Much as I wanted to completely love this collection, being the last work (unfortunately unfinished) by the brilliant Bernie Wrightson, the overall story and last few pages dropped the rating for me.

While the story wasn't bad, and had the appropriately gothic tone for Frankenstein's Monster, overall, it took a little too long to get going. The beginning in the freak show served as a present-day prologue but, because we never come back around to it again, it truly serves little purpose. Then there's the typical Frankensteinian moments where the monster ends up falling in with someone, or finds himself in precisely the right place, or with precisely the right person to help him grow.

And, while he does grow, there's a hell of a lot of hand-wringing along the way, which again, could have been edited down.

And finally, while I understand that Bernie Wrightson apparently hand-picked Kelly Jones to finish his art when he was no longer able to do so, it's extremely obvious exactly where Wrightson finished and Jones stepped in, because there's a noticeable drop in quality.

So, while most of the art is worth the price of admission to this freak show, unfortunately, it's still a tough beast to love overall. ( )

I borrowed this with my Kindle Unlimited subscription and it was pretty great except that the new artist's work was pretty terrible. Berni was a genius with an amazing talent for making scenes come a live with intricacy and realism. It's a shame he died before completing this and we're stuck with the fill in. The story itself was ok, but disjointed and odd. No real resolution or continuity. But Berni's artwork...oh gorgeous. ( )