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Underground > Comic Books >

Best horror comics? (survey)

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18:33 / 21.10.03

I'll second that earlier Uzumaki recommendation, btw. I finished all three volumes in a single sitting the other day--best comic of any genre that I've read in quite some time.

18:51 / 21.10.03

Liked the Kid Eternity mini quite a bit, the first issue probably falls nicely into the horror genre, what with the mad preacher and Jack the Ripper, until issue 3 when the shroud gets lifted and things are explained.

Liked the whole of Ennis' run on Hellblazer. Really excellent stuff. When I got to the part where John's about to saw off the angel's wings - I thought to myself 'Fuck, this guy's actually pretty screwed up!' The storyline by Sean Phillips and a writer I can't recall right now(I think this one came after 'A Rake..'), called 'Critical Mass' didn't leave an impression. Followed Azzarello's first story arc, which had bit more of a Invisibles Vol2 take to it.

Haus of Mystery

19:01 / 21.10.03

Mark Millar did a strip in 2000ad way back called 'Silo' which was fairly unsettling to me as a kid, especially in the realms of a weekly comic you could buy in a newsagent. Looking back it is a transparent splicing of 'Die Hard' and 'The shining', but at the time it stood out as being quite different.

Referring back to my earlier assertation of the un-scariness of Vertigo books, while I concede some of them are good horror books, they simply don't often have that mind-bending horror of something like 'The Ring' (I know it's a film). Mid - 90's vertigo books are more like cosy-angsty exercises in weirdness. I want something that makes me wish I hadn't read it, that keeps me awake at night. I really haven't encountered much in comics that does that.

19:28 / 21.10.03

Yeah, with the exception of FACE, which left me with a really queasy feeling, none of the Vertigo books that I've read has ever delivered the volume of reaction that Celebrity's talking about(where movies have, incidentally, succeeded).

Haus of Mystery

20:34 / 21.10.03

Good call on FACE. Forgot abaht that little beauty.

I feel I must qualify that when I referred to 'The Ring' I meant the Japanese original not the pointless remake.

Thank Yew.

21:40 / 21.10.03

Re: Constantine loving the dog - I actually thought that was the last time Azzarello appreciated the vulnerableness of the character. Although I did feel it was forced. I don't mean to demean anyone's enjoyment of Azzarello's stint on HELLBLAZER. I wasn't satisfied with his take.

Re: SILO - that seems like so long ago but it was a good story. Very suspenseful. Maybe not a horror book though.

23:10 / 21.10.03

John Smith did do a Hellblazer story. Issue 51 I believe which was actually a pretty disturbing story involving Constantine doing his laundry.

Haus of Mystery

12:52 / 22.10.03

Yeah. Sort of Alan Bennett meets HP Lovecraft. Good Stuff.

Haus of Mystery

14:19 / 24.10.03

Can I add Metropol to this list also? I know McKeever's prose can be lumpen, but the atmosphere on this particular series is awesome. I read it first on mushrooms, out of sequence and it scared the shite outta me. His demon's are really unpleasant in a toys-gone-wrong way. Definitely a horror highpoint.

15:53 / 24.10.03

i remember a manga called "nightmare gash inferno", i know its done by the guy who directed the guinea pig films and its a mix of horror/porn. its really horrible stuff. i couldn't really grasp the story because it was mostly all distrubing visuals of mutialtion and rape. really disturbing stuff. but correct me ont he title if i am wrong. couldn't sleep after reading that stuff though...

19:24 / 24.10.03

"Counting to Ten" twas called.
I really liked that.
Whatever happened to that guy? He should've done more than a fill-in.

I forgot Delano's fill-in "In another part of hell", which is probably THE best story in series (Garth's "Finest Hour" is a close second). I'd say Delano's prose towers above the rest of the Hellblazer stable of writers. There was this sense of dread hovering above the characters in his best stories.

"Family Man" was good, I'd second that.

Why isn't he writing a comic these days?

Garth's "The Pub where I was born" might not qualify as horror but it was terrific.

The Photographer in Blowup

09:36 / 25.10.03

Poor Delano is a terrific writer, but he's cursed to follow someone else's work...

Grant Morrison in Animal Man
Alan Moore in Hellblazer (redefining John Constantine, anyway)

He never wrote his own masterpiece, like Ennis and Preacher, Ellis and Transmet, Morrison and The Invisibles...

... his attempt at a creator-owned monthly series, Outlaw Nation, was a commercial failure, ending with issue #19...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:19 / 25.10.03

spidervirus- you mean "Ultra Gash Inferno"? Or maybe a different translation. Deeply unpleasant, though not really scary.

Hellblazer at its best has been bloody scary... at its worst not at all scary, but it at least has an interesting charcter to appear in these tedious stories...

Have to second "30 Days of Night"- John Carpenter when he still had "it", only in comics form... wonderful.

Charles Burns' intermittent "Black Hole", I think, is one of the greatest horror comics of recent times... in a kind of David Lynch-if-he-did-comics sort of way.

