Horror comics
Children today have ready access to many different ways of terrifying themselves, be it craftily watching forbidden DVDs, slipping 'Resident Evil' into the playstation, discovering that grooming is not just something that happens to their 'my little pony' collection or being told that with the economy the shape it's in, they will have to walk to school instead of being driven the 500 yards in a 4x4. Just a few short decades ago, things were very different, when I was a kid one had to put real effort into terrifying oneself, and by that I don't mean the sort of fear that was visited upon you in the supermarket when, upon looking up, you realised that you had been following the wrong set of legs for the last five minutes and your parent has misplaced you, or that you had forgotten your PE kit and pant related humiliation beckoned, rather I mean premeditated terror when you set out to scare yourself.
For instance, before VHS meant that every under supervised kid was one short 'play' button away from watching a movie resulting in their having to sleep with the light on for the next two years, horror was most freely available in book form. Available, but not easily available. Stephen King, for instance, wrote books roughly the thickness of breeze blocks, and about as penetrable.
That's why the preferred literary chiller of choice was the horror comic.
And the best way to come across these was when they were to be found rolled up and on offer at some seaside tat shop. Titles such as 'Dracula' and 'Werewolf by night' featured characters previously safely confined to a European village located a safe distance away, the Universal back-lot to be precise, appearing in black and white and doing horrible things to ugly blokes and good looking women before being pulped by angry villagers, so no great threat. The horror comic though, usually relocated the character to the present day and while this was usually still somewhere in America, the threat felt more immediate, especially after the sun went down.
While traditional stories about well known but handily out-of-copyright characters were good stuff, even if the way the comics were purchased meant that the sequential nature of the longer story arc couldn't be fully enjoyed (although the reader could probably guess that each edition was pretty much the same, featuring comics-code approved gore and a lot of shadowy suspense), the real finds were the anthology comics, where lesser supernatural threats such as demons and gouls lurked. This was great as, while the average kid had no trouble at all torturing themselves with fresh horrors based on existing monsters, adding new characters to the bedtime bestiary took things to a whole new level.
But it was British horror comics that really made the breakthrough. While most stories had supernatural threats handing out some sort of justice to those who deserved to be punished, and even had avenging ghosts or spirits revenging their earthly forms, occasional stories about evil preying on the innocent crept through.
It's a shame really that, even effective as they were, this was never perfected. If the comic publishers really wanted to scare the hell out of kids, then they should have published stories about dreadful creatures inhabiting the toilet block at the caravan site, a story sure to fix on the imagination of any impressionable youngster and no doubt leading to wilting bushes in caravan sites around the nation.
Maybe it's time for horror comics to make a return. Hollywood had turned monsters into harmless teens that come in two varieties; pouty (vampires, must be the teeth that make their mouth form into the shape of a massive sulk) and brooding (werewolves, bushy eyebrows make for a perpetual frown). What's needed is much less Glee meets Hammer and more kid-taunts-reclusive-bloke-who-lives-in-caravan, who beats the kid to death with a hammer. (Moral: don't taunt nutters.) Or a few more haunted appliances; there has to be something in a story about a possessed washing machine, fridge or car. Although I think Stephen King may have got there first. Possessed Bop-it?
For instance, before VHS meant that every under supervised kid was one short 'play' button away from watching a movie resulting in their having to sleep with the light on for the next two years, horror was most freely available in book form. Available, but not easily available. Stephen King, for instance, wrote books roughly the thickness of breeze blocks, and about as penetrable.
That's why the preferred literary chiller of choice was the horror comic.
And the best way to come across these was when they were to be found rolled up and on offer at some seaside tat shop. Titles such as 'Dracula' and 'Werewolf by night' featured characters previously safely confined to a European village located a safe distance away, the Universal back-lot to be precise, appearing in black and white and doing horrible things to ugly blokes and good looking women before being pulped by angry villagers, so no great threat. The horror comic though, usually relocated the character to the present day and while this was usually still somewhere in America, the threat felt more immediate, especially after the sun went down.
While traditional stories about well known but handily out-of-copyright characters were good stuff, even if the way the comics were purchased meant that the sequential nature of the longer story arc couldn't be fully enjoyed (although the reader could probably guess that each edition was pretty much the same, featuring comics-code approved gore and a lot of shadowy suspense), the real finds were the anthology comics, where lesser supernatural threats such as demons and gouls lurked. This was great as, while the average kid had no trouble at all torturing themselves with fresh horrors based on existing monsters, adding new characters to the bedtime bestiary took things to a whole new level.
But it was British horror comics that really made the breakthrough. While most stories had supernatural threats handing out some sort of justice to those who deserved to be punished, and even had avenging ghosts or spirits revenging their earthly forms, occasional stories about evil preying on the innocent crept through.
It's a shame really that, even effective as they were, this was never perfected. If the comic publishers really wanted to scare the hell out of kids, then they should have published stories about dreadful creatures inhabiting the toilet block at the caravan site, a story sure to fix on the imagination of any impressionable youngster and no doubt leading to wilting bushes in caravan sites around the nation.
Maybe it's time for horror comics to make a return. Hollywood had turned monsters into harmless teens that come in two varieties; pouty (vampires, must be the teeth that make their mouth form into the shape of a massive sulk) and brooding (werewolves, bushy eyebrows make for a perpetual frown). What's needed is much less Glee meets Hammer and more kid-taunts-reclusive-bloke-who-lives-in-caravan, who beats the kid to death with a hammer. (Moral: don't taunt nutters.) Or a few more haunted appliances; there has to be something in a story about a possessed washing machine, fridge or car. Although I think Stephen King may have got there first. Possessed Bop-it?
Labels: British horror, Comics, Horror stories
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