It’s Halloween season, my spooky friends, and the best time to curl up with a pumpkin spiced latte, thick socks, and a good book. And the best kind of book for the occasion: a spooky graphic one.
To get all your warm toes and spiced tongues in the spooky spirit, here’s a collection of my favourite new and anticipated upcoming spooky comics.
DC VS. VAMPIRES Releasing October 26, 2021
DC has released lots of horror titles, and it looks like they’re gearing up to drop a lot more. We’ve covered some of their horror tales like The Conjuring: The Lover and have yacked it up about titles like Hellblazer. They’ve often dropped their beloved leads into spooky stories, sending members of the Justice League to battle zombies, xenomorphs, predators, and now, some vampires. This twelve issue limited series contains work by James Tynion IV, Matthew Rosenberg. Otto Schmidt, Jorge Molina, Francesco Mattina, and Ejikure and promises to be a fun fright, especially for Halloween.
SCARENTHOOD Released September 28, 2021
For this new collection from IDW, Nick Roche and Chris O’Halloran have created a spooky story about parents managing an ancient burial beneath a church. The pages of this promise to tackle the frights of battling an ancient demon that will unearth a mystery of a missing child. This is a sweet story about parenthood and brutal scares.
ARE YOU AFRAID OF DARKSEID? Released October 5, 2021
From DC Comic’s first comes this family friendly horror anthology for the whole family. For this story, the Teen Titans hold your hand and guide you through tales of familiar DC characters, using the twist of having them reflect classic campfire tales. Lots of familiar creators contributed to the anthology, including Jeremy Haun, Ed Brisson, Terry Blas, Elliot Kalan, Kenny Porter, Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Calvin Kasulke and artists Garry Brown, Jesus Hervas, Mike Norton, and Max Dunbar, Chris Mitten, and Dan Hipp.
WE HAVE DEMONS Released October 5, 2021
The first launch of Scott Snyder’s new imprint is this scary story that pairs him back up with long time collaborator, Greg Capullo. Snyder and Capullo are notorious for their New 52 Batman run, Last Knight on Earth, as well as the Metal series, both of which have horror elements within them. This tale involves a teenage hero and a run in with a secret society. In the expected fashion, Capullo’s first page art features a woman with ice cold eyes that already primes your spine for shivers.
SEA OF SORROWS Released October 12, 2021
This one comes from Bram Stoker award nominated creators and promises to bring a fright. Any of those aquatic horror fans among us should line up for the terrifying tale that takes place in the sea. This scary story starts post Great War with a ship seeking gold in a sunken U-boat. In what sounds like a Hitchcockian tale of deception, the treasure hunters turn on each other, but are soon faced with the horrors of the ocean deep.
NIGHT OF THE GHOUL Released October 19, 2021
“NOTG” has been a popular twitter tease this past year with Snyder and Francavilla cryptically hinting at this project. We now know that it stands of Night of the Ghoul, one of the many upcoming projects from Best Jacket Press. Francavilla is a thrilling artist to have attached to a horror comic after his exceedingly incredible work on Afterlife with Archie as well as Batman: Black Mirror. For this project, they’re tackling a horror monster who would have been set to join the ranks with Dracula and Frankenstein but never made it to the silver screen. This story follows are horror film superfan stumbling across the lost remnants of this would-be film about a monster that might just transcend the limits of film.
THE NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE Released Ongoing, Issue #5 out October 5, 2021
Since his takes on DC classic characters leapt to the forefront of minds, Tynion has done stunning work creating horror stories and spooky original tales. His The Department of Truth is stellar, as is this horror tale. Much like some other horror movies we saw launch this year, this story begins with the simple setup of being invited to a stunning vacation home. The mysterious man behind the invitations has left his invitees a bit spooked and this idyllic visit might be more terrifying than they all expected.
NOCTERRA Released October 19, 2021
This exciting project teams Snyder up with some of DC comics’ finest for more work outside the confines of the DC Universe. Nocterra lands us in a world where the earth is cloaked in infinite darkness. The sun no longer reaches the surface, and it’s always night. Humanity is forced to chase the scarce resource that is light, staying close to artificial versions of it and dreaming of places where natural light might be hiding. Val is offered a job driving an old man to a sanctuary where they promise access to illumination, but what she finds on her trip is far from the refuge she expected.
JOHN CARPENTER’S TALES FOR A HALLOWEEN NIGHT VOL. 7 Released September 22, 2021
Storm King Comics has brought us all kinds of scary stories for all kinds of audiences. We’re checked out their Tales of Science Fiction: Hell, as well as their kid-friendly monster story, Sacred Hearts. As for what’s next for the label, they want the Halloween master to let us have some more. This anthology of scary stories, now in its seventh volume, is a collection of stand-alone scary tales promising to send shivers up and down your spine. They’ve got even more coming this year, including Tales of Science Fiction: Vortex 2.0, so they’re definitely a label to watch for the scares.
CHAINED TO THE GRAVE Released November 16, 2021
Another from IDW, this collection drags scares out of the Old West. Roy Mason, an outlaw, is back from the dead but chained to his grave, as the title suggests. This spooky story blends the familiar Western elements, like gunslinging, with the terrifying tales of the supernatural.
