A Few Horror-ble and Notable Moments for Comics in 2009
by: Stephanie Shamblin Gray

The year is at an end and that could only mean one thing: list after list re-capping the best (or worst) moments of 2009. If you are tired of seeing endless footage of Balloon Boy, and Kanye stealing the stage from Taylor, you may enjoy a list prepared by and for the fans of horror comics with a few ComicMonsters.com flashbacks and notable moments thrown in for good measure.

Mobile Digital Comics
Love them or hate them, 2009 was the year that digital comics came to your phone. While everyone seemed interested in investigating the new technology, it came under harsh review by many who just didn’t feel that the experience was equivalent to letting your eyes and mind wander across a standard comic book page. However, horror comic fans seem to have embraced the technology more than others. ComiXology has broken down the most downloaded (free or paid) and the best-selling paid comic series and readers may be surprised to learn that 40 percent of the top comics are horror. These include “The Walking Dead”, “Return to Wonderland”, and “Marvel Zombies” among others. You may be wondering, do more horror fans own iPhones, embrace alternative media more readily, or just like scaring little children that stare over their shoulders at their phones on planes and trains? While the reason for a disproportionate number of horror downloads is not clear, it is clear that the iPhone users have spoken and demand more horror on the go.

The Awakening
The Good News: For fans that had been rabidly collecting the floppies of the “Awakening” the previous year, finally being able to get their hands on the full story was a thrill. No one could wait to find out the truth: what was really happening in Park Falls? Was Cynthia really on to something or just crazy? Are there zombies or not? Fans raced home with their nifty hardcovers only to discover….

The Bad News: …this is only Volume 1! Fans will just have to wait to uncover all the mysteries of “Awakening”.

Cross-Overs
This year produced some fun cross-over comics. “Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash” is always a good time, and others seem to appeal even more specifically to ComicMonsters.com readers. Five years in the making, the long-awaited “Darkness/Pitt” cross-over sold out its first issue at the distributor level and ranked in the top ten most downloaded at ComiXology. But perhaps the most anticipated cross-over had to be with the Living Corpse and Hack/Slash collaboration for the Living Corpse Annual #1. Bringing two beloved series together is often a difficult venture, but when done correctly is a thrill to read.

The Year of 3-D
This year, 3-D films made a huge comeback. And why should films get all the glory? Comics and IDW got into the action also with Clive Barker’s “Seduth”. This comic came with 3-D glasses and the intention that the readers will use them on every page. The book is a little challenging to read because of the glasses, but enjoyable nevertheless. It seems that all 3-D fads begin with horror and this one is no exception. This comic will likely set the stage for more in the future, horror or otherwise.

Rocking Offspring
For people who like to follow the lives of rockstars and their families when not reading horror comics, this has been a very good year. Jesse Blaze Snider, son of Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider, brought us “Dead Romeo”, the story of a rockstar turned vampire and sent to hell, later to be resurrected for a bit of a fight-for-your-lives love story. This was a surprising series for DC who is not known for horror stories. Also this year was “Incarnate” from Nick Simmons, son of Kiss’s Gene Simmons. This is a manga-style story about Revenants, immortals with a taste for human flesh and once worshipped as gods. Probably most surprising was the level of violence in this story that was marketed on the eerily wholesome “Family Jewels” television show. These were two very good new mini-series with a lot of potential for future stories. Hopefully we will see more from both of these creators in the coming years.

Dark Days
In early December, Top Cow announced that “Impaler” would be cancelled. While the story will be wrapped up for supporters of the comic, many horror comic fans were devastated. Enough said.

Return to the Silver Age in Horror Comics
A huge treat in 2009 was Rob E. Brown’s “Bane of the Werewolf”. This book not only provided an excellent old school monster tale, but did it with a level of quality rarely seen. Printed on heavy paper with a delightful smell, it even came with a trading card. This book was declared a ‘must-buy’ by our own Big Bad Wolf, promptly sending anyone who didn’t pick it up on the Wednesday it was released back to the store on Thursday to buy it before it was gone.

Radical
It appears that in 2009 the recently formed Radical Publishing made the move to have a significant fraction of its titles satisfy horror fans. This year saw the release of “Hotwire: Requiem for the Dead”, “Incarnate”, and “FVZA: Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency” with the announcement that titles such as “Abattoir” and “Driver for the Dead” will be released in 2010. The commitment of Radical to consistently publish spectacular-looking books, maintain a focus on movie tie-ins, and include the horror genre in its collection of titles should do well to cement it as a publisher to watch for horror fans of not just comics, but every medium.

The Walking Dead to AMC
Was there any bigger news than the announcement that AMC had acquired the rights to Robert Kirkman’s “The Walking Dead” for a potential series? Fans of the comic have known for years that this story is really more drama than horror, and have dreaded that someone would try to condense it into a single movie. However, a television series on a cable network is the perfect vehicle for conversion from the comic format. Frank Darabont, Oscar-nominated writer for “The Green Mile” and “The Shawshank Redemption” is on board to write, direct, and executive produce the project. Everything sounds like a dream come true for fans of the series, and here’s hoping that the powers-that-be at AMC understand that what has made this series so successful is that it is about life and the human condition in a world overwhelmed with death, and not just ‘another zombie story’. HBO has done and excellent job of capturing the essence of the Sookie Stackhouse novels in “True Blood”, so precedence demonstrates that it can be done.

And that concludes the “Horror-ble Moments” list here at ComicMonsters.com. While not intended to be exhaustive, these are the moments that seemed to stir up the most enthusiasm, excitement, and spirit throughout the horror comics community. So let’s all raise a glass to an excellent year for horror comics and resolve to continue to support our favorite creators and publishers to ensure that there are many more great years to come!

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