Powerful Panels: Halloween Edition Part II - What You Can't See Will Scare You: The Unseen Terrors of Naoki Urasawa

by far the most terrifying things are those which elude us

-Georges Bataille

While Jesse has taken a look at some of the more terrifying moments in the venerable horror comics genre, some of the scariest comics I've ever read aren't horror comics at all, but are sci-fi manga. Books like Otomo's Akira--seriously maybe the most terrifying thing I've ever read--and Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys and Pluto are frightening not only because they ask important questions about the possible ramifications of technology, but by their creators' ability to create an atmosphere of dread centered on some unseen and terrible power.

This technique of enhancing fear by occultation certainly isn't new and it is flawed insofar as eventually you've gotta show just what it is that is so scary. Urasawa manages to avoid this flaw and thereby redefine what is scary in comics in a couple of ways. First, he doesn't rely on suspense to move his stories forward and instead reveals the nature of the threat early on--like, you know what it is but you don't know what it's going to do. Thus Urasawa's is a terror of suggestion and dread, a psychological fear which is far more awful and satisfying than mere "heart-pounding" suspense. Urasawa also stays ahead of the need to simply reveal his monsters by constantly changing the stakes in his stories, demonstrating repeatedly that everything that readers might have thought was sacred up to a certain point no longer matters at all.

20th Century Boys:

Each of the three panels shown here depicts the apocalyptic robot weapon created by the Friends cult to terrorize Tokyo in December 2000. Though each panel illustrates the same beast, each is terrifying in different ways in large measure due to their context.


20th Century Boys Volume 2

The first couple of volumes of the series are concerned with laying down the basics of the story and readers are just becoming accustomed to the rhythm of the series's jumps in time. The panel from volume 2 comes as the derelict-prophet Kamisama recounts one of his prophetic dreams. Thus readers are getting one of their first real tactile tastes of the devastation that is in store for Kenji and his friends and it is massive and foreboding.


20th Century Boys Volume 4

A lot has happened by the time we get to the next panel taken from the final pages of volume 4. Kenji's convenience store has burnt to the ground; he has been branded a terrorist by the Friends-infiltrated government; and he and his friends are now living underground preparing to fight an enemy they know next to nothing about. As Kenji and his childhood friend Otcho are led by the Friend himself into the warehouse where the robot is being stored, the scale of the thing is apparent. Kenji's observation that the thing's glowing eyes seemed to be watching them pretty much nails the terror in this panel.


20th Century Boys Volume 5

Volume 5 of 20th Century Boys is a prime example of Urasawa's tendency to change the stakes in the middle the game. This final panel comes early in the volume, right after the group's abortive attempt to kidnap the Friend's right-hand man, now an important government minister. The date is December 31, 2000, zero hour for the Friends' millenarian plans. But when you see that robot moving through the streets of Tokyo, just at the moment Kenji and his group seem at their weakest, you cannot help but think, this isn't the way this is supposed to happen. The good guys are supposed to stop the nefarious plans of the villains and go on to live happy lives, right? In short measure it becomes clear that this isn't right at all and this is precisely why Urasawa is so good at terrifying readers again and again.


Pluto:

Each of the panels or pages I've scanned from Pluto also depict the same thing, even though they sorta don't. At a basic level, each panel shows Pluto, a robot bent on destroying each of the world's most advanced robots. The reason for my equivocation, however, is that as Pluto develops, it becomes clear that the identity of the eponymous character is a bit more complex than it first appears.


Pluto Volume 1

This page, taken from the early pages of the series's first volume, show the robot detective Gesicht reviewing the memory chip of a security robot that was destroyed. As the page indicates, the robot's attention was distracted for a split second by what appears to be a human, jumping from one building to another so quickly that the robot only registers it as a blur. That suggestive blur, so minuscule and yet powerful enough to distract a robot-cop sufficiently to allow a drug addled hoodlum to destroy him is among the series first terrifying moments.


Pluto Volume 2

This next page also depicts Pluto, in this case as he prepares to destroy the Turkish warrior robot Brando. Pluto's obscured appearances in these early volumes is terrifying not only because we never get a complete picture of the thing, but also because of his ability to summarily destroy what are supposed to be the world's most powerful weapons. Finally, take another look at the close-up of Pluto's eyes; there is a humanity to them that enhances the terror, an effect that will be magnified in later illustrations.


Pluto Volume 3

This panel from volume 3 is a bit of an oddball, since it only becomes clear later in the series that the giant in the desert is probably Pluto. At this point in the story, however, all we know is that this terrifying silhouette was seen by a small Persian boy just after his village had been completely destroyed in the war. The terror of this image comes from a compounding of the creepiness of the obscured image itself, the massiveness of the figure and the disabling terror that the image has wrought into the little boy.


