Kelly Thompson on the Women Who Made the Bride of Frankenstein
We chat with Kelly Thompson about The Bride of Frankenstein Lives, her visceral sequel to the iconic Universal monster movie.
These Universal Monsters/Skybound Entertainment collaborations have been such wonderful gifts for us (and probably a lot of other people, too). They’ve given us an excuse to revisit the classic monster movies and, in some cases, watch them for the very first time. The night before we spoke with Kelly Thompson about her sequel comic, The Bride of Frankenstein Lives, we snuggled up on the couch together and devoured the 1935 original. So bloody good, and it left us wanting more, certainly, since the Bride only shows up in the heartbreaking last three minutes.
The Bride of Frankenstein is not her movie; it’s his. The creature crawls from the fiery wreckage of the first film, terrifies the countryside, ponders his loneliness, and cries for companionship. Two wicked mad scientists grant his wish, forcing the Bride to life, and when she recoils from her arranged marriage, the husband-to-be blows the whole damn thing up—the end.
Thankfully not. Kelly Thompson, along with artist Mattia De Iulis and letterer Becca Carey, frees the Bride from her explosive ending and gives her new life in The Bride of Frankenstein Lives. Finally, the title character gets her title. The first issue, out now from Skybound Entertainment and Image Comics, centers the Bride’s story and perspective. This is a saga not about the men who made her, but the women who gave their limbs and organs to her so she may live. Of course, what kind of life is this, where her very existence invites predators?
On this very special Halloween episode, we chat with Kelly Thompson about giving The Bride of Frankenstein her proper due, and how this story works in conversation with everything she’s doing with Absolute Wonder Woman. We discuss the original film, what the creators might have had in mind, and how the movie inspired Thompson to go in her own direction.
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