Broken Frontier

Who doesn’t like monsters?  Hulking, scaly sea creatures.  Slimy bog ogres.  Slavering, spindly goblins.  They seem right at home in comics, don’t they?  Here we have a visual medium where the appearance of a terrifying creature is only limited by the creator’s imagination.  You don’t have to worry about being jolted out of the story by spotting a zipper on the back of the rubber suit or choppy CGI effects.

As a kid (and, yes, I’m shining a spotlight on my country upbringing here) I used to go fishing on the creek with my dad.  We’d get up early, drive to his favorite fishing hole, and sit on a muddy bank as we waited to catch supper.  Frequently on those outings I often brought along a big paper sack full of House of Mystery or The Witching Hour or Ghosts.  I’m not sure what prompted me to bring horror comics along on those fishing trips.  Maybe the locale—with its murky brown water, overhanging vines, long shadows,  and snake nests—put me in the mood for something creepy.

Why, I could spin you a yarn about my dad drawing his trusty pistol and firing upon a swimming water moccasin … but that’s a tale for another time.

My favorite part of these anthology horror comics was usually the splash page.  The host of the comic would usually appear in some strange circumstance—leaning on a shovel as they take a break from digging graves, driving a wicked-looking dragster, performing a mixed-up scene from Hamlet while holding a decapitated human head before an audience of skeletons.  He’d share a few morbid words of welcome, then usher the reader to turn the page.  But the detail of the artwork on these pages often fascinated me.  They crawled with spiders and snakes and other creepy critters … and monsters of all shapes and sizes lurked in the shadows.  It was like a macabre edition of Where’s Waldo—see how many shambling beasties you can spot in this picture.

Did these monsters ever really scare me?  I don’t think so.  They were cool, sure, and I still have magic marker drawing after drawing of the creatures who would populate my own “house of mystery,” including a cloaked, book-toting host called, I believe, “The Host.”  But they never really sent shivers down my spine.  As much as I like monsters, they’re rarely frightening in comics … at least not on their own.  More often than not, the monster’s just there for the hero to smack around, and nothing less scary than a monster on the receiving end of a beat-down.

As much as I love them, monsters aren’t enough.

A horror comic might feature a gruesome ghoulie, but the nerve-rattling pay-off is usually attributed to characterization, pacing, and mounting dread.

Take, for example, Hellblazer #2.

Hellblazer might be the ultimate horror comic.  When John Constantine is being scripted by a talented writer, I’m not sure there’s anything I’d rather read.  (and for the record, I actually kind of liked the movie version … but it wasn’t John Constantine, no way, no how, and never should the two meet.)  The second issue of the series is a perfect example of a story that builds up slowly to a moment of pure dread and terror packed neatly into a couple of panels. 

There’s a monster in the story, too, a hunger spirit that Constantine is trying to bind.  But the creature, which manifests as a swarm of demonic flies, isn’t what scares me.  Sure, it’s pretty creepy as it flies around urging people to give into fits of ungodly lust and hunger, but the real monster of the story is the hero himself.  Constantine has convinced his reluctant childhood friend, Gaz to act as bait to lure the spirit.  (Gaz, you see, is a junkie that Constantine and Papa Midnight are forcing into withdrawal, and the spirit will be drawn to the druggie’s need like flies to … well, you get the idea.)  Constantine and Papa Midnight have strapped Gaz into an antique electric chair, because the spiritual residue of so many souls sent to Hell only helps the summoning along, and Gaz whines and begs for a fix.  Constantine promises he’ll help his friend out, but not until the spirit is contained.  As the spirit takes shape as a massive storm of flies, Gaz realizes the terrible role he has to play in Constantine’s ploy to catch the demon.

“It’s too strong now, John,” Gaz says, but his cry falls on deaf ears.  “You’ll never hold it.  It’ll never fit in the bottle, man.  The bottle…?”

Gaz’s eyes fill with terror as flies start to light upon his face.

“You haven’t got a bottle, John.  How’re you going to catch it?  Oh no.  No.  Please no.”

No monsters (except for the swarm of flies).   No headless corpses stalking about for prey.  No axe-wielding maniacs.  But I can’t read those three panels without getting a chill.  Constantine’s willingness to throw his friend to the wolves, the crushing weight of sacrifice, and Gaz’s awful realization that he’s more than just bait—frightening stuff on a deep, gut-churning level.

The following few panels, depicting flies crawling all over Gaz and filling his body, pales by comparison, but is still pretty gruesome.

If you haven’t read Hellblazer (especially those early issues by Jamie Delano and Garth Ennis’ later run on the series) I urge you to do so.  This is what a horror comic should be, without necessarily relying on the time-honored House of Mystery style trappings.

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Cullen Bunn's fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. His comic series The Damned will be published by Oni Press in late 2006.  You can find out more about his work by visiting www.cullenbunn.com.