North America In addition to its long-running titles carried over from the 1990s, Vertigo published more conventional horror, like vampires in
Bite Club (beginning in 2004), and
Vamps. In addition, from 1999 to 2001 they published their own horror
anthology,
Flinch. At
Image Comics,
Robert Kirkman created
The Walking Dead.
Steve Niles predominantly writes horror comics, and his
30 Days of Night has spawned a range of mini-series released by
IDW Publishing. At
Dark Horse,
Mike Mignola has been working on
Hellboy, and has created a large
fictional universe with spin-off titles like
BPRD and
Lobster Johnson. There had been also superhero horror comics like with Spawn, Venom, and Ghost Rider. In the 2000s and 2010s, Marvel produced
Blade and the
Marvel Zombies franchise. Marvel's adult imprint
MAX, introduced in 2001, has also provided a venue for reinterpretations of Marvel horror characters where more violence can be used, leading to the
Dead of Night miniseries based on
Devil-Slayer,
Werewolf by Night and
Man-Thing, as well as a reworking of
Zombie and
Hellstorm: Son of Satan.
Richard Corben has also been writing
Haunt of Horror, a number of series based on the work of
Edgar Allan Poe and
H.P. Lovecraft.
Europe Great Britain In the post-World War II period, horror comics arrived in Britain, largely based on reprints of American material. This led to protests similar to those in the States. In 1955, the
Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act was introduced, which led to the horror reprints disappearing from
news agents' shelves. In the early 1970s there were a couple of horror comics —
IPC's
Shiver and Shake and
Monster Fun — but these were also humour titles pitched at younger children. It was only during the boom in
British comics in the late 1970s and early 1980s that there were horror comics pitched at older boys and girls —IPC/
Fleetway's
Scream! and
Misty, respectively. Whether it was because of fears over the content, or the difficult financial times in the mid-1980s,
Scream! stopped publishing in 1985, with only two of its stories being merged with the
Eagle.
Lord Horror also was published. After the
comic industry bust in the mid-1990s, the only mainstream venue was
2000 AD, which featured stories like
Chiaroscuro and
Cradlegrave, as well as those drawing on the
Cthulhu Mythos, like
Necronauts and
Caballistics, Inc.. The
British small press also publishes horror comics, like the
anthology Something Wicked. In 2008, the
London Horror Comic launched, becoming the first full-colour UK horror comic to be shipped worldwide through
Diamond Comic Distributors.
Italy Starting from the 1960s, up until the early 1980s Italy also saw a number of erotic-horror publications usually featuring female characters. One of the first, in 1964, was
Satanik, by
Max Bunker and
Magnus, which belonged to the first wave of the so-called
"fumetto nero" characters, alongside
Diabolik and
Kriminal (also by Bunker and Magnus). Satanik was quickly followed by a flurry of other horror heroines, such as
Jacula,
Sukia,
Yra,
Zora (all vampiresses),
Ulula (a werewoman), and others. These erotic-horror comics were mostly published by Ediperiodici and
Edifumetto, helmed by publishers/writers
Giorgio Cavedon and
Renzo Barbieri, respectively, and were part of the "pocket erotici" editorial craze, also known as "fumetti sexy". These cheap publications featured the talents of both established and buddying Italian comics artists, such as a young
Milo Manara (on
Zordon), and featured colourful, gruesome and very effective covers created by commercial illustrators and painters such as
Alessandro Biffignandi,
Fernando Carcupino, Averardo Ciriello,
Pino D'Angelico,
Ferdinando Tacconi and
Emanuele Taglietti, among others. Some of these publications, like
Wallestein the Monster, were briefly published in English and the British publisher
Korero Press has collected many of the original covers in its ongoing
Sex and Horror artbook series. Since 2018 Annexia has been publishing one-shots, featuring brand new adventures of
Ulula,
Jakula,
Sukia and
Zora, among others, and in 2020 Editoriale Cosmo has reprinted some of the original stories in their "Classics of Italian Erotica" series. In the late 1980s, the genre became again popular, spearheaded by the Italian horror comic series
Dylan Dog, created by veteran comic-writer
Tiziano Sclavi, visually defined by cover artist
Claudio Villa and published by
Sergio Bonelli. It has achieved great success, both in its homeland and abroad, with translations in the US (by
Dark Horse Comics, with brand new covers by
Mike Mignola), Germany, Spain, Serbia, Croatia, Denmark, Poland, Turkey and India. In the early 1990s, other publishers tried to emulate the success of
Dylan Dog. Among them was ACME, which published two monthly horror anthologies titled
Splatter and
Mostri, which featured both original stories by promising young Italian artists (such as
Bruno Brindisi,
Roberto De Angelis and Luigi Siniscalchi, who later went to work for Bonelli, some of them even on Dylan Dog) and translated material. A selection of stories from the Splatter anthology has been collected and reprinted in two volumes, published in 2017 and 2018 by Editoriale Cosmo. Among the most recent and noteworthy original horror comics series are
The Cannibal Family, created in 2013 by writer Stefano Fantelli and artist Stefano Piccioni and published by Edizioni Inkiostro, and the anthology
Mostri, published since 2015 by Bugs Comics, featuring work by young artists and later also established ones, such as Elena Casagrande.
