by Caspian Gray
My only misgiving about the newest wave is the predominance of what is known as “cosmic horror.” To forestall the inevitable chorus of dissent, let me be clear that I’m speaking in the broadest terms here. There are scores of exceptions. I just find this to be the predominant theme. Cosmic horror, in the vein of Lovecraft and Chambers, is the focus on the hostility of the universe to the concerns, or even the continued survival, of mankind. It’s a rich and generous vein, and much great work has come from it. Its concerns are philosophical. The epiphanies of its protagonists are spiritual.
This is entirely appropriate for horror fiction. Horror, like crime fiction (which is its close cousin), is perfectly evolved to interrogate our moral and theological assumptions. It’s an antagonistic literature, and therefore a fundamentally necessary literature. That it should undermine our sense of spiritual smugness, especially in this age of ideological rigidity, is both healthy and needed.
My misgiving is entirely personal: it feels too distant in its intent to unsettle me the way I want horror to unsettle me. The unease is intellectual in nature. It doesn’t trouble my heart the way “The Monkey’s Paw” continues to do.
And like any true masochist, I’m always chasing the original pain.
The worst sound I know is the sound of somebody crying in another room. It sounds like dissolution to me. It sounds like entropy, the slide of life into meaningless ruin. It’s the sound of termites in the walls. It’s also the most intimate of sounds. When you’re a child, and you hear your parent weeping behind a closed door, you get your first taste of real fear. By the time you hear your child doing the same thing, you’ve already been well seasoned by fear, and what you feel is the knowledge of all the unavoidable pain that’s waiting for her, of all the things you cannot protect her from. You fear what you know is coming.
As a reader and as a writer, this is what really affects me. The horror that comes from within the family—we can call it domestic horror for the sake of this essay—is far more personal and therefore more immediate than anything that swims toward us from another star. It’s one of the reasons the vampire and the zombie are such powerful cultural touchstones: the monsters wear the faces of our loved ones. We can see in these monsters symbols of lovers who have turned against us for reasons we can’t fathom, of family members whose personalities are subsumed by mental illness, so that we find ourselves sharing a home or a bed with a personality we no longer recognize.
The Exorcist, by William Peter Blatty, is one of the most frightening horror stories of my lifetime. Despite the fact that the entity threatening Regan MacNeil and her mother fits very comfortably under the rubric of cosmic horror, the actual horror of the story comes from the terrifying transformation of a little girl into a desecrated vessel, and a home for the Devil. The mother watches her daughter transform into a living blasphemy. The story is profoundly harrowing, and when it’s over, it’s not Pazuzu that we remember. It’s the filth that the creature has made of our domestic dream.
The Exorcist, and other stories in the vein of domestic horror, are effective because they are personal. They hurt.
Like “The Monkey’s Paw,” these are the stories that linger.
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Nathan Ballingrud was born in Massachusetts but spent most of his life in the Deep South. He has worked as a bartender in New Orleans and a cook on offshore oil rigs; currently he’s a waiter in a fancy restaurant. His stories have appeared in several anthologies and year’s best collections. He won the Shirley Jackson Award for his short story “The Monsters of Heaven.” His first book, North American Lake Monsters: Stories, is due from Small Beer Press in 2013. He lives in Asheville, NC, with his daughter.
Artist Gallery: Benjamin König
Artist Spotlight: Benjamin König
Julia Sevin
Born in 1976, Benjamin König has been enamored with drawing and painting since his earliest years, when countless beautifully and creepily illustrated children's books led a trail of breadcrumbs to his passion. Despite attempting several other professions (audio engineer, conservator, etc.), Benjamin always returned to his first love: drawing. He is now a freelance illustrator in Upper Bavaria, near Munich.
What is your artistic background?
I have no particular artistic background. Although I went to a school of arts – some kind of technical college – I never learned any relevant stuff there.
What is your medium? Your method? I typically have a good eye for distinguishing digital painting from traditional but the entirety of your rustic, nearly organic catalog leaves me utterly nonplussed. What am I looking at?
