Edward Gorey styled Zita Johann

EGorey-ZitaJohann-1, originally uploaded by lone_goomba.

wow, I forgot I drew this (just under a year ago)

This is from a photo of Zita Johann posing in a publicity still for the original 1932 [I]The Mummy[/I], which of course starred Boris Karloff as the titular living dead.

So here's some trivia for you. Unlike Dracula and Frankenstein, which were moving picture dramatizations of preexisting stories, the Mummy got its start from pure 1930s Egyptomania.

The producer, inspired by the recent opening of Tutankhamun's tomb, commissioned a writer to create an Egyptian Themed horror.

Early scripts were based on the story of Alessandro Caglistro, the 18th century French Prophet and charlatan, who claimed to have been living for several centuries. They centered around a 3000-year old magician living in San Francisco, surving on nitrate injections. When a different story writer was brought on board, story was imported to Egypt and the Mummy was born.