Full text loading...
-
Abstract comics and the decomposition of horror
- Source: Horror Studies, Volume 2, Issue 2, Oct 2011, p. 265 - 280
-
- 21 Oct 2011
Abstract
The recent rise of abstract comics raises the problem of how horror can be conveyed in a purely non-representational mode. This article compares the strategies for evoking horror employed by three abstract comics. The shapes of Henrik Rehr’s Reykjavik simultaneously evoke a threatening geological exterior and an equally threatening interior, accelerating from horror into terror. To make The Panic, Andrei Molotiu resorted to a lengthy technical process out of which ambiguous forms emerged spontaneously; this Rorschach-like effect becomes part of the horror of his comic. Alexey Sokolin’s Life, Interwoven layers dozens of drawings in a steady progression of crowdedness and darkening, again moving from horror to terror. In all three comics the very obscurity of these abstract images contributes to their emotional impact.