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Underground > Comic Books >

Best horror comics? (survey)

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07:12 / 18.10.03

Hey guys, list some of your fav horror comics for me. I'm on a horror kick. Been reading Dark Days\Niles stuff and Grant's Doom Patrol which has some fucking spooky moments. Thanks!

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

16:10 / 18.10.03

OK...a quick list:

-Twisted Tales (Bruce Jones and a LOT of great artists, 10 issues)
-Marvel's Tomb of Dracula
-Alan Moore's Swamp Thing
-VERY Early Creepy and Eerie (mostly the ones written by Archie Goodwin)
-The EC stuff, but just for the art, the stories are very run of the mill stuff for the most part.

Does anyone else think we are due for a horror revival in comics?

01

16:38 / 18.10.03

Damn right.

However, I don't think anything will ever top Swamp Thing. Sandman had some pretty creepy moments, the serial killer convention being one storyline that will always stand out. Vertigo should put out a revamped House of Mystery or House of Secrets with different storylines running every issue.

On another note, I desperately want to read Moore's Miracle Man and can't hold my breath waiting for the trades to ever come out. Is there anywhere on the web, where it's available?

16:55 / 18.10.03

FACE by Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo. That just left me feeling weird with the book in my hand going 'UGH!'. One shot DC Vertigo that's really, really good.

There were some really good ones from Flinch, the DC Vertigo horror anthology, but as with all anthologies, bit of a hit and miss. The Sandman Story with John Dee, '24 hours'(issue 6) was pretty good too, as was the issue where Morpheus goes looking for his magic pouch of sand...

16:56 / 18.10.03

Shade the Changing Man had its moments...That's one I REALLY miss.

17:33 / 18.10.03

UZUMAKI by Junji Ito.

Published by Viz comics.

This series of books - 3 total - has been the hands-down scariest comic series I've ever read.

Brief summary - Kurozu-cho, a small fishing town on the coast of Japan is haunted not by a person or being, but by a pattern - uzumaki, the spiral, the hypnotic secret shape of the world. The teenager Kirie and her boyfriend Shuichi becomes unwilling witnesses and targets to the spiral's corrupting touch.

Recently, the first half of the series was made into a self-contained movie, part of the current surge in Asian horror. It has relentless, twisted pacing and it establishes early on that all characters are fair victims for the wicked Spiral curse. As a non-mange reader, I found the series easily accessible. The creator has this wonderfully delicate line that offers an interesting contrast to the horrific events. He evokes the best elements of HP Lovecraft: unrelenting evil forces beyond our ken, the insignificance of humanity, and the pale, noble struggle against such forces. Just a great, scary series of books.

You can start reading with either book 1 or 2. The second volume has some episodes that steer away from the main storyline but are no less scary. You could conceivably read just books 1 & 3 and get the basic story. Ito also created a successful horror series called TOMIE about a dead girl who goes to school, and apparently all hell breaks loose. Never read it but other reviews indicate that it is also more horrific than its innocous description.

Asian horror...Japan seems to be tapping the vein.

18:15 / 18.10.03

Sandman '24 Hours' was fantastic, probably the only comic I've read that I'd consider genuinely scary.

As for MM, I know it was on the web earlier this year, but I believe it's been taken down recently, so I'm not sure where you could find it, other than ebay, now.

19:16 / 18.10.03

A great mini that came out earlier this year was The Devil's Footprints, part of Dark Horse's new horror line--TPB's out next month. A slow-burner, but genuinely creepy.

21:04 / 18.10.03

For me, nothing has ever matched those EC comics - true, the stories are sometimes or often banal, but the really good artists (my favorite was/is Johnny Craig on "Vault of Horror") made their stories compelling. The other one I really like is B. Kriegstein (I believe that's his name).

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

21:22 / 18.10.03

Craig eventually became an editor at EC, which made it the only comic company to use all artists as editors during their existance. It showed as well, since the art was what really set them apart. I have recently gotten an education on Atlas horror comics (Marvel pre-hero stuff) and in the 50's, they were probably just as good at horror, but just didn't have the same calibre of artists.

Kriegstein's stuff at EC was nothing short of groundbreaking, with stories that showed that formula stories did not have to mean that you had to do hackwork. Some of his work is so amazing that artists NOW are still trying to pull off the stylistic tricks he did just to keep himself interested int he stories. Fantagraphics either will put out or already has a book covering his career that I want to get when I have enough money.

