Comic Pants Podcast #7 (10-26-06)
Episode number seven of the Comic Pants podcast is now live. Since Halloween is fast approaching, Dave Farabee, Randy Lander, David Martindale and Nick Budd talk this week about horror comics and Halloween-themed comics, everything from Walking Dead to Ghost Rider to From Hell.
As always, commentary is welcomed and encouraged. Let us know what you thought of the podcast, tell us what your favorite horror or Halloween comics are and, as always, if you’ve got suggestions for future podcast topics, leave us a comment! We’ve also got the first batch of listener questions, and we’re hoping for a lot more on the next podcast, so please drop us a line at comicpantsfeedback@gmail.com to give us some questions or comments for the next show.
Use the podcast feed buttons on the sidebar to subscribe, listen via the flash player below, or directly download the MP3 here:
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On the whole “What is horror?” debacle, I’ll say that horror is a much larger genre, one that involves human drama, mystery, and a ton of other sub-genres. It doesn’t need a supernatural to be horrific, but it does need a human element, something you can focus on and relate to (even if it’s a monster) that you can feel horrified for. So, yeah, I’ll say Walking Dead is a horror book, and I’ll say it’s because horrifying things are happening to these human characters through the course of this drama.
26 Oct 2006 at 8:32 am
Quote>>So, yeah, I’ll say Walking Dead is a horror book, and I’ll say it’s because horrifying things are happening to these human characters through the course of this drama.
But also because of the flesh-eating zombies that periodically attack, right?
Seriously, though, I’m about in your camp as far as defining horror goes. There are those projects that fall into gray areas - is Psycho horror? suspense? a particularly intense drama about a guy with a mother fixation? - and at that point, definitions are only effective insofar as the individual person. Is Walking Dead human drama against a backdrop of horror or horror with an emphasis on human drama? Getting into hazy semantics there, but it’s most definitely a story with ZOMBIES in it, and broadly speaking, I find fans of zombie stories to be horror fans. Ergo, it seems reasonable to me to think of it as horror, file it under horror, recommend it to horror fans. It fits a very useful definition.
It seems I remember a Stephen King preface from ages ago that mentioned how real horror - the things that REALLY scare us - aren’t the supernatural horrors, but instances like flicking off a light switch with wet hands and being afraid of getting electrocuted. It’s a worthy point, but if we take that notion to heart, then Syriana is more of a horror movie than The Ring. I mean, I’m more truly afraid of the sins of the oil industry than I am of a magical video tape that kills. Is it helpful then, to classify Syriana as horror? Not for me. And I’m sure if I could remember the rest of that King preface, it’d offer some keen insights on precisely where to draw that philosophical dividing line.
I just know that if someone shows The Ring for their Halloween movie marathon, they’re good. If they show Syriana, there’s gonna be an ass-whuppin’.
26 Oct 2006 at 11:23 am
QuoteI wish I could remember who said this years ago, but they emphasized that horror is an emotion and not a genre. When you step back like that, everything just becomes stories. Just about anything can have a horror element to it. The riverboat scene in Willy Wonka is a great horror scene, but it doesn’t make Wonka a horror movie.
All in all, I’d say the semantics aren’t worth worrying about. Sure, Syriana’s got some horrific elements to it, but at the end of the day it’s just a damn good movie. Same goes for The Ring.
As for whether or not The Walking Dead is a horror book or not, just remember that anytime a creator argues that they’re work ISN’T something, then it most likely IS. I can spend all day talking about how A Trip to Rundberg is an action story and not a horror story, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a frickin’ zombie book.
And just check the top corner of the Walking Dead trade’s back cover. I think it says HORROR on it.
26 Oct 2006 at 11:54 am
Quote>>And just check the top corner of the Walking Dead trade’s back cover. I think it says HORROR on it.
I looked. It’s true. Yet Kirkman claims in his intro that the book ain’t horror.
Anyone else smell class action lawsuit for false advertisement?
(Comic creators are all wealthy, right?)
26 Oct 2006 at 12:31 pm
QuoteHey Guys,
Once again good podcast and good point about horror comics not being as scary as horror movies or though they might well be good stories.
