Style Imitates Content: Horror Comics

Thus far we’ve seen two main styles of comic drawing, first the playful style from comic strips like Tintin, and the more realistic superhero comics. The Crime Suspenstories introduced another style of art, one better adapted to the stories included in the volume.

The quality of the image, not how well its drawn, but rather the manner in which it is drawn, is incredibly important to how the reader interacts with the work. In stories meant for children, and in comedy, there tends to be a simpler aesthetic. Thus, when you open up a comic book and it’s drawn in that style, you as a reader don’t expect to find a story about more mature topics. The same can be said in a more nuanced way for this week’s readings and the previous superhero comics. Both feature fully formed figures, that include anatomically elaborate figures, detailed clothing and hair, facial structure and background images that are detailed and complete. However, there is a markedly different ambiance and feel to the comics, even just looking at the artwork, subject aside. The heavy, geometric shading features in Crime Suspenstories, lends a dark, almost film noir appearance to the work. It reads as shadowy, scary and harsh. The line quality tends to be sharp and scratchy, building showads with broken and jagged edges. The superhero comics tended towards a simpler shading style, leaving much more light and open. They used friendly colors, more pastels and primary colors, versus Crime’s more neon brights and shadowy gray dark colors.

The combination of all of these factors lends an air of creepiness and creates a sort of tension within the artistic style itself. The harsh play of light and dark, the shadow opaque quality of the dark spaces and the almost sickly bright colors, the scraggly shadows, they generate a feeling of unease in the viewer, setting the reader up for the creepiness of the story and adding to the discomfort the images are supposed to conjure up. As we explore this new genre of horror and suspense comics, we also are viewing a new artistic style within comics.