Pluto Volume 6

The final page, coming near the end of volume 6, shows the confrontation between Pluto--or what we've known as Pluto for most of the series--and Gesicht. What is terrible about the images on this page is not just those horrible gnashing teeth at the top of the page, though they are frightening enough, but even more those eyes, that look of terror, anguish and recognition that is so very human. As I mentioned above, you get a suggestion of this in the panel from volume 2, but in this case it is more extreme. At this point in the story, we have a better idea of what Pluto is, his origins and identity and thus the suffering in those eyes is more devastating. With this volume, as with volume 5 of 20th Century Boys, Urasawa completely changes the stakes and it is unclear what direction the series will take in volume 7.

Powerful Panels: Halloween Edition

It's Halloween and Are You A Serious Comic Book Reader? has decided to celebrate with some fear-filled, powerful panels. Horror is a genre with a lot of comics' history behind it (duh) and it's fascinating to see how that root, horror-influence and the grammar it developed bleeds into nearly every kind of comic. Sometimes there's still just plain old, awesome horror comics, others up the gore or the details, and some graft the signs and signifiers of horror into comics that from the outside, have little to do with the genre. No matter what, you see the powerful horror style in nearly every type of comic.

The Drifting Classroom by Kazuo Umezu

This is a classic Horror manga from the 70s, and the above panel depicts one of the big revelations in the book. This is the first time the main character, Sho, has confronted the current situation of the school. The premise is that after an earthquake an elementary school is transported to some alien wasteland. The fear comes in watching a school full of children essentially riot and the way their teachers have to deal with it. There's no monsters or ghosts so a lot of the fear is psychological and rooted in human survival instincts. It's a bit like a zombie movie.

Umezu does an excellent job of making the landscape look horrific and it acts essentially, as a monster. This double page spread actually isn't the first time the reader has seen the landscape. There is a double page spread directly before this when the teachers first notice the landscape. Sho's double page is more significant because he's the main character but also because he's the first child to see the situation. It's just the landscape and his face really hammering in the effect of this event on Sho. Although he freaks out at first, he's one of the first truly able to come to terms with these catastrophic circumstances. Sho is deeply distressed but seeing the situation actually helps him come to terms with it.

Swamp Thing by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson

This could have been any number of panels from this classic run on Swamp Thing. Wein and Wrightson build a tense and psychologically taxing atmosphere. This is a classic Horror comic through and through, but the twist is, the hero's the monster. This set of panels really shows how the horror of the narrative works. There's no shocking surprises; just a meandering inevitability to the events.

It's a subtle technique that is demonstrated in these panels. Swamp Thing is obscured at first and through each panel takes up more room even forcing out the shooter's speech bubbles. The final, and most powerful panel, puts the reader in the shooters' position. We're forced to stare at a face that isn't particularly scary to us, just kind of weird, but we're coaxed into the same reaction as the shooter because of his position in the panel. He's not scared of Swamp Thing, but he's horrified by the realization that there's absolutely nothing he can do to stop death.

The Maximortal by Rick Veitch

This isn't a typical horror comic, but so much in it is just plain gruesome. Veitch re-imagines the Superman myth with a big twist: this super-being has all the same flaws as a regular human. So, as in the panel above, if he throws a temper tantrum he's able to pulverize you in the process. The real-life idea Vietch addresses here is a unbalanced relationship between parent and child. It's the sort of situation that you come across in maybe the mall or toy store. You'll see a clearly spoiled kid acting like an idiot and getting whatever they want.

Veitch's panel has the same gut-wrenching effects by contrasting the boys perfection against the father's mutilation, highlighting the imbalance. Part of the point Veitch makes is that many of the ideas we hold up as "perfect" grow problematic when analyzed or executed. Even though Superman works mostly as a symbol, Veitch shows that at his worst, Superman is closer to a violent, childish fantasy.

Green Lantern #43 by Geoff Jones and Doug Mahnke

There's been a lot of good recent Horror-ish super hero comics lately. It probably all started with Marvel Zombies, and includes Final Crisis #4, Blackest Night #0, #1, and this issue of Green Lantern. Probably one of the most explicit suicide scenes I've ever seen in any media. Jones actually builds to it throughout the story with a depressing tale of this C-list supervillian.

The real reason this is so chilling is Mahnke's combination of pain and a sheer blank expression on his face. It's exactly what I'd imagine a picture of this to look like. The crisp art really works by showing details like tear ducts on the sides of his eyes (for emotion) and green splattered brains (for a cringe). Of course, it's not really a suicide--the Black Hand is resurrected as a zombie Black Lantern later--but just staring at this full page spread is enough to send chills down your spine.

(Stay tuned for David's Part II. Happy Halloween!)

So Jimmy Kimmel...

