I was impressed with how they felt wholly modern but also evocative of common Frankenstein imagery, thinking here especially of the opening scene…

PAUL: I’ve been aware that part of the fun is doing scenes readers will expect because of the title, but doing them in an entirely modern way that talks to our central themes. So we play with the tension between those two ideas.

EMMA: I'm really glad they felt that way! I'm not really a horror reader, let alone artist, so this has a been a big step out of my comfort zone. Obviously, Pippa Bowland’s colour palette on that first scene really helps carry it. I think her choices there, combined with my screentone additions, mean the whole scene feels a bit unreal and dreamlike, like an image plate in an old book. And that's how I think of illustrations of Adam...muted colors and a cerebral horror, rather than the outside. It's horror of the mind, and the external is just trimming.

ZACK: Paul, what drove the decision to lean into romance with this book?

PAUL: I’ve always wanted to do a romance title, and Emma’s art is just what was required to make James, rather than Elizabeth, the erotic focus of the book. Falling in love seemed a very powerful metaphor for the awkward process of engagement with wild and frightening new ideas.  

EMMA: I'm just so glad Paul did lean into the romance! Love is as powerful and as scary as science.

ZACK: Emma, I really enjoyed the attention to detail in the science and research imagery, from the surgery scene to the dry erase board loaded with notes. What sort of research did depicting that level of realism entail for you?

EMMA: I have a secret weapon in the form of Dr. Lucy Cheke, and I'm so glad you asked so that I could talk her up. She's been amazing! She went way above and beyond on offering us input and knowledge on current science and where it 'could' potentially go if allowed to. She really knows her stuff and we're just so lucky to have an expert like her on hand! That board though, those notes are actually all Paul. They were in the script! I just came up with ways to lay them out and add illustrations and extrapolations.

ZACK: Finally, can I ask you both what you’re hoping readers will experience with this story?

PAUL: Fear for Elizabeth and an emotional connection with her. A worrying emotional connection with James. Plus, intellectual engagement and hotness.  

EMMA: I hope readers will have a similar journey to mine as I read and draw these scripts. It’s been one of emotional conflict. One minute, rooting for the characters, the next feeling unsure about whether it's right or wrong to do that. Questioning where your own lines are depending on how you react to certain parts of the story.

The Modern Frankenstein #1 is due out April 28, 2021.

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.