bernie wrightson It’s tough to think of another artist working in horror
comics today who’s had his fingers in as many first-rate four-colour pies as Bernie Wrightson. The former mon- ster kid (who turns 62 this month), says the dark side of the medium is where he belongs. “It must be in the blood or something,” he explains
Alan Moore
Alan Moore’s contributions to horror could fill an entire issue of Rue Morgue, but the essence of his brilliance is quite simple: Moore (Swamp Thing, From Hell) knows how to unsettle people but he never cheapens the experience. Anybody can write a gross torture scene but Moore does it in a way that is not only disturbing but mean- ingful. For example, in Batman: The Killing Joke the Joker brutally shoots Barbara Gordon and proceeds to photograph her wounded, naked body in an attempt to drive Commissioner Gor- don insane. Moore pulls no punches, but he also surrounds the sequence with poignant flash- backs to The Joker’s tragic past, giving us in- sight into his motives. We’re still repulsed by his actions, but we also understand them, and this is what elevates a purely visceral experience into a genuine classic. PC
Arkham Asylum
Gotham City’s legendary sanitarium for the criminally insane was first mentioned in a 1974 issue of Batman, and has since become one of the DC Comics universe’s most storied loca- tions, hosting virtually all of the Dark Knight’s archenemies, as well as the occasional super- hero. Taking its name from H.P. Lovecraft’s writ- ings, Arkham Asylum is frequently depicted as a looming Gothic mansion that houses a creepy, dank prison facility infamous for its brutal pun- ishments and murderous history. PAUL C.
Black Hole
Charles Burns’ coming-of- age horror comic, which ran from 1995 to 2005, blew genre aficionados away with its extremely intelligent twelve-issue story arc that
used body horror mutations as a metaphor for puberty and teenage sexuality. Its timeless theme and Burns’ unmistakable, sickly black and white art even got Hollywood’s attention, with a David Fincher adaptation apparently in the works. MSK
Dangerous Drawings It was the illustration that single-handedly crip-
pled the comics industry: a killer holds a blood- drenched axe in one hand and a severed head in the other. When EC publisher William Gaines could not defend this daring cover from the May 1954 issue of Crime SuspenStories at a Senate Subcommittee hearing on juvenile delinquency, many comic publishers were subsequently forced out of business for not conforming to the rules of the Comics Code Authority, a self-reg- ulating censor board. Testing the boundaries of censorship, taste and artistic freedom, Gaines’ cutting edge, controversial approach is carried on by horror comics today. PAUL C.
Deadman
A circus trapeze artist murdered by an un- known assailant, Deadman (created by Arnold Drake and Carmine Infantino in 1967) gets sent back to Earth as a ghost, with the ability to possess people, in order to find his murderer. The underused, fantastically cos- tumed character is currently in DC’s back- from-the-dead opus Brightest Day, which will hopefully prompt somebody to give him the series he deserves. PC
Doctor Spektor
A fusion of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Van Helsing (occult detective/monster hunter), Donald Glut’s Doctor Spektor first appeared in the pages of Gold Key comics in the ’70s.
Though far from politically correct (note the treatment of Spektor’s Native American side- kick, Lakota), the gothic X-Files-like approach works, and Jesse Santos’ lush, pulpy art pops. (Dark Horse’s The Occult Files of Doctor Spek- tor hardcover arrives this month.) DA
Doctor Strange
When the Marvel Universe is beset with ghosts and demons, chances are you’re not going to call your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. No, the man you want is Doctor Strange. During the big Marvel explosion of the early 1960s, Strange was the only character whose origin was steeped in magic instead of science, auto- matically garnering him a unique place in the Marvel universe. And while never reaching the
over the phone from his home in LA. “I’ve been a fan of this stuff since I was a kid. I used to watch the Universal monster movies on TV and grew up reading EC horror comics. I was attracted to this kind of stuff and it never went away.” Inspired by those EC
artists, particularly Frank Frazetta, he embarked on a career in illustration, eventually scoring his first professional comic book gig with DC’s House of Mystery in 1968. His moody, detailed creature ren- derings got him work on other DC titles, including Bat- man, House of Secrets and Weird Mystery Tales, as well as on Marvel offerings such as The Incredible Hulk, Sav- age Tales and Tomb of Dracula. It was with the former that he co-created his most iconic creature in 1971, Swamp Thing, which he based largely on his favourite Universal monster. “Swamp Thing, when you strip it
down to basics, is a retelling of the Frankenstein story,” says Wrightson of the connection. “In the early films, Boris Karloff played him as a gentle giant, a kind of a lost soul.” Wrightson, who spent seven
years doing black and white draw- ings for his now legendary illus- trated edition of Frankenstein, also did a stint for Warren Publications
on Creepy and Eerie. He recalls, “At the time I wanted to work in black and
white, I had been doing colour comics for several years, and I was just looking for a change.” More top-tier work followed throughout the ’80s and
’90s, including comic book covers for Stephen King and the Creepshow comic book (“The rules are pretty simple: he doesn’t tell me how to draw and I don’t tell him how to write.”). In the past few years, Wrightson
has teamed up with another Steve – Niles – to create several horror miniseries, including City of Oth- ers (Dark Horse) and IDW’s Dead, She Said, The Ghoul and the upcoming Doc Macabre. After 40 years as a freelance
monster maker, Wrightson says he simply can’t stop. “I work every day, Saturdays and Sundays, holidays, even my birthday!” DA
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