Scary Shangrila 2023 - Horror Comics Anthology Double Feature

It's Halloween time again, so my blog is featuring all the thrills, chills, and scares of the season. The anthology is a staple of horror, because a short story allows more flexibility for grotesque settings and character deaths.  Here are two recent horror comic anthologies worth checking out:

Haunthology, by Jeremy Haun

Freelance comic book author Jeremy Haun channeled his pandemic feelings of isolation and fear into Haunthology, a collection of micro-sized horror stories published by Image Comics. Rendered in stripped down black and white, the book's short stories are really more like scenes, two and three-page vignettes that feel like they've been excerpted from a larger work. The book was written and drawn entirely during COVID, which explains why many of the stories are quietly apocalyptic - normal people confronting unimaginable circumstances as best they can.

Creepshow (2023)

The original Creepshow movie was heavily inspired by the old EC horror comics and was itself adapted into a comic book, so it's only fitting that the Creepshow TV series get the same treatment.  I picked up the trade paperback collection of the first five issues, which contains a healthy total of 10 separate stories of mayhem and murder written by folks like Paul Dini and Chris Burnham. Like most of these horror anthologies, the stories are morality plays, albeit with twisted "morals" and over-the-top consequences. It's gory, it's lowbrow, but it's still a lot of fun.