Episode 132 | Mike sleeps with the lights on

[Mike, Host & Producer of IRCB!]

This episode was all about horror comics and how they can actually be scary.

Check it out here!

[James]

Hey! I'm a huge horror comic fan, and thought the episode was pretty stellar. A topic I ponder a lot is what really sets a horror comic apart from the rest. I think very stylized and abrasive art styles can really lend a lot to the reader's sense of unease. Thematically, sometimes nearly boring the reader with back story can be a good way to build suspense and really force the reader to think about the implications of the story. I'm explaining this poorly, but when I think about some Lovecraft I've read, he certainly has no problem assaulting the reader with information, and forcing you to pick out the disturbing bits yourself until its too late.
Harrow County is one that, although not exactly a horror comic, has surprised me consistently throughout the run, and definitely has creeped me out issue to issue.
Aliens: Dead Orbit is fantastic, my boy James Stokoe layin out some more of his wonderfully stylized sci fi goodness.
Archie Horror definitely caught me off guard. I'm really not into anything Archie related (sorry hosts of the show), so this different angle on the characters really sucked me in.
Wytches is probably my favorite of the ones you guys mentioned, as it features both mental health issues AND solid creepy witch representation, debateably THE creepiest witches ever?
Redlands is shaping up to be a fierce contender in that category however lol.
My Friend Dahmer was certainly the biggest surprise for me, I was really expecting more action and was glad I didn't get what I wanted.

Now a few that I'd recommend:
Cognetic / Memetic - James Tynion IV lays out some mind-bending work featuring ideas that have the power to warp reality, with Eryk Conovan and Adam Guzowski doing fantastic work really selling the creep factor.
Colder - Paul Tobin writes about a story about an ex-inmate of an asylum who can step into other people's madness and cure it, most of the time, but this demonic force starts following him around waiting for him to mess up. Juan Ferreyra hype is real.
Negative Space - Ryan Linsay writing, this guy gets writer's block on his suicide note, goes for a walk, and uncovers a vast conspiracy mining bad emotions from humans. Owen Gieni drives it home with some tentacle spike monsters that'll stick with ya.
Underwinter - Group of musicians takes way too much money, in exchange they play in a room with blindfolds for an unknown beneficiary, and things escalate in a cosmic sense (hard without spoilers). Ray Fawkes does it all, and its perfect for this shoutout to Lovecraft.
Wormwood Goes to Washington - mentioning this one because I love Ben Templesmith and Wormwood, and am looking forward to a solid lampooning of our political system with some grotesque jokes along the way.

Manga:
Junji Ito - This guy is putting out the creepiest comics in the world, imho. Bizarre body horror and loss of humanity are a few themes he explores, I recommend heartily any book he's written. My favorite would probably be Uzumaki. I would argue that a lot of the important work in horror, in both film and comics, has been in Asia for the past 50 years.

A few that I'm working on still but seem promising:
Providence
Glitterbomb
There's Nothing There
Regression