...dressed like Thor for the Halloween episode of his show tonight and it was awesome. Sorry about the quality, but this is what you get with a iPhone camera off non-cable television. Happy Halloween!

Powerful Panels: Devil Dinosaur #4 by Jack Kirby

The first time I happened upon Devil Dinosaur was after flipping through the Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. Volume 2 trade, where after several splash pages of the team fighting through bizzare enemies (like a bunch of monkies and and a big-ass gorilla dressed like Wolverine and, guh, snakes on planes) they run into a red tyrannosaurus rex dressed like a kind of dandy nazi, holding a pistol and a flute of champagne. Immediately, I was sold. And oh, no big deal, but his name is DEVIL DINOSAUR. How great is that? Flash forward to a couple months later and I find the Double D Omnibus at a comic store in North Carolina, and knowing that the real Devil Dinosaur probably wouldn't be quite as dashing as I would like, I still figured red T-Rex with a little monkey guy is something I can get behind.



Turns out, the real Devil Dinosaur is kind of awful. The Omnibus is composed of nine issues, and until issue four, it's just a lot of cavemen talking like cavemen (i.e. really obtuse and awkward) and like, making traps out of pits covered in leaves and punching each other and stuff. In the second issue Devil Dinosaur inexplicably starts to be drawn with four fingers instead of three, giving him these stupid almost human hands, which gives Kirby the idea to start drawing his arms longer (sometimes) so he can occasionally grab things and flex to psyche out his enemies.



The panel up top is not powerful in a visually impressive or important narrative way, but in the sense that from this one panel, you know exactly what you're getting into with Devil Dinosaur. Even before reading the word ballons, I laughed at how ridiculous a face he's making, but then not only is this goofy wall-eyed gesture supposed to be taken in stride, it's supposed to be a look of deep understanding. You can also see his creepy man-hand and his arm at one of its many lengths throughout the comic.

To be fair, though, since this is from the issue where things start to pick up, there are some actually impressive displays of Kirby's work. The issue starts with a two-page spread of Moon-Boy's (Devil Dinosaur's fellow outcast companion) premonition of the dangers which are to come...from space! Maybe Kirby figured out that the only thing that can make cavemen exciting is the inclusion of alien robots and psychedelic dream sequences?

Required Halloween Reading: Basil Wolverton's Gateway to Terror

Basil Wolverton's work has always been known as grotesque (one of the turning points of his career was winning a "draw the world's ugliest women" contest). Somehow though, these aspects never got out of hand as Wolverton's work had the fun and immediacy of all cartooning, if a bit more damaged. When he was drawing goofball sci-fi adventures like Spacehawk or boxing comics with Powerhouse Pepper the elastic faces and dark-darks made it more unreal and outrageous, but when Wolverton directed his pen towards the genuinely grotesque, as he did in his mind-blowing religious work like his depiction of the apocalypse or in these Twilight Zone-esque horror tales, the results get under your skin and the atmospheric lines become palpable.

Each of these stories follow the horror anthology "twist ending" outline almost to a fault. There's some good, smart storytelling going on here, but without Wolverton to illustrate them, well they wouldn't have been hunted-down and reprinted by Dark Horse more than thirty years later (Gateway is a reprint from 1988).


The "trick" for lack of a better word, of Wolverton's art here is to lull you into a kind of stupor of appreciation, where you forget about the kinda silly storytelling or rather, just let it sort of play out, and get caught-up in the sheer weirdness of the art. His lines are never ever straight, they're straight enough, but they always wiggle around a bit, and it makes even the simple contours of a room into a panel that you hold too close to your face and fall in love with. In another sense, at least in these horror tales, the bordering-on-sloppy artwork foreshadows the chaos to come. And when something crazy or creepy or scary happens, Wolverton's art is at its best as he draws every ugly detail but still in this zany style. Not quite the same, but a little bit like Rick Geary's work as Jesse mentioned, where the fun, cartoon-ishness of it makes it feels scarier and weirder. Look at the frame below from the titular story and the way Wolverton draws flesh slipping of a face:


Wolverton's people too are over-the-top and ugly, but they're ugliness comes from real-life. Every weirdo or creep looks like a weirdo or creep you could see or have seen in real-life. Old people say dumb stuff like "I wouldn't want to run into this guy in a dark alley", well, Wolverton draws pretty much everyone in a way that makes you think that. The brilliance in doing so is that since these are horror stories, you expect the villains or "bad guys" or whatever to be monster-like. Instead, they're just a little uglier, a little more crack-eyed, and wrinkled than everybody else, grounding it in a little bit of reality.


