10 Greatest Horror Comics You NEED To Read
All of these classic (and new) tales of horror absolutely must be read before you die.
Just as much as human beings love to laugh, they also love to be scared. Preferably if they can do it in a safe and controlled environment. It triggers the flight, fight, or freeze responses without the need to actually act on those needs, and releases adrenaline and dopamine into their systems, giving them feelings of alertness and euphoria. In short, being afraid can make a person feel alive.
TV shows and movies have hours or even multiple episodes to set up suspense and fear in the minds of their viewers. A normal monthly comic only has 22 pages plus ads to grab their audience and convey the necessary scares. In the Modern Era, comics have become a medium where nearly any story can be told, and that fact is true for the various genres of horror, as well.
Atmospheric, Gothic horror, moody character-driven suspense, monster stories, and tales of excessively gory body horror, and everything in-between is fair game for the comic creator if the story and the art are something that engages the reader.
It takes a great writer and a skilled artistic creative team to make that happen. If they do their job especially well and continue to grab readers long after their initial print run, they become a classic.
10. The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead was a monthly comic book series that ran for 193 issues from 2003 to 2019. It was created by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore. The story followed Kentucky Deputy Rick Grimes who awoke from a coma to discover the world was overrun with zombies. Along with a few survivors, Grimes battled his way across the undead-infested country to pockets of humanity where safety was a relative concept.
What set The Walking Dead apart from the already trite and over-saturated zombie genre was that this story centered on the relationships of the people and not just the minute details of survival in a zombie apocalypse. Additionally, it was the human antagonists like the Governor and Negan that were equally, if not more dangerous, than the walkers themselves.
Although he was only the artist on the first six issues and the cover artist for the first 24, the contribution of co-creator Tony Moore to this series should not be overlooked. Not only did he create the visual style for the look of the zombies, but he also created a grimy atmosphere that drew readers into that world. It was a dirty, broken, smelly, dead world and readers could feel and almost smell it through every panel. Charlie Adlard did a masterful job on the series but it sprang from the twisted pencil of Tony Moore.