In My Horror Era
Oh, God. I can't believe I succumbed to the "era" shit.
I am a ficitional dinosaur. I AM horror. I mean, I’m like a really nice dude when you get to know me but it’s hard to date, you know?
I’m not going to get into it here. This is not the forum for me to vent my woes.
But they’re horrific.
Get it? Eh? Eh? EH?
Kelley “AHHHHHHHHHHHH” Malloy with his fave horror comics (and a special King’s Edict).
Horror Me, Horror Me Banana
Horror was never really my jam. As someone who grew up not liking horror films, I was hesitant at first to dip my toes in the genre. I’m not easily scared, I just found horror films, at least the ones I’d seen, to be lower quality than other genres of film. I discounted the occasional campiness as annoying schtick. I wrote off gore and jump scares as cheap thrills. And I denied that the whole genre held any artistic merit as far as acting, writing, or directing went.
I was so wrong.
When I first watched The Shining, everything changed for me. I was transported to a place of queasiness, uneasiness, and terror-iness(?) as I watched Jack Nicholson, under the cruel direction of Stanley Kubrick, bring the Stephen King novel to life. From then on, I looked at the genre with new eyes. Now, I can’t get enough A24 horror like Midsommar or Hereditary and I love Jordan Peele’s work on Get Out and Us. And this newfound love of horror has opened my eyes to how great horror can work in my favorite medium, comics!
Horror comics are my jam. They allow the types of stories that work best in visual storytelling to really hit. However, unlike film, the reader is the one in control of pacing how fast the story is read. And without sound, how can you deliver bone-chilling screams, dreadful scoring, and horrifying sound effects?
Writers and artists use their technical prowess of comics to reveal jump scares on a page turn, or they let your mind fill in the gaps in between panels through a process called closure.
Picture a man cowering in fear in panel one with the shadow of a raised axe on his frightened face. In the next panel, we see an establishing shot of a city and above the skyline in large SFX lettering is a long “NOOOOOOOO!” We never actually see a murder take place, but in the gutter space of those two panels, writers and artists trick our minds into making us the murderer a million different ways. That’s closure.
Inkers, colorists, and letterers typically carry the weight of “scoring” a comic. Inkers rely on dark and light shadows to set the tone in a way that a director of photography might shoot a film.
Colorists can use symbolism in their palette to see the horror through a bright lens or to make startling details pop off the page.
And the letterer drags the audience into the story through carefully crafted fonts and word bubbles to signify the types of voices and noises that go bump in the night as well as using in-panel SFX to pace the movement of our eyes on the page.
I will firmly stand by the fact that comics are great right now! And horror comics hold true to that as well. When it comes to horror, Image comics holds an impressively prolific catalogue of wonderful stories. That’s not to say that books like The Nice House on the Lake (DC), Something is Killing the Children (BOOM! Studios), The New Mutants “Demon Bear Saga” (Marvel), Hellboy (Dark Horse), Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees (IDW), and From Hell (Top Shelf) aren’t masterpieces in their own right. But somehow, when I was asked myself (”self”, I said) top 5 favorite horror comics, my mind unintentionally rattled off 5 Image titles.
Below are some of my favorite horror stories I’ve come across in recent years as well as a review for the newest issue of Time Bomb Comics‘ horror anthology, Bomb Scares. Let us know what your favorite horror stories are as well! This is Comic Rex after all; we love new comic recommendations!
A paranoid and reclusive young man is obsessed with a conspiracy in the city's trash. A has-been Catholic priest arrives in a small town full of dark secrets. Both men become entangled around the mysterious legend of The Black Barn, an ethereal building that has appeared in both the city and the small town, throughout history, bringing death and madness in its wake.
Gideon Falls is the first book I ever read by the dynamite team of Lemire and Sorrentino. Lemire has a knack for writing unsettling, character-driven cosmic horror and Sorrentino’s innovative page layouts and bold art style deliver the perfect one-two punch of dread and creepiness.
Gideon Falls won the Eisner for Best New Series in 2019 and Dave Stewart won Best Colorist for his work in Gideon Falls in 2020. The series ran for 27 issues and inspired the whole creative team to create a horror-themed universe at Image Comics called The Bone Orchard Mythos.
When a small-town beat cop comes home to bury his murdered father, a revered Philadelphia detective, he begins to unravel a mystery that leads him down a path of horrors that will shake his beliefs to their core. The city that was once the symbol of liberty and freedom has fallen prey to corruption, poverty, unemployment, brutality... and vampires.