The Photographer in Blowup

09:43 / 19.10.03

No one has mentioned From Hell yet?

Hm... could Batman: Arkham Asylum be considered 'horror?'

12:42 / 19.10.03

Arkham Asylum is Gothic Horor, f'sure.

can I second milligan and fegredo's "face" here? bloody horrible stuff, but bloody brilliant horrible stuff all the same.

A lot of good horror stuff in 2000ad/judge dredd in early nineties, such as devlin waugh, Killing time, canon fodder etc. few weeks would go by without some poor soul of a character squealing "oh god, they're eating me... FROM THE INSIDE!"

egad, those were the days!

20:51 / 19.10.03

Surely we can consider The Killing Joke a horror story can we not?

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth.

"I idly wonder where her head is.
And I look at the doll's house...
And the doll's house looks at me."

Hellblazer: I forget the issue number but it was in the teens and Delano wrote it. It was a story about child brides of a demon (?) and John's niece was kidnapped (?). I remember Delano setting up quite a spooky mood for that story. And an unsettlingly brilliant crawl to the end of the story. I wish someone would take Carrey of the book and bring Delano back.

Like A Velvet Glove Cast in Iron: The Eraserhead of comics.

From Hell: I can hardly say anything new about FH. The final murder is disturbing and brilliant stuff with Gull's hallucinations.

Haven't read too many horror comics as you can see and I plan to check out Uzumaki when I have cash to spare.

The Photographer in Blowup

09:51 / 20.10.03

I'm still in love with Hellblazer, but it's losing its strength...

Some say John Constantine isn't as interesting when he's not the top manipulator of the events... like he was presented in Swamp Thing... and that Jamie Delano exposed too much of his life that he lost his mysterious edge...

... but i disagree: Delano's run had high moments of psychological horror that no other author on Hellblazer reached... i can think of issues #10 & #11, where a deranged John locked in a madhouse is at the mercy of sadistic guards that think he killed a child... and the classic Newcastle story of orgies, rape and demons...

Ennis' run was funnier, but not so darker, although the story on cancer is pretty good, and has more universal appeal than Delano's musings about British politics... unfortunately, Ennis' run became the trend that all Hellblazer writers now follow.

Brian Azzarello's run had nothing to do with Hellblazer, that he could have written it using other title without seeming out of place. I don't have a thing against a change of atmosphere, but Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis worked on Hellblazer and didn't have pains about leaving their usual sci-fi genre and write horror. But everything Azzarello touches has to become noir fiction, and his Hellblazer read more like crime stories that could have been written on 100 Bullets, than crime stories mixed with horror. And his stories seemed so forced, just for shock purpose: a whole city that's involved in porn, John having sex with a dog, a Bruce Wayne wannabe...

Mike Carey is alright - his style isn't any better, except that he brought hellfire and demons back, but that doesn't make a story either, and his stories seem to rely more on pure gore and lots of cliches than smart storytelling...

Anyway, that's what i think of Hellblazer at the moment...

11:03 / 20.10.03

I agree with your point on Hellblazer, dues, but have you read most of Carey's work? I have to say it certainly qualifies itself as one of the most highly regardable run's Hellblazer's certainly had, and from what Mike's said there sounds like a strong place for him on the title.

A lot of his work revolves on continuity. Not a single issue has gone by where it ties directly to the next. I think that shows promise in that Mike will deliver. Give it a chance.

Also I'd consider Hellblazer to be the best horror comic, but in the earlier days - Delano, Ellis, and the Gaimen stand-alone were excellent.

12:28 / 20.10.03

Hellboy. Because it's just great.

12:30 / 20.10.03

Uhm...

Last night I was web-browsing through Steve Niles' books, wondering if I should give him a try or not, and when I saw this thread I thought I would find his name here. Not a single mentioning of him.

So, nobody here read any Cal McDonald story?? And what about 30 Days of Night?? I sure some of you have at least given a flip look at them.

SavageFistsOfFengshui

12:55 / 20.10.03

Steve Bissette's Taboo anthologies are worth picking up. They included strips by the likes of Alan Moore, Charles Burns, Eddie Campbell, Bernie Mireault, etc.
Wasteland by John Ostrander and Del Close wasn't strictly horror, but contained several excellent horror strips.