Randy mentioned “Darkhold” series, which I recently dug out and read as a reference for a few sessions of the supers game I run and the early issues still hold up fairly well, though it rapidly looses steam as it goes on. It does have some great artwork by Richard Case, (whatever happened to him?) who also worked on Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol, which was not a horror book per say, but did seem to flirt at the edges of horror at times, in fact, I first found out about Grant Morrison and the Doom Patrol because the Mayfair Games version of “Chill” listed the book as recommending reading.
Another comic that I think sorta flirted with the horror genre, though mostly in the early story arcs, was Gaiman’s Sandman. That Dr. Dee arc was pretty chilling.
As to the debate on what defines horror, well I guess like anything it can be a matter of perspective, but I will point out that a lot of the stories that are considered “horror greats”, Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House”, Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein”, Poe’s “Fall of House of Usher”, all revolved around human drama/melodrama.
26 Oct 2006 at 1:17 pm
QuoteGreat podcast, guys.
One of the reasons that comics aren’t scary is because of length and pacing. The genius of Stephen King is that he takes normal people and places them in terrifying situations. But long before you get to the monsters and other horrors, there is usually a substantial amount of build-up that establishes the characters and makes you care about them. Often, we’re talking about a hundred or more pages before anything “scary” happens. And when it does happen, because you feel like you actually “know” the characters, you feel scared for them. It invokes a response.
Transfer that idea to comic books, and you’re looking at four or five issues of nothing but people going about their lives. No one would buy that. So we’re left with (more often than not) horror comics where people get slaughtered but we don’t know anything about them other than their names. I know from my own experience that it’s hard hitting that right balance between the two. (I think one of the reasons Walking Dead is as popular as it is is because more often that not, it manages to walk that fine line.)
26 Oct 2006 at 1:43 pm
QuoteWilliam,
Well-observed, sir! I think you’ve hit the nail on the head as to one of the main reasons horror is so hard in comics, and maybe why manga tends to do it better. Decompressed storytelling doesn’t often work in serial format, but if you serve up larger chunks of story where the fans will be patient enough to hang out with the characters before seeing them messily killed, you create a deeper emotional investment and a “hey, this could be me” sympathy.
So maybe the answer is that horror belongs more in the realm of the OGN, or series of OGN, and that to write good horror you’ve got to be capable of creating characters and dialogue so fascinating and engrossing that even if they’re just talking heads doing normal stuff, the readers are still there. That’s a tall order, and might help explain why there are so few actual scary horror comics.
26 Oct 2006 at 11:12 pm
QuoteHi guys! This is my first time posting to your site. I just finished listening to your 7th podcast and it was really interesting (as they all are). As someone who doesn’t know the history of comics that well, I appreciate and marvel (heh) at the sheer knowledge and various books that you guys can remember and talk about in your casts.
I know you joked about it in the podcast, but I actually am a reader in Japan. I teach English in Fukushima Prefecture. I’ve been pretty much out of the comics scene while I’ve been over here, a little over two years now, and it’s great listening to your podcasts. They keep me up to date as to what’s hip and cool going on back in the Western Comics World, and give me something to listen to when I’m cooking dinner.
Great site, great podcasts, and keep up the great work! Oh, one last thing: in your first podcast about the new Brubaker Criminal comic, you throw out a bunch of names of crime writers and say that Brubaker is the best crime writer in the business today. I’m in no position to argue, but none of you mentioned David Lapham, writer/illustrator of Stray Bullets and Murder Me Dead. Shame on all of you! I know he’s not as high profile as Bendis, Brubaker or any of the other big names you mentioned, but Stray Bullets is one of the best crime comics and not mentioning Lapham is a huge oversight!
Keep up the terrific work!
27 Oct 2006 at 11:11 am
QuoteJabrams, thanks for chiming in! It’s always cool to know we’ve got readers as far-flung as Japan!
As for Lapham… I loved a lot of Stray Bullets, but the book is so sporadically produced that I don’t always think of it when talking crime books. And Lapham’s other work, from Batman to his new work on the Spectre, has been kind of disappointing, especially when you compare it to his Stray Bullets work. So Lapham is good, but I’ll still stand by Brubaker as easily the best crime writer going.