Japan The term "horror" as a genre, only began circulating in Japan in the 1960s in press and everyday language. Prior to this, horror fiction as it may be known was referred to with terms like "mystery", "terror", and "dread". According to
manga author and critic
Yoshihiro Yonezawa, the first boom of horror manga with the success of the
Kaiki Shōsetsu Zenshū' and the success of the
British horror films from
Hammer Films which began circulating in Japan and gaining popularity. In 1958, the first magazine devoted exclusively to horror and mystery was
Kaidan which appeared at
Kashi-hon (lending libraries), which had 101 issues published by Tsubame until 1968. A sister publication to it, titled
Ōru kaidan also began and lasted 84 volumes. Among the authors to these stories were Shinichi Koga, Hama Shinji,
Sanpei Shirato,
Goseki Kojima,
Kazuo Umezu and Miki Ibara. Due to the circulation of these magazines, a growing interest in the supernatural developed, inspired by traditional Japanese ghost stories (
kaidan) such as
Yotsuya Kaidan as well as classical Japanese woodcut prints with themes of Japanese ghosts. The stories within these publications fall into two stories set in the
Tokugawa era and those set in the a Tokyo filled with skyscrapers, amidst murders and eerire demonic presences. These stories began circulating with themes of vengesful spirits or ghosts, storied linked to tragic karmic fate, and both original and retelling of ancient ghost stories. Stories from around the world began influencing the stories, with narratives being set in the United States and France, as well the appearing of other horrific-traits such as bats, lizard-men,
Frankenstein's monster-like creatures. American writers such as
H.P. Lovecraft were repeatedly paid homage to by Japanese manga authors. Following the birth and the weekly magazines, and a new style known as both
kyōfu (恐怖) and
kowai (怖い) manga (terror and scary respectively) began appearing that attracted a younger audience than
Kaidan (怪談) and
Oru kaidan (オール怪談) which appealed to teenagers. These included long series such as
Hakaba Kitarō by
Shigeru Mizuki where characters from Japanese folklore coexist with the themes from teenage manga from the period. The popularity of these stories led to similarly styled
anime series
Humanoid Monster Bem (1968). Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, different publishers continued horror titles in mainstream magazines, without devoting specific publication to them, with titles like
Devilman (1972). Smaller publishers released Hibari Hit series allowed their authors to complete freedom, in which
Hideshi Hino got his start. The influence of these smaller published was felt in late 1980s published magazines such as
Halloween published from 1986-1995,
Suspiria (1987-2012), and the 1990s with
Horror M. As it had in the 1960s and 1970s, the genre returned in magazines aimed at women with young women, with some authors such as Hino and Jiro returning along with newcomers like
Narumi Kakinouchi and
Kanako Inuki. In the 21st century, series based around zombies and the undead appeared with titles like
Highschool of the Dead and
Junji Itos
Gyo.
Styles and themes Material in these stories are often drawn from Japanese folklore figures like
yokai. This includes several stories involving cats with supernatural powers, cat with metamorphic abilities called
bakeneko. Cat in these comics are often black, and have appeared in several stories through decades such as ''Kin'iro hitomi
(1960), Neko to watashi to haha to buta
(1968) and Bakeneko shojo
(1982). Like the bakeneko
, transformation is another key topic, with many stories of foxes, snakes, or cranes that transofmr into beautiful women for either revenge or to ensnare a man and bring him to ruin. Often, the main character also undergoes inexplicable transformation into an animal or monstrous or hybrid creatures. These traits are key in the manga of Kazuo Umezu, which often cycle among the fear that any human being will stop being themselves and turn into something else, such as Reptilia'' or often a child will transform into an adult, ill and lacking freedom or autonomy. Among the sub-genres of comics is the
guro, meaning grotesque, bizarre, horrific. Horror manga sometimes dedicated an entire page or two to a
guro scene, as unlike films which can have music to play to enhance a narrative, horror manga often had these pages to shock the reader at the exact moment of turning a page. Among the major
ero-guro (erotic grotesque) manga creators was
Suehiro Maruo, described by
Thierry Groensteen as "the
De Sade of contemporary manga."
Online Horror comics are also published on the web, with horror webcomics that include the pioneering work of
Eric Monster Millikin, an anthology
webtoon,
Tales of the Unusual and Zuda comics
High Moon. ==Video spinoffs==