Killadelphia goes crazy hard. Jason Shawn Alexander’s art is scratchy and bleak, but full of emotion; it curdles your blood like any great horror film can. Rodney Barnes has created a terribly interesting mythology surrounding the Founding Fathers that tie monsters into our country’s origin. It is a poignant tale that has a lot to say about racism, sexism, and the relationship of fathers and sons through legacy. There is also a particularly dope back up story about werewolves called Elysium Gardens as well as a great spin-off series called Nita Hawes’ Nightmare Blog.
Killadelphia is an ongoing series that has been in hiatus since April, but returns this November with issue #31. The new storyline will somehow tie in to Image’s long-running title Spawn and also promises to feature Image fan-favorite character, Savage Dragon. This year, Killadelphia was nominated for Best Continuing Series and Jason Shawn Alexander was nominated for Best Penciler/ Inker at the Eisner awards.
Thom is moving cross-country with his family and dragging the past along with them. When his child Jamie sees monsters in the bedroom closet Thom reassures him that the monsters will stay in the old house after they move. But Thom is very wrong about many things and the monsters continue to find young Jamie.
The Closet is a mini-series about existential and familial horror by a true horror aficionado, James Tynion IV. I could have included any of Tynion’s magnificent horror stories on this list, The Nice House on the Lake, Something is Killing the Children, W0rldtr33, and even his upcoming title, The Deviant. The man writes truly compelling and deeply disturbing horror in such a masterful way that he’s even gotten to play in the Sandman sandbox with the Eisner nominated Nightmare Country. He also has his own awesome horror comics anthology magazine called Razorblades which showcases some of the best horror comics around today. All that’s to say, I included The Closet on this list because it is probably Tynion’s best work. The care and attention he pays to the very small cast of characters puts you in their shoes and drags you kicking and screaming into the horror that is The Closet.
Eisner-winning Artist, Michael Walsh teams up with some of the best writers in comics for The Silver Coin. Each issue is a tale of terror in a shared supernatural world. The story starts in 1978 with a failing rock band whose fortune suddenly changes when they find the mysterious Silver Coin. Little do they know that fame comes with a cost, and a curse is always hungry. Next, it helps handle some mean girls at sleep-away camp. Follow the curious token as it changes hands over centuries - from Puritan New England to the scavenged junklands of 2467 - and discover how much pain a cursed coin can purchase.
Michael Walsh’s punk-inspired anthology series was nominated for Best Anthology at the 2022 Eisner Awards. Walsh’s ability to plot, draw, and color this series has made it one of the best curated horror experiences currently on comic shelves. Every issue delivers a unique and macabre new story by literally the best writers in comics today. The most recent issue was #15 which released last November, so here’s hoping we get another installment into this universe soon.
Chocolate, vanilla, existential horror, drug addiction, musical fantasy...there's a flavor for everyone's misery. Ice Cream Man is a genre-defying comic book series featuring disparate one-shot tales of sorrow, wonder, and redemption. Each installment features its own cast of strange characters, dealing with their own special sundae of suffering. And on the periphery of all of them, like the twinkly music of his colorful truck, is the Ice Cream Man-a weaver of stories, a purveyor of sweet treats. Friend. Foe. God. Demon. The man who, with a snap of his fingers- lickety split- can change the course of your life forever.
Ice Cream Man is easily one of the most creepy and unsettling books I’ve read. Like other anthology books, the single-serving stories fit very well into the horror genre. The through line of the demonic Ice Cream Man is so weird and dark that his saccharine smile turns your stomach whenever you seen him. My favorite issue of Ice Cream Man features a triptych in which three stories play out through three distinct color palettes: brown, cream, and pink (very much a nod to Neapolitan ice cream). Martin Morazzo’s bug-eyed and lanky characters with thin shaky linework pop off every page in these well-crafted horror tales.
Ice Cream Man is an ongoing series, with issue #37 being released this week!
King’s Edict
This week, I had the pleasure of reading a review copy for Bomb Scares #1 by Time Bomb Comics. This horror anthology is currently up for pre-order and I cannot recommend you grab it enough! With 60 pages of unique, scary and avant-garde stories, there is something in here for everyone. The talent in this book is truly remarkable and includes stories by Liam Sharp and Trevor Avon Eeden.
I found myself dissecting each new tale in its own microcosm and came away deeply disturbed but highly entertained with each passing page. There are stories of true horror and monsters. Stories of extreme violence and bloodshed. And even a beautifully terrible story featuring a grim colony of spiders. Bomb Scares #1 is off to a magnificent start and coming out just in time for spooky season!
BOMB SCARES can be pre-ordered through Zoop now until the beginning of November. Time Bomb Comics offers an opportunity to get the book at a pre-order price and with exclusive extras that will only be available through the campaign.
Zoop preorder link: https://zoop.gg/c/bombscares1
Website: https://timebombcomics.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TimeBombComics
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TimeBombComics/