The Photographer in Blowup

13:02 / 20.10.03

Sebastian:

I'd give Niles a try if i could actually understand what the hell's going on, but Templesmith's art seems to be deteriorating with each new mini... Criminal Macabre in particular had a very difficult art to follow.

But Niles has pretty good ideas - 30 Days Of Night was alright, and i enjoyed the twist in Dark Days about the survivor of the Barrows' massacre writing 30 Days as a real account of what happened...

However, he belongs to the trend of horror writers who think horror = gore, guts and blood, sustained by thin plots and not enough brains...

J. White:

I've been giving it a change, since issue #175: but as entertaining stories as Mike's might be, they're still just above average, and he can write better; just check Lucifer... solid, complex stuff every month. It seems to me he's just not working as hard on Hellblazer.

Perhaps what we need on Hellblazer is some guy just arrived from 2000ad with some truly weird ideas, who doesn't have compromises to other series... my guess is that Azzarello also did such a poor job because he was busy with 100 Bullets... and focus just on one book.

17:20 / 20.10.03

I quit reading Carey six months ago when I lost interest.

I wouldn't disagree with criticisms about Azzarello's run on HB but I did enjoy it a lot except for his last arc. "Freezes Over", "Lapdogs and Englishmen" were great.

Ellis' single stories were superb.

20:21 / 20.10.03

Ellis's single stories were and always will be quinessential Hellblazer tales.

Deus, I'm not trying to make an argument here. I mean not every writer is going to be a favorite with everyone. I happen to have liked some of Azzarello's stories, especially '...Freezes Over' and on. But there is something about how Carey's work is becoming better as it goes. I can't speak of anything until the issues come out, but from what I've seen it looks quite excellent. There is a 5-part, the 1st of which is due out next week called 'Staring at the Wall' which I am eagerly awaiting. Although I don't have access to a comic store now, I do buy them maybe a couple months after they've been shipped. That way I get two, or maybe three in one sitting. I think it works better that way in that you can get through a good portion of the story in one sitting. That's just the way it's improved for me.

I'll admit that a few months back the 'Third Worlds' arch didn't do it for me. I found it quite boring and anti-clamatic, but then again we can't all write perfect works all the time.

Haus of Mystery

20:50 / 20.10.03

I actually thought Ellis' stories were derivative to the point of parody. His attempts to outgross previous creators were childish and repulsive and his ultra-Constantine spoke like he was in the flippin' cor blimey Sweeney. I did not like. Most Vertigo-style horror books aren't actually very scary though are they? I mean not REAALLY?
Don't get me wrong though. I love the genre. UZUMAKI sounds amazing and I shall be seeking it out. Thanks for the tip off.

21:53 / 20.10.03

21:56 / 20.10.03

Jesus, that suddenly reminds me... what was the name of the horror strip that used to appear in Eagle (at least, I think it was Eagle)? Had a demon/death figure who, if memory serves, was kicked out of his clan for some reason or other and decided to continue his good work on Earth. One issue even did the strip in a photo story stylee.

22:12 / 20.10.03

I prefer 'Haunted' to the one-shots, re: Hellblazer.

That comic has remained, for the last 4-5 years, the only title I buy regardless of creative team; it seems to provide a jump-off for it's writers to critical acclaim/comics superstardom almost inevitably. I had thought Carey was building up a groove, definitely, although the last coupla issues seem to have been a bit of a mis-step. I also liked Azz.

Oh, and I'll just say John Smith's Scarab had a real lyrical grotesqueness to it. Highly recommended.

23:13 / 20.10.03

UZUMAKI!!
His Tomie stuff is good too, and his new book, GYO is pretty cool, good clean fun about fish with legs attacking Japan. Better than it sounds.

01:06 / 21.10.03

This recommendation will be a blast from the past but does anyone else recall Golden Age artist Basil Wolverton and his great "Where Monsters Dwell," "They Crawl by Night," or the story with the floating eyes from Venus? The paranoia and dread contained in those stories are still palpable 40+ years later. "Where Monsters Dwell" has a wonderful cliff hanger where the deformed hero pleads to the reader to help him decide whether to open a space patrol that might save human prisoners but potentially release their alien killers on Earth or to condemn them to brutal pummelling by aliens. Plus Basil Wolverton must be one of the premerie weird artists. His stories are a bit hard to find but several were reprinted by Dark Horse Comics in the late 80s in two collections Basil Wolverton's Gateway to Horror and Basil Wolverton's Planet of Terror. The later has a cover drawn by someone named Alan Moore (seriously).