Hellboy, of course- although that's always more fun than scary, it's a comic done by someone with a love of horror, which is more than can be said of most recent horror comics/books/movies...

Just re-read (through the joy of reprinted graphic novels) Guy Davis' "The Marquis"... now, that was a quality horror comic.

Bring back EC!!! From the dead! Yes! it can take its horrible revenge on EVERYONE... and all will be ace.

13:51 / 25.10.03

Stoat: David Lynch did do comics...

Porn Star Justice

00:30 / 26.10.03

DC's "I, Vampire" from the 70s? 80s? was the shit. I remember digging it in a major way when it came out. Sadly, I was super hero zombie at the time, and refused to buy it, cause it was a horror comic. Just as well, anyway, I sold the bulk of my childhood collection to pay for college.

IIRC, the vampire had a soul and faught against other vampires, more like Angel than Blade. I think there was some mystery of who had sired him and he was searching to find the guy, so he could be "cured"? Don't quote, like I said, it's been a LOOONG time since I read'em, and I only read them each once, on the newstand.

But I remember liking them much more than House of Secrets or that ilk.

17:18 / 26.10.03

"I, Vampire" featured vampire Andrew Bennett as he fought against the cult formed by Bloody Mary, Queen of the vampires, to whom HE bequethed the undead curse. The series had a great premise and moody, outlandish art by Tom Sutton. Still fondly remembered by readers. Bennett was looking for his parents or parental vampires.

I didn't enjoy it very much but it was solidly constructed.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

00:27 / 27.10.03

Cheer, JF- I'd totally forgotten about the Angriest Dog!

Haus of Mystery

17:25 / 27.10.03

The Marquis was fucking ace wasn't it? Davis draws demon's reeeeal nasty.
I'll also second Delano's one shot hellblazer issue. It was like a diseased episode of Coronation St - that fucking monkey in a dress smoking fags!

What did anyone make of Garth's 'Son of Man' return to hellblazer. i thought it had moments of genuine grimness. it was a bit Stephen King, but i reckon he wanted to get away from what he'd already done.

Murray Hamhandler

22:28 / 27.10.03

There was a Henriette Valium short in an issue of Zero Zero that really unnerved me. Al Columbia's "And The Trumpets They Played" in Blab 10 is pretty creeptacular, as well. Many small moments throughout the course of Hellblazer make the stomach turn. And then there's Nancy Collins, whose writing for Swamp Thing is about the most frighteningly bad thing ever.

23:49 / 27.10.03

Re: Son of Man

I thought Son of Man was a good, solid tale, but not very scary. Sure the whole idea of a child possessed by a demon is pretty horrific and the dialogue between the child and his father's mob family was great, but I think the whole thing came off kind of silly towards the end which I think was Garth's intent. Pure violent, comedic horror which suits him on Hellblazer.

03:42 / 28.10.03

I mentioned "Counting to Ten" in another thread a while ago, but here's another vote for it as one of the best stand-alone horror comics. John Smith did an amazing job on it. Punishing mood. Disturbingly affective and effective ... plus just plain creepy.

03:05 / 29.10.03

Son of Man: Didn't like it really. Artist was miscast and most of Ennis' Hellblazer never clicked with me. I prefer his single stories to his arcs.

21:46 / 04.11.03

Anyone remeber Lords of Misrule?

05:17 / 05.11.03

No.
But please feel free to tell us what that is.

17:48 / 05.11.03

"The Lords of Misrule, written by Dan Abnett, John Tomlinson and Steve White, and published by Dark Horse. Actually it all started with Tundra UK, and was in limbo for a long while after they went the way of the hairy mammoth. It's monsters galore as Jack Goodfellow and his homicidal brother Vincent battles things that go bump in the night!
Copyright © Dan Abnett, John Tomlinson, Steve White and Peter Snejbjerg"

The first book was a full color Horror fest along the lines of House on the Borderlands very creapy and the first time I saw i hand of Glory in a comic...

Dark Horse later picked up the title as a B/W mini series with art by Snejbjerg. It loosely picked up after the original book and the art more than made up for the lack of color. If I recall correctly the first book was watercolored...

Anyway the series changes tack a bit and almost follows an X-files meets Lovecraft vein as a human decendant of these Lords of Misrule sets out to discover what exactly er... "it's" birthright is.

if you find it... pick it up!!!

10:16 / 02.05.07

Thought it was appropriate to perform some Thread Necromancy, considering the subject and all..

So, I'm thinking of getting my sister some comics for her birthday. And she's into horror. Thought it'd be nice to ask here, since the only horror comic I've read is The Walking Dead, which I'm not sure can be called horror anyway (though it has some truly scary moments)

So, what would you get a 15 year old girl who's in the peak of the Misfits-punk rawk-Asian horror-Braindead-Johnny Depp's sooooooohoooot phase? Uzumaki seemed like a good choice, but I can't help but think there are others out there too.

Thanks!

12:59 / 02.05.07

Another one for Scream - also, E Randy, in answer to your old question, do you mean Doomlord? The photostory was weird, but I really liked it. In fact it was the most interesting thing to appear in Eagle.

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