You're looking at a mixture of traditional and digital painting. I guess that's the reason why you can't specify it exactly. Digital painting makes it a lot easier when it comes to commissions. Concerning amendments, modifications, etc. . . Furthermore I can work faster, which is important for the pricing.
Why do you create? And why create this sort of work?
I create because this is some kind of calling. I feel strong bonds to the magic of fairy tales, (old) children's books, myths and almost everything that "grabs into the depth", touching a certain intuitiveness within one's heart. It is a passion, a liaison between old and new.
Unfortunately not many books/paintings have a deeper esprit nowadays. I don't want to say "things aren't what they used to be", but in some cases things used to be better back then. There was more tactfulness in it. Today a lot of illustrations are loud, with shiny armor, big weapons, stunning effects, glossiness, shrillness, much BOOOM and a lot of WOOOSHHH, etc. . . Same goes for movies, music and the games industry. But mostly they are soulless.
Of course one can find very beautiful illustrations today. But in the mainstream there's too much junk around.
Can you name some of your influences?
I am a child of the 70s and early 80s. So are my influences mainly. Artists like Franz Josef Tripp, Reinhard Michl, Graham Ward, Gary Kelley, Susan Gallagher, Herbert Holzing (and many more) are great influences. And of course my own view on things and inspiring moments.
Do you draw ideas from fiction? If so, which authors do you find inspiring?
Again and again I get inspired by fictions. Some authors I can mention are Ottfried Preussler, Michael Ende, Hans Bemmann, Eberhard Alexander-Burgh . . .and some well-known Authors from the Gothic period (~1790 – 1920).
Your paintings - and, additionally, your photographs - frequently depict hillocks and forests, citadels and villages, and the monsters which may lurk in each. What do these settings signify to you?
I think that someone's homeland is a big influence on how she/he is reflecting things. I was born in Upper Bavaria somewhere between the Alps and Munich. Very rural. And still living there. From my point of view it is a landscape which is predestinated for gloomy tales and myths. More broadly, that’s the old European culture at large. Of course someone should have the ability to feel the deeper atmosphere that a certain region breathes. Plus I try to mix my view with some smooth humor here and there.
I love taking a closer look to the world. For this purpose photography is a great stylistic device.
My googling shows me that you recently illustrated a book of fairy tales, Troldeskoven, for a Danish author, Anne Mølgård Nielsen, is that right? How did that come about and what was the experience like?
Oh, she is just a private person. Writing tales for her niece. She came up to me and asked for certain illustrations. I felt that there is a true deep-routed mind, influenced by her homeland, as well. Relating to Denmark and Scandinavian culture in general. Which I adore, too.
Americans are plenty fixated on telling, retelling, and warping our fairy tales, but our fairy tales are fairly sanitized. European tales, especially Ger
man, have a reputation for being more violent, grotesque, and grim (including many that are totally unfamiliar to us). Do you think this is true?
I don't know American fairy tales. Thus I hardly can't give a statement about it. But I know that the old fairy tales from Germany used to be even more brutal in ancient times. They were warped by telling and retelling, as well. But some kind of core kept the same.
Oh, the German psyche. . . hard to say because nowadays the inhabitants are moving and developing much faster. Especially the youth. Which I don't think of negatively in general. But there still is some kind of German psyche. A mixture between morbidity/melancholy and tightness.
Germans like to lament and to dwell on sorrows. And they like to be clear, tight and organized at the same time. Both mannerisms can be found in old German fairy tales. And our relation to nature is important, too. "The German and his forest."
Maybe it is still given that we are a nation of poets and thinkers. Here and there. . . at least.
It seems like such a natural fit for you to illustrate for fairy tales. Were they a great influence on your work?
Yes. Blessedly, I was told lots of fairy tales in my very early childhood. For sure this had – and still has – a huge impact on me. And I have read a lot of books with wonderful illustrations. And I still have all these old books in my bookcase.
The original role of fairy tales, arguably, was to normalize death and morbidity in the minds of children who were bound to experience both, and constantly. Do these subjects feel normal to you?
