Italian graphic artist Lorenzo
Mattotti has created a striking adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic,
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. He
condenses the gothic novel into 64 pages, and this translation from the Italian
with the help of Jerry Kramsky uses many Stevenson’s original words to
accompany the innovative artwork. Mattotti
combines many different elements: his colors are rich and vivid, with many deep
reds, oranges, and blues and lime greens. 
The frames are strongly geometrical, strong diagonals, full of grids,
sometimes so fragmented as to be reminiscent of cubist technique. The human figures, especially their faces,
are grotesque and distorted. The
combination of these different elements is particularly unusual. Mattotti lists among his influences the
painters Grosz, Munch, Beckman, De Chirico, and Kandinski, and the comic book
artists Alberto Breccia and Robert Crumb. 

The themes of the novel are
obvious. The scientist Dr. Jekyll is
part of the upper levels of London society, and he is devoted to the
investigation of the dark side of human nature. He believes that it is possible to separate out the good and bad aspects
of humanity, and if this were done, “life would be relieved to all that is
unbearable.” Written well before Freud
postulated the unconscious, the novel plays with the idea that we could achieve
happiness by the scientific inspection of our repressed urges. But Stevenson’s story also emphasizes the
danger in this sort of experimentation, because once we let our dark side out,
we may be unable to control it. Alongside
this rather crude psychology is clear social commentary on the debauchery of
the ruling classes, spending their evenings drinking and dancing in seedy
clubs, and the hazard that women pose to men in possibly unleashing their
animal nature.  

Mattotti’s approach is certainly a
welcome change from the tired formulaic portrayals of gothic horror in comics, even
if the plot is still very much of the Victorian era. The story is saturated by a sense of decadence and the threat from
the beast within ourselves, and the artwork does a great job in bringing this
neurosis alive.

Link: NBM
Publishing

© 2002 Christian Perring. All rights reserved.

Christian Perring,
Ph.D., is Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College, Long Island.
He is editor of Metapsychology Online Review. His main research is on
philosophical issues in psychiatry. He is especially interested in exploring
how philosophers can play a greater role in public life, and he is keen to help
foster communication between philosophers, mental health professionals, and the
general public.

Categories: Fiction, ArtAndPhotography