27 Oct 2006 at 11:49 am
QuoteOf course I have to throw my two cents into a horror discussion!
I think William brings up an interesting point in the pacing of comics making it difficult to craft a scary tale. My first instinct was to object and point to the power of short prose. IMO, most of the scariest tales are the short ones from Lovecraft, King, and Bierce, rather than the longer works. That said, I have to reconsider and say that the differences in the medium poke holes in my argument. Prose is too different from comics, as is film.
Consider this - I’ve long thought that the most effective horror is what you don’t see. Hitchcock said something to the effect that you shouldn’t scare the audience by showing them what’s in the bag. You just *threaten* to show them what’s in the bag. It’s one of the reasons Jaws was so effective. The shark didn’t work right, so through creative editing, they showed less of it.
With prose, you just have the words on the paper and your imagination. No matter what level of detail the author gives, you’re still filling in the blanks, allowing you to visualize the worst possible scenario, if you will (bear with me stating the obvious here). With film, there’s far less provocation of the imagination, I think, but if edited correctly, what’s shown is meted out in carefully calculated doses (hopefully).
To boil it down to it’s most simple, when Michael Myer’s mask comes off in the original Halloween, it’s a chilling moment because you’re struggling to see him through the shadows and the few frames of exposure you’re given. If you’re reading the book, the author can just tease you with a few vague descriptions (or POV impressions).
With comics? You can stare at that panel of an unmasked killer all day, robbing it of any power. Does that make sense?
I do have to say that ‘the Other Side’, the Viet Nam tale from a few weeks back, was truly frightening.
But what is horror? I’m inclined to say it’s something ostensibly scary coupled with bizarre elements.
I was about to launch into a diatribe about what separates horror from thrillers and why I think ‘the Walking Dead’ is in fact horror and thoroughly follows in the footsteps of Romero’s early Living Dead films, but . . . I’ll spare you!
PS. Syriana was only scary in that it was an impenetrable, pedantic, anti-capitalist screed.
27 Oct 2006 at 4:00 pm
QuoteMy favorite Halloween comic is this graphic album Scott Hampton did in 1993 called THE UPTURNED STONE. It’s about these boys who take this pumpkin that sprouted from the grave of an unidentified body…and then one of the boys’ parents make a pie from it. Then things get freaky.
It’s got some scary stuff in it, but mostly it’s spooky-scary, sort of the STAND BY ME of comics. It was reprinted in a Hampton collection from IDW a few years ago, if I recall correctly. Really excellent.
There have been bits in comics that have scared me…this one HELLBLAZER short by Garth Ennis about this womanizing friend who gets…squeezed, the Rorscharch origin in WATCHMEN, the end of Y: THE LAST MAN #1, most of the first year of Ostrander and Mandrake’s SPECTRE…and dammit, I am going mad trying to find one of Mandrake’s glow-in-the-dark Spectre posters at a reasonable price.
There was also some cool stuff in the old Warren horror books that will probably never be reprinted. Bruce Jones and Richard Corben’s “In Deep” was horrific, as was the “Night of the Jackass” series, which…you can see a LOT of 28 DAYS LATER in that one.
Confession: I’m tired of Zombies. Just too many of them! They’re not special any more!
27 Oct 2006 at 7:55 pm
QuoteAnother entertaining podcast, comicpants-people!
One title I missed was ‘Spawn’. Especially during the period the Spawn/Al Simmons character became a background character, only popping up when necessary. It really had a creepy, horror-like, mood to it.
One of the best horror artists is, in my opinion, Richard Corben.
Corben did a lot of the Creepy/Eerie comics and recently that Allen Poe comic for Marvel (which I still have to read).
28 Oct 2006 at 12:38 am
QuoteSo Nick read Heavy Metal as a kid? I guarantee you it wasn’t for the horror or gore.
One word: BOOBIES.
28 Oct 2006 at 4:14 pm
QuoteRandy: The Darkhold books were written by Chris Cooper, not anyone I’ve heard of outside this book but he’s does have a short entry on wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Cooper
29 Oct 2006 at 9:47 am
QuoteCool, thanks for checking, Ray! I think I do remember Cooper as a Marvel editor, guess Darkhold was his chance to write as well.
