Distributed for University of Wales Press
Horror and Comics
Explores links between the evolution of comics and horror through an analysis of the range of approaches and traditions that unite them.
Horror and Comics brings together an international collection of contributors to discuss how multiple aspects of comics (forms, cultures, histories) have contributed to the depiction and development of horror across many subgenres, including folk horror, ecohorror, gothic romance, and more. The essays also investigate how horror has informed the development of comics across multiple periods, places, and genres, spanning Brazil, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States. The collection avoids a narrow focus on time, author, or theme to embrace broader contexts and issues that continue to preoccupy comics and horror scholarship.
By considering well-known horror comics alongside understudied ones, it re-examines and re-energizes 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 brings together an international collection of contributors to discuss how multiple aspects of comics (forms, cultures, histories) have contributed to the depiction and development of horror across many subgenres, including folk horror, ecohorror, gothic romance, and more. The essays also investigate how horror has informed the development of comics across multiple periods, places, and genres, spanning Brazil, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States. The collection avoids a narrow focus on time, author, or theme to embrace broader contexts and issues that continue to preoccupy comics and horror scholarship.
By considering well-known horror comics alongside understudied ones, it re-examines and re-energizes 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.
296 pages | 5.43 x 8.5
Art: Art--General Studies
Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations and Captions
Notes on Contributors
Introduction – Barbara Chamberlin, Kom Kunyosying, and Julia Round
PART ONE: Crossing Genres, Blurring Boundaries
1.Multimodal Mirroring in ‘The Black Cat’ – Elizabeth Allyn Woock
2.Satanic Feminism and Decadent Aesthetics in Guido Crepax’s ‘Valentina’ Comics – Miranda Corcoran
3.The Living, the Dead and the Living Dead: Brazilian Horror Imagery and Genre Hybridisation in Shiko‘s Três Buracos – Tiago José Lemos I Monteiro and Heitor Da Luz Silva
4.Befriending the Past: The Genre-Bending Vanessa Comics Series (1982–1990) and its Historical Context – Barbara M. Eggert
PART TWO: Identity, Agency, Humanity
5.‘I’m not who he thinks I am’: Identity and Victimhood in Country Horror Comics – Matthew Costello
6.‘What’s one more monster?’: Articulations of Latinx Monstrosity and Whiteness in Border Town – Anna Marta Marini
7.‘Still pretty, ain’t she?’: The Female Gaze and the Queer Monstrous Feminine in Ito Junji’s Tomie – Keiko Miyajima
8.Sinister Houses and Forbidden Loves: Queer Identity in DC’s Gothic Romances – Lillian Hochwender
PART THREE: Society, Anxiety, Politics
9.Abjection, Ambivalence and the Abyss in EC’s New Trend Line – Alex Link
10.The Power of a Demon and the Heart of a Human: The Darkness of Humanity in Devilman – Meriel Dhanowa
11.Where the Wild Things Really Are: Comics and the Horrors of Reality – Dirk Vanderbeke and Doreen Triebel
12.‘REALITY scarier than any boogeyman’: Shock, Exploitation, and Environmentalism in Slow Death Funnies – Christy Tidwell
Afterwords – Barbara Chamberlin, Kom Kunyosying, and Julia Round
Notes on Contributors
Introduction – Barbara Chamberlin, Kom Kunyosying, and Julia Round
PART ONE: Crossing Genres, Blurring Boundaries
1.Multimodal Mirroring in ‘The Black Cat’ – Elizabeth Allyn Woock
2.Satanic Feminism and Decadent Aesthetics in Guido Crepax’s ‘Valentina’ Comics – Miranda Corcoran
3.The Living, the Dead and the Living Dead: Brazilian Horror Imagery and Genre Hybridisation in Shiko‘s Três Buracos – Tiago José Lemos I Monteiro and Heitor Da Luz Silva
4.Befriending the Past: The Genre-Bending Vanessa Comics Series (1982–1990) and its Historical Context – Barbara M. Eggert
PART TWO: Identity, Agency, Humanity
5.‘I’m not who he thinks I am’: Identity and Victimhood in Country Horror Comics – Matthew Costello
6.‘What’s one more monster?’: Articulations of Latinx Monstrosity and Whiteness in Border Town – Anna Marta Marini
7.‘Still pretty, ain’t she?’: The Female Gaze and the Queer Monstrous Feminine in Ito Junji’s Tomie – Keiko Miyajima
8.Sinister Houses and Forbidden Loves: Queer Identity in DC’s Gothic Romances – Lillian Hochwender
PART THREE: Society, Anxiety, Politics
9.Abjection, Ambivalence and the Abyss in EC’s New Trend Line – Alex Link
10.The Power of a Demon and the Heart of a Human: The Darkness of Humanity in Devilman – Meriel Dhanowa
11.Where the Wild Things Really Are: Comics and the Horrors of Reality – Dirk Vanderbeke and Doreen Triebel
12.‘REALITY scarier than any boogeyman’: Shock, Exploitation, and Environmentalism in Slow Death Funnies – Christy Tidwell
Afterwords – Barbara Chamberlin, Kom Kunyosying, and Julia Round