In "One of Our Graveyards Is Missing!", everyone's in a panic and looking stressed-out because somehow, the town graveyard's just a giant pit now, but a mysterious man seen near the graveyard moments before it disappeared has a particularly horrifying presence. His presence isn't that scary on its own, but how he enters the story and his context aid Wolverton's drawing and the story's atmosphere. The same weird feeling you get when you've read about a crime that's been committed and then you see on the news they've caught the guy. You're not sure if he's scary as shit because you know the crime he committed or if he's scary outside of that too.

But the story that's like, palpably horrifying and icky-feeling, is "They Crawl By Night". The story's about a guy who hallucinates night-time visits from these gross, crawling crab guys and then it turns out, hasn't hallucinated it at all (again with the trick horror comic endings). A great deal of this story happens at night and so, the interiors are darker but because Wolverton's work is all line and ink, the panels aren't necessarily darker, they've just got more shadow and even more lines which adds an eerie unreal feeling. Something I can't exactly describe makes these images come to life in that sense that you begin thinking about crab guys sneaking into your bedroom at night and say, lift your feet off the ground or close the nearest door to you.

Subtle Dread: Rick Geary's Treasury of Victorian Murder

By all accounts, Rick Geary’s a 'Treasury of Victorian Murder' series should not be scary at all. Geary’s art, at first glance seems a better fit on the pages of Gumby than illustrating some of the most gruesome crimes of the 19th century. Even the plots tend to be composed mainly of facts and theories about the portions of the crimes that have gone unsolved. But oddly enough, it’s precisely because of Geary’s firm hold on reality with his plots, and his subtle use of horror and gore, that each episode fills with a dread that creeps to the back of your brain and stays there.

The Saga of the Bloody Benders takes the non-fiction elements to extreme by starting the story with maps. What seems like a history lesson on the surface, begins Geary’s secret invasion into our mind. He puts in his own interpretation of the houses on the maps and presents them in such a way that 19th-century Kansas looks like a different world. The details on the history of the area help the reader become immersed in the culture of the time and how its people behaved and felt. Geary’s art helps by showing a creepy John Brown with his sword covered in blood. This one simple illustration takes a simple line from a history book and gives it a face and meaning from page one.

This invasion of fact and caricature into your brain builds up until you are finally confronted with the grisly act. The murders aren’t shown but their aftermath is, and that makes it worse. Characters who come from a state “born in blood and fury” are shown sickened by the murders of the family. The next panel shows the same men moving the house. It has the same disorienting look and feel to it that death gives in real life. These men are going through their work in a daze after being confronted with their mortality. There’s no shocking panel of gore that can be identified as horrifying. Instead Geary allows the weight and reality of these events to sink in by showing us one little bone sticking out from the ground or an understated blood stain on the curtain.

In Jack the Ripper, Geary uses all the techniques employed in the Bloody Benders even more effectively. Geary plays up the city atmosphere of the killings making the whole book feel claustrophobic. The city looms over everything and like most smart works of art presents both the positive and negative of city life. London has Scotland Yard and Buckingham Palace but also terrible areas like White Chapel where the killings took place. One of the reasons Jack the Ripper is so terrifying is the mystery involved. Geary shows how British investigators exhausted every technique and resource to catch the killer but apparently, nothing could be done.

Geary subtly sets up a dichotomy of order vs. chaos in a way that is realistic and complex. The page where the story discuss the infamous “From Hell” note is the perfect example. The entire page is dominated by the background of this crazy handwriting. In the bottom is a small circle containing Scotland Yard and the quotation, “Several detectives already deem this a “transparent hoax.” Nevertheless, the specimen was deposited for extensive examination with Dr. Openshaw of the London Hospital.” In a small gesture, and purely by his layout, Geary suggests how the Ripper has overcome their culture. He even implies that both the people and detectives are helpless in the power of the Ripper, and shows how the detectives who realize this try and protect the population from panic.

Geary’s real triumph of horror is getting the reader to identify with the psychology of these killers. We are so into thinking about Jack the Ripper’s situation that when the “From Hell” note is presented, it becomes the scariest part of the book. It’s a realization that this guy really thinks he’s from hell! On one page, Geary illustrates all the possibilities thrown out for Jack the Ripper, and it becomes a kind of societal cross section of evil. But it also forces you to confront that fact that while Jack the Ripper was only one person, it could have been any of these people. Life has sent all of these faces over the edge as we’re left to wonder how close we are to insanity.

Halloween Bonus: gruesome Jack the Ripper crime scene photo

Toriyama's Cowa! Almost Animated

Some wonderful YouTube-er was cool enough to sort of animate the first story--or "Fright" as it's called in the collection--from Cowa!, "Paifu Goes on an Errand". Not sure what the music chosen is, but it's perfect for being cute and whimsical but a little melancholy too, sort of like Halloween, where it's really awesome to get candy but all the big kids being jerks makes it almost not worth it.