CHAZAN | Five Frighteningly Fantastic Horror Comics

Halloween’s just around the corner, and most of you are enjoying your annual reminder that you actually enjoy the horror genre. However, if you’re anything like me you know that horror is truly a genre for all seasons — nothing really brings catharsis quite so viscerally as a good scare. The artists and publishers of comics have been aware of the fascination horror provokes for as long as the medium has existed as an industry — horror and crime were once the two most popular genres in North American comic books until the rampant censorship laws of the 1950s quashed the flourishing scene (more on that another day). However, outside the United States the nightmare never ended, with some spectacular spooky stories coming out of countries like Japan and France, and by the 1980s North American horror comics had a comeback with titles like Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing and the early issues of Chester Brown’s Yummy Fur providing deeply personal takes on the body horror found in films like The Thing. It seems now that the monster hiding under the bed is here to stay, so here are a few favorites of mine to read with lights on.