Horror and Comics

Barbara Chamberlin is Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton. She has published on comics and horror, folklore, and walking as creative practice.Kom Kunyosying is an independent scholar who studies visual and iconic representations of ethnicity. He has published on horror, ecology, geek culture, and the hillbilly in comics and other media.Julia Round is an Associate Professor at Bournemouth University. She has published over fifty academic works on horror, comics and children’s literature, including the award-winning monograph Gothic for Girls (2019).

As someone for whom both horror and comics are not only a passion but also an enormous focus in my career, these essays are both interesting and revelatory. The volumes deliberate critical focus, infused with care, passion and erudition, has achieved what great writing aspires to do “ to change the way I look at the things I love.

• List of Illustrations and CaptionsNotes on ContributorsIntroduction – Barbara Chamberlin, Kom Kunyosying, and Julia RoundPART ONE: Crossing Genres, Blurring BoundariesMultimodal Mirroring in ‘The Black Cat’ – Elizabeth Allyn WoockSatanic Feminism and Decadent Aesthetics in Guido Crepax’s ‘Valentina’ Comics – Miranda CorcoranThe Living, the Dead and the Living Dead: Brazilian Horror Imagery and Genre Hybridisation in Shiko‘s Três Buracos – Tiago José Lemos I Monteiro and Heitor Da Luz SilvaBefriending the Past: The Genre-Bending Vanessa Comics Series (1982–1990) and its Historical Context – Barbara M. EggertPART TWO: Identity, Agency, Humanity‘I’m not who he thinks I am’: Identity and Victimhood in Country Horror Comics – Matthew Costello‘What’s one more monster?’: Articulations of Latinx Monstrosity and Whiteness in Border Town – Anna Marta Marini‘Still pretty, ain’t she?’: The Female Gaze and the Queer Monstrous Feminine in Itō Junji’s Tomie – Keiko MiyajimaSinister Houses and Forbidden Loves: Queer Identity in DC’s Gothic Romances – Lillian HochwenderPART THREE: Society, Anxiety, PoliticsAbjection, Ambivalence and the Abyss in EC’s New Trend Line – Alex LinkThe Power of a Demon and the Heart of a Human: The Darkness of Humanity in Devilman – Meriel DhanowaComics and the Horrors of Reality – Dirk Vanderbeke and Doreen Triebel‘REALITY scarier than any boogeyman’: Shock, Exploitation, and Environmentalism in Slow Death Funnies – Christy TidwellAfterwords – Barbara Chamberlin, Kom Kunyosying, and Julia Round