Monster Serial is dead. Long live Unlovely Frankenstein!

Monster Serial, a leading international provider of digital art and critical writing about cinéma d'horreur, today announced the its rebrand to Unlovely Frankenstein. The comprehensive rebrand elevates the focus of recent efforts to shift away from publishing, and includes a new logo, positioning, and website.

Sounds official, doesn't it? I cribbed much of that text from a press release about a corporate  rebranding initiative. Somebody actually thinks people talk like that. But there's a method to my madness, so bear with me a moment. This is going someplace.

The moving parts that make up Unlovely Frankenstein have been sliding into place during the last four weeks and, for the most part, the transition has been a smooth one. The Etsy store now has its own dedicated domain -- www.unlovelyfrankenstein.com -- and the branding of the Tumblr account now reflects the name change. (Unlovely Frankenstein even has it's own Spotify playlist!) Monster Serial hasn't been a vital part of this website for several years. Our last book was published in 2016, but I've continued to use Facebook and Tumblr pages for the brand to discuss horror movies and share the artwork I create that's unrelated to Dark Shadows.

But it's time to make that change formal. Monster Serial and The Collinsport Historical Society have had little to do with each other for a while now, so I'm taking out a hacksaw and separating these conjoined monsters. Because the recent focus of Monster Serial has been primarily on artwork instead of critical writing and publishing, a name change is necessary. I settled on Unlovely Frankenstein for a variety of reasons. The new name is in keeping with the tongue-in-cheek vibe of our established web presence so that our online followers know we aren't playing some elaborate shell game with them. The content will not be changing; if anything, the rebranding is going to revitalize our social media accounts. The new name is also unique and it should make finding the accounts relatively easy.

But why the monicker "Unlovely Frankenstein"? You can thank Jonathan Frid for that, at least indirectly. When being compared to classic horror actors, Frid was more often compared to Boris Karloff than Bela Lugosi. I've always wondered what Frid would have done with the part of Frankenstein's monster, the eloquent, violent philosopher as depicted in the Mary Shelley novel.

The rest of the name came from a rude comment made about Frid in a 1969 profile in the Canadian magazine McLean's, which referred to him as an "unlovely Canadian bachelor." I've always thought it was a weird thing to say about somebody, and I'm not sure I've ever heard the word elsewhere. It's somehow elegant and vulgar at the same time, the kind of word used by people who get punched in the face a lot. It seemed a perfect fit for my (sometimes obnoxious) artwork.

So there you have it. The Collinsport Historical Society isn't going anywhere, and this divorce will only help to increase our focus on Dark Shadows. In order to get all of our social media accounts in order, though, a formal announcement had to be drafted. If you're a Dark Shadows fanatic this might be the first time you're hearing about Unlovely Frankenstein. If so, head on over to our shop and look around! You can find us here: www.unlovelyfrankenstein.com.