RE: Hellblazer. Ditto on some of Delano's work. The first 2 issues still hold up real well and I wish later writers could return to that discplined horror. The Family Man story is also quite good if only because Constantine is pratically helpless against a human foe, which is something other writers seem to ignore. Constantine is a great con man but he's only as good as his confidence, and he seem's to lack confidence against threat of physical violence. He's not spiritually weak but he's no good in a dust up, which is why Freezes Over doesn't work as well if you've been reading the character for ages. Also, I thought Constantine under Azzarello became a pose. He's sneers and smokes a lot and rarely showed much emotion other than a dogged cockiness. Am I off base?

01:19 / 21.10.03

He shagged a dog in the second arc. And he wasn't cocky or sneering then.

15:42 / 21.10.03

I started reading Hellblazer with the Haunted storyline. Excellent, even though most people wouldn't agree.

As for Vertigo comics being really scaring I don't think their supposed to be scary, just that Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, and others are labeled as horror comics. And it takes a lot to scare me so I don't expect to be when I read it.

Having said that I can say that Hellblazer has had some disturbing stories as well as very intriguing concepts in horror. Some examples being, as mentioned above, the first two issues, Haunted and Elli's stand-alones. Also Gaimen's one-shot "Hold Me" comes to mind as really standing out.

The Photographer in Blowup

16:02 / 21.10.03

He shagged a dog in the second arc. And he wasn't cocky or sneering then.

And wasn't that just so forced? I think that scene sums up Azzarello's run for me: shock over susbtance...

Most Vertigo-style horror books aren't actually very scary though are they? I mean not REAALLY?

I mentioned earlier From Hell and Arkham Asylum as two good horror books, but i'd be lying if i said they disturbed me or even made me uneasy for a bit...

I mentioned them because they're really brilliant, intelligent works of sheer complexity, and that's so hard to find in horror.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre just got remade, and it's so far off from highbrow stuff like Psycho, Rosemary's Babby, The Exorcist and The Silence Of The Lambs...

So considering Vertigo's horror comics for their sophistication, i'd say mostly they're all great horror books...

They sure are better than this recent trend of 'shoot 'em up horror' like The Possessed, or parodies of the genre like Midnight, Mass.

I'd say 'Hold Me' sticks in the memory more for its emotional content, that was pretty good, then really for being disturbing.

Haus of Mystery

16:02 / 21.10.03

I thought Ennis had a much sturdier grasp of Constantine than Ellis. I honestly hated the Ellis issues, and never read Azzarello's. Picked up a couple of Carey issues, enjoyed them but then found it dropped off my interest list. Maybe JC's had everything said about him that can be said. I always thought John Smith would do a good Hellblazer. Also been re-reading Grunt's 'Kid Eternity' mini from way back. S'pretty nice. Sub-Barkerish stuff with nice Fegredo paintjob. Anyone else diggit?

16:52 / 21.10.03

16:52 / 21.10.03

Has anyone read Richard Corben's adaptation of 'House On The Borderlands'(think that was the title), and if so, would it be recommended as good horror work?

The Photographer in Blowup

18:23 / 21.10.03

Yep, it's a great book: Corben's art is top notch, the writing and pacing are perfect... a nice adaptation of a complicated novel. It's very lovecraftian, low on humour (which i think is good) lots of atmosphere and real madness.

Didn't John Smith do an issue of Hellblazer?

18:25 / 21.10.03

Last night I was web-browsing through Steve Niles' books, wondering if I should give him a try or not

I read 30 Days of Night, and can only recommend it if you're mainly into scary art as opposed to story. The art actually is pretty cool in that "every page a pinup" kind of way. The story was a great idea, but suffered from a rushed and implausible resolution. At twice the length with more attention to character development and, again, a more believable resolution, the book could've been quite good. Still, it's worth a read if someone you know has a copy. Wouldn't recommend paying the $17.99 cover price for it though.

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