One-Page Horror Comics, 2024-2025
A couple years back I wanted to start drawing horror comics. Instead of just dreaming about making them with some much more talented artist, I wanted to get my dang ideas out of my head. Now, I'd had an inkling to do this years before, but ran into some mental blocks that got in the way. In late 2024 I was determined to start drawing my own horror comics as I had been working on Bone Boy Billy steadily for about a year at that point. I felt ready to try something new.
But I wasn't feeling comfortable to start running without crawling a bit first. It was there I got the idea to do one page horror comics instead of multi-paged stories. It was something I was more used to with my time working on Billy. Even pages that are part of a larger story still tell a little story in their one part. Plus it was a challenge to see if I could tell a story in so short a form.
Here's my first real attempt and it's rough as hell. The composition is all mixed up to the point I should have drawn arrows to properly direct the reader's eye. You can tell how uncomfortable I am drawing regular people by how stiff and awkward the main character is. I put most of the effort into the spooky monster at the end. I still like the final line at least. But it's a very amateur first attempt.
As difficult as that first attempt was, it was very beneficial in the end. I realized my mistakes and tried to apply the lessons to every comic going forward. How well I succeeded is up to you, dear reader.
Our second comic plays on a very classic fear of mine: Waking up in the dark and hearing/seeing something there. Sure, it's simple but damn effective. Once again I feel the human character looks really bad in this one, but I like the monster. I'm slowly developing a little more of a feel for the pace I want to achieve with these comics.
My third attempt is a clear homage to Alien/The Thing. I feel the composition is a bit better on this one but still messy. I like how the space station floats out of the first panel. That's something I've stopped playing with as much and need to work into more of my art. It's fun to play out of the usual boundaries and see what I can get away with.
Reaching our fourth comic I wanted to try and do something sexier/gorier. Our first 3 comics are all pretty tame. This one I wanted to disturb you. While I feel the actual storytelling is messy, I really loved drawing that head explosion. Making sure to include chunks of eyes and brains was very fun. I still really like this comic.
Now the fifth comic is a bit different because I ended up doing a cheeky self-insert. While I used to dislike this kinda stuff, reading the classic EC comics mags really opened my eyes up to how much fun it can be to poke fun at yourself in a comic. There are several EC horror stories set around or referencing the comics, some even starring the editors/artists/writers. So in that tradition I told a story of a frustrated young writer molded after myself. I wish I'd made the page of him exploding into his new form gorier.
My sixth comic came in the form of wanting to homage one of my favorite short horror stories of all time. The original Swamp Thing comic printed in House of Secrets number 92. I adore Swamp Thing and especially love the idea of the American Cryptid as a comic hero. I feel it's worked wonders with characters like Swampy and his Marvel counterpart Man-Thing. So I came up with the Demon-Thing. I really created the character/comic just to homage that one great line from the original Swamp Thing.
I had a lot of fun coming up with the seventh comic idea. The Guignol is named after the Grand Guignol, the birthplace of modern horror in some ways. I love abandoned/eerie places and the thought of a haunted movie theater where the movies come to life always gets me. This ended up getting worked into 2025's big DOTLN story The Old Midnight Spookshow.
Wrapping up the 2024 One-Page Horror Comics was meant to be a bit more festive. I really ought to bring Harv the Halloween Dragon back in some form. Originally this was going to be mostly black and white but I felt the added color really helped with this one. And yes, the kids are meant to be an homage of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch.
While it came out a year later, I still wanted to include the latest One-Page Horror Comic I made. Last year I decided to go from one page to several and try to tell one of the full fledged stories I've had in mind for 15 years. That became The Old Midnight Spookshow and I ended up adding a second, much shorter one as well last October with Why My Dog's the Best. While I thought I was creatively spent by that point (I put out a lot of comic pages between DOTLN and Bone Boy Billy last October) it turns out I had one page left in me needing to be made.
I believe it was just a day or two before Halloween. At work the idea just came to me. I roughed it out, drew, colored and lettered it all that night. I'm the most proud of this page of all of them. I feel the comparison between the first page and this one from last year shows a lot of growth. Sure, I've still got a long, long way to go but I'm getting there. These comics were the first step in achieving a big dream of mine so I really can't understate how much they mean to me, warts and all.
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