Creating strange, surreal, freaky horror comics that I simply can’t get enough of.īeing almost completely unfamiliar with Frankenstein I was not sure what to expect. Ito is one of my all time favorite mangaka, the author of my all time favorite manga Uzumaki, and someone that I think excels at what he does. The one I would like to focus on today is Junji Ito’s adaption Frankenstein. There have been countless adaptions of Dracula and Sherlock Holmes over the years that play with the material to varying degrees of success. This is probably most common with public domain projects. The rule I tend to live by is that if you have a piece of your media that was truly special in your childhood, and then become a creator in your adult life and decide to remake it, you can take that material and really build on it in really interesting ways.

Most people aren’t aware that the 80’s Scarface film is, in fact, a remake of an older movie.

It’s true that a lot of these plans don’t work out, but there are plenty that do. Perhaps with modern techniques, cinematography, camera angles, a bigger budget, new talent we can take this old thing and make it feel fresh and new again. This is the mindset that adaptions of classic media are in when they constantly try and reboot and remake classic movies. And in certain, special cases, creators can build up on the original work and make something truly special.

There is nothing truly wrong with implementing ideas and experiences you have had with other media in your own work, if you can make it fresh and interesting. This does not inhibit my creativity or make me a plagiarist. A lot of it is so obscure in the modern era that a lot of people aren’t aware that the ideas I’m expression have deep roots in our history and culture. I myself love classic literature and pull from it often. Original things are always being made, but a lot of things that influence that creativity come from the classics. As a creator, I often hear the phrase that ‘originality is dead.’ Although there is some truth in that sentiment, so much so that I deliberately go out of my way to be as original as possible in my own work, I truly feel as if it’s a bit of a stretch.

Frankenstein ito junji