DuckenSTEEN

Continuing our series of what NOT to include in your high school book reports, here's

Disney Frankenstein, Starring Donald Duck from Dark Horse Comics, by Bruno Enna and Fabio Celoni

This one takes even more liberties with the source material than Disney Moby Dick, if you can believe it.

Where Mary Shelley's science fiction classic is a warning about the dangers of unchecked ambition and hubris, the Duck version has a theme of stifled creativity:

Von Duckenstein's suppressed creative nature manifests at university when he studies forbidden science, specifically the ability to create artificial life...

...Out of cardboard.

Yes, you read that right, cardboard.

This is a slight change from the mutilated corpses of vicious murderers being stitched together into a grotesque parody of life, but whatevs.

IT'S ALIVE! sorta.

Duckenstein has the totally original idea to use a kite with a key on it to harness the power of lightning, and the monster (named "Growl" because all he can say is "Growl") grabs hold of the kite's tail and sails away to freedom

(because he's made out of cardboard, you see).

Those bolts on the side of the Monster's head?  Turns out they were earplugs.

Instead of killing the kids, Growl befriends them.

There are some puns about "animating" life (because they're cartoon characters, geddit?)

and then a heartwarming ending where everyone learns that creativity is good, actually.

So basically, if you have a book report due on Frankenstein, I would suggest you watch the 1931 James Whale cinema classic, or the balls-out crazy Robert De Niro version from 1994


or even the Toho studios creature feature


before I would refer to this comic.  It's a great looking comic, but you will almost certainly flunk your Frankenstein test if you use this in place of the Spark Notes.