Emanating from pulp magazines and their weirder plots in the early part of the twentieth century, there’s a long, storied history with horror as represented in comic books.
Never relegated to being a bit player in the industry, the horror genre would sly its way into even the most popular of comic book titles. Somewhat surprisingly, even a vampire would menace Batman within the pages of Detective Comics in the fall of 1939 in a now cult classic multi-part story featuring the secretive villain, Niccolai Tepes, also known as The Monk.
The boom in horror comics first peaked in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s alongside EC Comics titles such as The Vault of Horror and Tales From the Crypt, plunging the comic book industry into hot water with the US government and parents everywhere who saw comic books en masse as being deprived and harmful publications, turning children into juvenile delinquents. The Comic Code Authority was established in 1954, a form of government regulation and comic book oversight that “cleaned up” the stories and art that kids would see and read over the following three decades, effectively neutering the industry and putting several publishers out of business.
Still, horror in comics would survive.
After concealing itself in publications featuring suspense and mystery plots, the outright comic book horror genre would rise to prominence again during the Bronze Age of comic book publishing, through to the 1980’s and the outright dismissal and eventual abolishment of the Comic Code Authority, to the betterment of all types of comic books, including mainstream superhero comics.
Horror themed tales found in monthly publications continue to be a widespread hallmark of the modern comic book industry. Still, many of those great horror-themed comics published over the last hundred years have managed to stay with us to this day. Their emotional impression echoing incessantly in our heads, beguiling us, shocking us, terrifying us. More pointedly, the comic book covers themselves, those first can’t-turn-your-gaze images, were delightfully wicked lures into the realms of horror. Once seen they are burned into eyes and memory, never to stray far from thought.
Today, on Friday the 13th, a horror fan’s favourite day during their most favourite month, we look at some of the comic book covers that can still shake us to our core. This is the first part in a short series detailing some the most terrifying comic book covers that have even been published!
Providence #1 (May 2015) Cover art by Jacen Burrows; Published by Avatar Press
Oh, to see the original of this piece of art eerily hanging on a gallery wall.
Providence is easily one of the most horrifying stories that any lover of the genre, let alone comic books, is likely to read. Biff Bam Pop! has highlighted the story on a number of occasions, including here and here. Written by master storyteller, Alan Moore, and visually narrated by a luminary in horror illustration in Jacen Burrows, the twelve-part series is a high watermark of the comic book medium, and a delight for fans of H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmically weird horror tales. Here you’ll find monster fish-men, suicide booths, cultists, body-snatching, haunted houses, ancient rites, inbreeding, and unspeakable answers to the cosmically unknowable. We are, all of us, pawns in the inevitable coming of our own horrific demise with the birth of ancient and terrible Cthulhu!
Burrows visually hits the high note right from his very first offing – the cover to the first issue! It is a standout in the oeuvre of horror-themed illustration and sets the complex emotional toll that psychologically burdens readers throughout the entirety of the series. Here, the long shadow of a leafless tree ferociously drapes itself across the façade of a cold and lonely apartment building. There are no pedestrians here, no cars, no sign of life. The sensation of abandonment pervades. Even the tree itself is ashen and dead, a relic of another time. The lighting itself is not from our sun. Its source is off-panel and unnatural, lower to the ground, brighter and more purposeful than any street lamp or headlight. An odd source, but not misplaced. No, nothing is accidental here in this image. Not even the one lit window found at at the top of the darkened building.
The cover image is detached and ominous. The viewer, a lonely onlooker. Burrows, here, magnificently captures an aura of mystery and suspense and, importantly, an overwhelming sense of dread. It is a promise that every page of Providence delivers upon.
Wasteland #8 (July 1988) Cover art by David Lloyd; Published by DC Comics
Published by DC Comics between 1987 and 1989, Wasteland was a horror and absurdist anthology series that lasted for 18 monthly issues. At the time, it was one of the titles that gave rise to the darker, edgier, Vertigo Comics imprint that birthed so many great series and launched so many fantastic careers in the comic book industry.
Every issue of Wasteland contained three short stories, written by well-regarded and prodigious comic book scribe, John Ostrander (Suicide Squad, The Spectre, Grimjack) and the actor/writer/Second City comedian, Del Close. Some astute pop culture individuals might recognize Close from his turn as Ferris Beuller’s English teacher in the classic Ferris Beuller’s Day Off (1986) film. Stories from the anthology were illustrated by a revolving cast of artists, among them luminaries Don Simpson, William Messner-Loebs, George Freeman and famed British illustrator, David Lloyd (V for Vendetta, The Horrorist, Night Raven).