29 Oct 2006 at 2:22 pm
QuoteMurphy said:
Consider this - I’ve long thought that the most effective horror is what you don’t see. Hitchcock said something to the effect that you shouldn’t scare the audience by showing them what’s in the bag. You just *threaten* to show them what’s in the bag. It’s one of the reasons Jaws was so effective. The shark didn’t work right, so through creative editing, they showed less of it.
And…
With comics? You can stare at that panel of an unmasked killer all day, robbing it of any power. Does that make sense?
I think this makes perfect sense. This is definitely a truism of horror, and it runs counter to a truism of comics, which is “show, don’t tell.” That might also help explain the difficulty, that one of the central strengths of horror (not showing the audience) is one of the potential weaknesses of comics.
What’s interesting is that this thread makes up a list of elements that makes horror difficult in comics, but not impossible. It’s just something for comics writers to be aware of if they’re trying to write horror.
PS. Syriana was only scary in that it was an impenetrable, pedantic, anti-capitalist screed.
I’ll agree with everything but screed.
I found Syriana very watchable, but sort of willfully over-complex, like the author was trying to show off how smart he was. But I really loved Traffic, and I’m a fan of Clooney and several of the other actors in the piece, so I enjoyed it. I just don’t think I’ll ever watch it again.
But if you want to talk movies and scary… how about Borat in that lime-green full-body thong? brrrr!
Zack said:
There have been bits in comics that have scared me…this one HELLBLAZER short by Garth Ennis about this womanizing friend who gets…squeezed, the Rorscharch origin in WATCHMEN, the end of Y: THE LAST MAN #1, most of the first year of Ostrander and Mandrake’s SPECTRE…and dammit, I am going mad trying to find one of Mandrake’s glow-in-the-dark Spectre posters at a reasonable price.
Oh yeah, that origin sequence in WATCHMEN was disturbing as hell. WATCHMEN has elements of horror, actually… the mob violence, Adrian Veidt’s power-trip is kind of creepy, Dr. Manhattan is definitely terrifying in that “he could blow up the whole world” Cold War fear of nuclear war thing… you could make an argument that WATCHMEN is a horror book, and I wouldn’t fight too hard.
Alan Moore might be the best horror writer in comics. He seems to be able to get under the readers’ skin better than most, and he’s created a lot of the enduring horror tales with his work on SWAMP THING, which also birthed John Constantine. Then you add in FROM HELL, and some other stuff I’m surely forgetting. Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis probably have a claim on writing some pretty good horror as well (Morrison could probably do a great mind-bending Cthulhu thing, given his work on INVISIBLES, THE FILTH and DOOM PATROL). Actually, Peter Milligan has done some interesting horror work as well, with THE EXTREMIST and SHADE at Vertigo. Maybe there’s something to the UK contingent that makes them better at horror?
Confession: I’m tired of Zombies. Just too many of them! They’re not special any more!
You’d think I’d be tired of zombies, but I’m still digging a lot of the zombie stories. There are bad ones, but there have been some really good ones as well, and WALKING DEAD remains a favorite read.
Médard said:
One of the best horror artists is, in my opinion, Richard Corben.
Corben did a lot of the Creepy/Eerie comics and recently that Allen Poe comic for Marvel (which I still have to read).
I can definitely agree with this. Corben is a fantastic artist, and well-suited for horror, although to be honest I thought his particular style wasn’t ideal for Poe. There are some real horror elements in (of all things) his post-apocalyptic PUNISHER: THE END with Garth Ennis, though.
29 Oct 2006 at 2:34 pm
QuoteDon, I will agree with you that the boobies in Heavy Metal were and still are cool. However, at 6 years old, reading my brother’s copies when I shouldn’t have been, I was probably more into the blood and gore portions of the stories.
‘Cause you know, there’s nothing more fun to a six year old than seeing people being decapitated and stabbed through the heart with a sword!
30 Oct 2006 at 3:04 pm
QuoteEspecially when it’s a naked girl with big boobs doing the stabbing and decapitating…
I’ll just echo what’s been said already, I’ve not found comics scary because more often than not they don’t build atmosphere there’s just a rush to get to the money shot and get the gore splash page onto the last page.
31 Oct 2006 at 3:38 am
Quote