STITCH HEAD

A lonely little monster gets a chance to be a hero.

Stitch Head, a small doll-like creation, lives alone in a corner of Castle Grotteskew, managing the monsters that mad scientist Professor Erasmus Erasmus brings to life. Professor Erasmus loses interest in his creations almost immediately, but Stitch Head—the professor’s first creation and erstwhile childhood friend—hopes that his master will one day embrace him again. When the professor’s 309th creation awakens, Stitch Head acts fast to subdue him and accidentally makes a friend of the monster—a gargantuan bunny/raccoon/werewolf hybrid. Meanwhile, a new monster has arrived in the nearby town, in the form of a sinister, scheming ringleader named Fulbert, who’s seeking new additions to his Traveling Carnival of Unnatural Wonders. After years of being ignored by his master, Stitch Head is eager to run away and join Fulbert’s coterie—but the mustachioed man has something more dastardly in mind. The setting is comedically cinematic, with a shadowy, outsize castle, endless haunted hallways, and a richly kitschy mad scientist’s laboratory. The professor’s crew of creations inhabiting the castle are colorful and imaginative—bat-winged brains, alienlike blobs, and furry and feathered beasties. Based on Bass and Williamson’s chapter-book series, this graphic novel adaptation benefits beautifully from the addition of the visual element—a gleeful stylistic echo of Tim Burton’s 1990s work in particular. All human and humanlike characters are pale-skinned.

Goofily gothic graphic entertainment.