The cover of the eighth issue of the series, conceived by Lloyd in his inimitable chiaroscuro fashion, is classic terror. The subject matter itself echoes the style of Lloyd’s art, where figures emerge from complete darkness and where extreme highlights illuminate fear – even if the reason for that fear is unseen. Unlike readers, who are most assuredly shocked, here are the blind onboard a subway train, a mere glass pane away from the horrors of the weird that surround them. Adding to a desperate and elevating panic, even canine companions, those animals with such heightened senses, are unaware of the ubiquitous and soundless menace.
By placing the scene on such a familiar platform as a subway train, a place we’ve all frequented, casually staring out windows at quickly passing electrical tubes and concrete tunnel trappings, Lloyd has successfully portrayed society as the pawns of invisible and ghastly threats.
Just beyond our sight, the malevolence that seeks to place pressure on our existence is close. And it is everywhere.
Swamp Thing #52 (September 1986) Cover art by Steve Bissette; Published by DC Comics
The elemental terror of the DC Comics Swamp Thing series is legendary, regardless of the volume or era in which the comic book title was published: 1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s or anytime in the 2000’s.
In fact, the decades-long longevity and popularity of the muck-encrusted protagonist is a testament to both the monster’s relevance and the title’s capacity to frighten readers. Still, issue #52, published in the fall of 1986, carries a certain terrifying weight and is a hallmark of the Alan Moore, Steve Bissette and John Totleben run on the series.
With a cover illustrated by series mainstay, Bissette, Swamp Thing #52 encapsulates everything that the title popularized during the decade that gave rise to Vertigo Comics, the more mature imprint of DC Comics. With all of humanity’s mishandling and obnoxious exploitation of the environment, here is an image of nature gone awry! We see a haggard, larger than life and livid construct, even more demented than the unsettling inhabitants of the infamous Arkham Asylum of Gotham City, who ache to free themselves from the nightmarish torment enveloping them. Swamp Thing, the hero of the title, has turned wicked, his anger echoing the natural destruction inherent in the lightning bolt that sears itself across the midnight sky.
With his primal and frenzied ink hatchings, Bissette shows us an electric and entirely organic monster of a metaphor in one powerful image. As quickly as a crack of thunder, man can easily be consumed by nature.
We must always remember our place: servants of the earth. It is a truly terrifying, and final, realization.
Web of Spider-Man #32 (November 1987) Cover art by Mike Zeck; Published by Marvel Comics
Although he has some fairly frightening protagonists, Spider-Man is not known for horror.
“Fearful Symmetry: Kraven’s Last Hunt” remains one of the character’s most famous epics and a high-water mark in all comic book storytelling. That tale ran through all three of Spidey’s monthly publications (Web Of Spiderman, Amazing Spider-Man and Peter Parker The Spectacular Spiderman), for a six-part tale in 1987. Written by all-time comic book storytelling wizard in J.M. DeMatteis and illustrated by one of the greatest in the industry in Mike Zeck, the story depicts one of the hero’s most feared adversaries in Kraven The Hunter, who aims to capture his ultimate quarry and bury him alive – all the while proving himself the greatest big game hunter and top predator of all time, for all time.
Zeck’s masterful illustrative hand on the front cover of Web of Spider-Man #32 brings the horror of premature burial to the forefront of our minds. Imagine slowly suffocating in the lonely darkness of a wooden coffin, six feet under the earth, with the realization that no one can hear your screams for help. That moment is implicit in Zeck’s image, yet he throws another horrific trope at viewers: the impossible, and altogether harrowing, resurrection!
Here, Spider-Man should lie still beneath the cement tombstone that bears his name. Instead, amidst thunderclaps of lightning and a torrential deluge from the black sky above, he has dreadfully risen, taunt and disheveled.
We know that it is impossible for him to remain the hero that he once was. This is no heroic miracle. This is black sorcery and the risen Spider-Man must be feared!
In the upcoming second part of 31 Days Of Horror: The Most Terrifying Comic Book Covers Ever Published, we’ll look at more mainstream superhero comic book covers that took a riveting and horrific turn as well as an important issue (and cover) in the life of an untrustworthy but beloved character that leans heavily into – and helped define – the modern horror genre, along with left-of-the-dial anthologies and mid 20th century publications that raised the ire of the US government.
In the meantime, what are some of your favourite horror-themed comic book covers?
