When Victor Frankenstein created life, he was unprepared for the consequences of it. The monster he created needed a parent, a teacher, a caregiver, but instead he abandoned it. The monster, learning to fear and hate through the necessities of survival, dedicates its life to vengeance upon its creator. But what if the doctor hadn’t left his creation to fend for itself? Would it have been better? Or would it have brought up a host of other uncomfortable issues and power dynamics?
Don’t read this review. Don’t play this game. Don’t look at me.
I love monsters. Monstrosity is a concept that’s important to me. As a transfeminine person, monstrosity is a label forced on me by transmisogyny. As a nonbinary person, monstrosity is a position I choose to reclaim as an alternative to maleness or femaleness. Monsters are a potent symbol, the unknowable adversary that stands against and in contrast to humanity. But also I just think monsters are cool as hell, so what.
I’ve never been a fan of Kris Straub’s work, to be totally honest. I always found his jokes not so funny, his characters, not so interesting, his plots, not so original. As a cartoonist, he seemed kind of mediocre. Perhaps my opinion was colored by the fact that my first exposure to him was the dreadful, clown-protagonisted Checkerboard Nightmare, back when it was still updating. But those were dark times, and all webcomics were bad back then, so it hardly seems fair to hold that against him. Even if he does strike me as an insufferable nerd-bro.