Gris Grimly

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born on August 30, 1797, into a life of personal tragedy. In 1816, she married the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and that summer traveled with him and a host of other Romantic intellectuals to Geneva. Her greatest achievement was piecing together one of the most terrifying and renowned stories of all time: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Shelley conceived Frankenstein in, according to her, “a waking dream.” This vision was simply of a student kneeling before a corpse brought to life. Yet this tale of a mad creator and his abomination has inspired a multitude of storytellers and artists. She died on February 1, 1851.

Gris Grimly was born much later, but he too experienced tragedy and dismay throughout his life. Considered a Mad Creator among colleagues, he is known for collecting raw materials and assembling them into his own wretched creations. These reanimated tales include Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Madness, Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Death and Dementia, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Pinocchio. He has also given life to original forms like Neil Gaiman’s The Dangerous Alphabet and his own Wicked Nursery Rhymes series, among other demented favorites.