Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde [Hardcover]

Lorenzo Mattotti (Author), Jerry Kramsky (Author), Adeline Darlington (Author), Robert Louis Stevenson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2003

At last, the return of one of the most influential comic artists of the last two decades! Mattotti (Fires), along with long-time collaborator Kramsky, creates a spectacular adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic of horror, emphasizing it as a psychological thriller. At the height of his career, Dr. Jekyll pursues research on the duality of the soul. Secretly, he perfects a serum which he experiments with upon himself. Thus is he able to scientifically recreate the duality of the soul and bring to life, through extreme pain, the abominable Mr. Hyde. Powerless in front of the crimes committed by his alter ego, will Jekyll end up losing control of his destiny?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mattotti and his longtime collaborator Kramsky return to the comix world with an interpretation of Robert Louis Stevenson's tale of gothic horror. While the story is set in Victorian England, Mattotti's artwork evokes the masterful expressionism of Berlin of the 1930s and such influences as Max Beckman, George Grosz and Giorgio de Chirico. Dr. Jekyll's obsession with the duality of the human personality-the good and evil that reside within-leads him to concoct the potion that brings out his purely evil side. Depicting this transformation, Mattotti's art becomes even more expressive, reminiscent of the later paintings of Francis Bacon. Jekyll's assertion that with his potion "Life would be relieved of all that is horrible" proves wrong. Indeed, he has distilled life's horrors in the person of the brutal Mr. Hyde, who haunts the nightclubs, parties, darkened streets and brothels of London, a perfect vehicle for Mattotti's masterful command of color, composition and mood. An accomplished colorist, Mattotti saturates the book's pages with a rich palette, and each panel is beautiful and expressive. Kramsky's adept condensation of Stevenson's book appropriates snatches of the original text verbatim, maintaining the power of Stevenson's prose while using a minimum amount of text. This is an impressive and vivid interpretation of Stevenson's timeless tale of the human spirit.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The comic book has been a foremost medium of literary adaptation since the 1940s success of Classics Illustrated. Comics adaptations have been notably truer to their sources than their principal rival, the movies, though often less than graphically distinguished. Stevenson's great evil-doppelganger tale achieved its horrific effects by inference, but visual adaptations have made its violence explicit. Arnold L. Hicks' lurid expressionist cover for the first Classics Illustrated version of it provoked protest and was suppressed. Mattotti's virtuosic realization appears to have taken a cue from Hicks'. This is a visualization of intense colors, among which blood red predominates, deployed in the sweeping curves of dynamically drawn bodies, objects, and light effects. Faces and gestures recall the decadence-drenched caricatures of George Grosz, as do the settings on the evening streets and in the brothels and lower-class haunts of London. Odd angles of vision and psychologically resonant details deepen the aura of terror and corruption as they echo the paintings of Edvard Munch and the classic film of expressionist horror, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Despite updating the story from the 1880s to the 1920s, Mattotti makes every other Jekyll-and-Hyde visualization seem inadequate. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: NBM Publishing (September 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561633305
• ISBN-13: 978-1561633302
• Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 9.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,682,570 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not meant for kids; but exceptionally strong for adults with eyes, August 2, 2009

By 

Mary Saslow - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Hardcover)

This was recommended to me by Todd Martinez at Comic Relief, the great comic bookstore in Berkeley CA.
Martinez knows his stuff; and so does Mattotti. I teach drawing and design to future technical directors and graphic designers. I want to add graphic novels to my collection in the classroom studio that emphasize strong graphic drama, drawing ability, idiosyncracy, character design, and cinematic framing and timing. Lorenzo Mattotti is a master of all of these. Every 2-page spread is integrated in color and sweeping angles and echoing, simplified forms. The color is vivid, and seems to be applied in layers of Prismacolor pencils or oil pastels. Look, this is X rated: it is, after all, about a guy who becomes a monster. It's the Expressionist art that attracts me. This book won an Eisner award.

5.0 out of 5 stars amazing art work, November 24, 2010

By 

Francisco Jose Santos "francisco santos" (sao paulo,brazil) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Hardcover)

Mattotti is by far my favorite illustrator. I got in touch with his art in the 1980's ,and his connection to architecture and design is visible in his refined style.

6 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Graphic warning needed, July 13, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Hardcover)

I purchased this title for my library's teen graphic novels collection on the strength of Publishers Weekly review. "Beautifully illustrated" indeed. Illustrated depictions of sado-masochism,prostitution and cannabalism. The editorials should have warned that this "interpretation" is for adults only!