This is the translated version of the article.
Trying to
trace the origins of any genre is an almost impossible task if you want
absolutely precision. Stories are as ancient as human societies and this
applies to horror as well. So, to be able to talk shortly about the origins of
horror comics and to have a more accessible article I will ignore the part of
the history that is not specifically comic related. I will also use as a
parameter the so-called “modern comics”, the format used since 19th
century, just because it’s the easier way to get into it.
The path of
horror comics began informally and subtly, side by side with fantasy and space
opera comics that were genres within pulp fiction. “Pulp” is the
designation given to sensationalist stories in America – not just from comics –
with not much literary depth and printed in cheap paper with low cost which made
pulps very inexpensive to buy – and also very popular. Pulps started at the
beginning of the 20th century and were the TV series of its time, in an age
where there was no TV or streaming services. But unlike current comics and TV
shows pulps didn’t have much commitment to chronology, development of
character or any sense of reality. Its only purpose was to be simple, accessible and entertaining.
American pulp
magazines were the spiritual descendants of the British Penny Dreadfuls from the 19th
century, a kind of cheap popular literature that was mostly about crime and
horror. The main difference was that pulp ended up creating a very specific subgenre of horror. The pulp magazines were already one step closer to comics, as it were illustrated by excellent artists from the period - some which also worked at the comic book
industry, such as Lyman Anderson, Adolphe Barreaux and W. M. Allison. Many
comic artists were influenced by pulp illustrators or worked in pulp magazines –
most notably Will Eisner, which drew western magazines. In the beginning,
pulp comics just got the characters from the magazines to work with. Much of the
them are remembered today as comic characters but starred first in pulp the magazines,
such as Doc Savage, The Shadow, Tarzan, Zorro, Ka-Zar, Buck Rogers, Solomon Kane and
Conan the Barbarian among others.
Space opera
and crime stories were among the most popular pulp genres, along with a kind of
disposable horror with strong influence in the naturalist horror popularized by
the Theatre du Grand Guignol in Paris. The main thing of the naturalistic
horror was to move away from supernatural – for the most part – and delivering
stories with gruesome and graphic detail about crime, conspiracies convoluted
plots and, mostly, a bunch of explicit blood and deaths. This ended up becoming
a subgenre in itself called "Weird Menace", where we have a protagonist – in many
cases a sensual woman or a noir style detective – involved with a sadistic villain that was just an
excuse to show a lot of violence and brutality, with some nudity as extra1.
In general, the resolutions of the stories within the “weird menace” framework
invoked rational explanations, although sometimes it could go as far as to
show some supernatural element. But that doesn't mean the comics didn't have its supernatural and ghost stories. It did, but they were not part of the crime and weird menace type stories that were by far the most popular at that time.
The first
weird menace pulp was probably Dime Mystery, which started as a typical
detective story – the most popular genre at the beginning – but with time became a new genre, with influences of the Theatre du Grand Guignol
mentioned earlier. It was about 1933 and from there other publications
followed this line of thinking and new magazines arrive like Terror Tales,
Horror Stories and magazines from the Red Circle Publishing2 like
Mystery Tales and Marvel Tales – later turned into comics – that increased the graphic content of torture.
The most
perceptive reader must have figured out that the increasing graphic horrific
scenes, especially in comics, didn’t go unnoticed by American society at the
time and created a public outcry. The following backlash and the increasingly
popularity of the superhero genre that exploded after Superman in
1939 ended up burying the genre. This was the early 40s, well before the infamous
Comics Code.
This was
the beginnings of horror comics, mostly in the United States. Of course, horror
is not limited to North America but this is definitely the best way to start to
talk about it. I will try to write about horror comics in other countries as
the column progresses – especially because I’m Brazilian and I want English readers
to know more about the horror comics in Brazil. But mostly, the North-American
comics are the best reference point.
Rafael Algures is a Bachelor of Philosophy specialized in Neurosciences of Language. He is also a copywriter, content and science writer, and a comic book creator. His latest work, “Gutter of Horror: Transition”, is available at Amazon – digital and paperback.
Further
reading: The Shudder Pulps: A History of the Weird Menace Magazines of the1930s, by Robert Kenneth Jones
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1. One analogue
in film would be the “splatter” subgenre.
2. “Red
Circle Publishing” was an umbrella name of a group of book and pulp companies lead
by Martin Goodman. Goodman was the one who expanded the subgenre of “weird
menace”. The main comic book arm inside Red Circle was Timely Comics – which later became Marvel Comics.