Horror and Comics

This collection investigates the evolution of comics and horror by analysing a range of approaches and traditions. International contributors explore how multiple aspects of comics (forms, cultures, histories) have contributed to the depiction and development of horror across many subgenres (folk horror, ecohorror, gothic romance and more); their chapters also show how horror has informed the development of comics across multiple periods, places and genres, from seventeenth-century broadsheets to newspaper strips, weeklies and contemporary graphic novels, spanning Brazil, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK and USA. By considering well-known horror comics alongside understudied ones, this book re-examines and re-energises established concepts, such as the abject, the Other and closure, applying them to diverse texts, contexts, authors and audiences, and demonstrating the potential of comics and horror to encourage innovations of form and content in each other.

‘Horror and comics have a long, rich and often complex history together. This study moves across decades and continents, lifting the veils on issues of politics, identity, social history and more – placing comic strip ghosts, vampires and monsters in the human context of their creators and readers.’

Daniel McGachey, comics writer and horror author

‘As someone for whom both horror and comics are not only a passion but also an enormous focus in my career, these essays are both interesting and revelatory. The volume’s deliberate critical focus, infused with care, passion and erudition, has achieved what great writing aspires to do – to change the way I look at the things I love.’

Pornsak Pichetshote, comics writer and editor