Death is normal because it is part of life. Of course in the past death had a more direct effect on daily grind. Overall I think that fairy tales also have the message that light/good wins. If not by now. . . but in the end. It is some kind of "church service" for the normal population. And of course there's so much more in it. . . concerning spirits, afterworld, etc...
What are you working on right now?
On illustrations for a rather modern children's book. But it's nice. The author is Hilde Vandermeeren from Belgium.
In the past I used to work a lot for music labels and bands. But I reduced it to almost zero because you have a lot of work and very little return.
What’s your dream illustration job?
To illustrate books. And hopefully books with lot of fantasy and magic in it. Books for children and adults. But maybe also some aesthetic board/computer games. . . whatsoever, I am open for lots of ideas.
Originally hailing from Northern California, Julia Sevin is a transplant flourishing in the fecund delta silts of New Orleans. Together with husband RJ Sevin, she owns and edits Creeping Hemlock Press, specializing in limited special editions of genre literature and, most recently, zombie novels. She is an autodidact pixelpusher who spends her days as the art director for a print brokerage, designing branding and print pieces for assorted political bigwigs, which makes her feel like an accomplice in the calculated plunder of America. Under the cover of darkness (like Batman in more ways than she can enumerate), she redeems herself through pro bono design, sordid illustration, and baking the world’s best pies. She is available for contract design/illustration, including book layouts and websites. See more of her work at juliasevin.com or follow her at facebook.com/juliasevindesign.
Interview: Steve Niles
Lisa Morton
Steve Niles is the undisputed crown prince of modern horror comics. Building (knowingly) on the tradition of the EC classics like Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror, Niles most famously re-claimed vampires with 30 Days of Night, which took them back from the realm of the romantic and made them fast, cunning, bloodthirsty monsters that attacked a small Alaskan town in the Arctic Circle. He’s also worked as a screenwriter (he was involved with the screenplay for the movie of 30 Days of Night), and his series of Cal McDonald stories—about the adventures of a hard-living paranormal private dick in Los Angeles—have shown he’s a fine prose writer with a flair for noirish style. Although his horror comics have explored everything from horror-movie hosts to the Frankenstein monster, his most recent graphic novel returns to vampires: Transfusion collects a three-issue series from 2012 that pits bloodsuckers against robots in a post-apocalyptic landscape. Niles is an affable man who travels frequently, and although he was raised in the suburbs of Washington D.C. he currently resides just north of Los Angeles.
I know you’ve stated before that as a kid you grew up making monster movies with a Super 8 camera—did you ever write your own comics, though? How about horror stories?
I didn’t start writing stories until I was twelve or thirteen. Before that I just made these little Super 8 horror films. I read comics my whole life but it never occurred to me to try and make my own until my late teens.
You once said, “There’s a true innocence about monsters.” Is there something innocent about the monsters (vampires) in 30 Days of Night?
In a way, I suppose. They are very pure and honorable among their own kind. They have about as much respect for us as we do cows, so killing humans doesn’t make them any less innocent than us for eating cows and chickens. I think animals and children under two years old are the only innocents left in this world. Monsters are often treated like animals, so . . .
What were your inspirations for 30 Days of Night? I wondered if the name of your main vampire—Marlow—was a tip of the hat to Salem’s Lot, in which the vampire is named Barlow.
The name was definitely a tip of the hat to Salem’s Lot, both book and TV movie. The TV movie scared the crap out of me when I was a kid, the window scene. So creepy. I think my other inspirations are fairly obvious, The Thing, Carpenter’s version and the original, and Night of the Living Dead. I love films where people are isolated and attacked, I guess.
Ben Templesmith’s art in the original 30 Days of Night created an unusual image for the vampires, with faces that were distorted and stylized. How much did you work with him in crafting that look?
Ben and I agreed when we started we wanted different vampires. My first description I wrote called them “Land Sharks” and Ben took that and ran with it. He made them vicious and stylish at the same time without making them look like they shopped at Hot Topic. I think Ben’s art is what made the comic really stand out. To me, he set the bar for what a horror comic should look like.
You’ve commented before on how you believe that vampires represent our fear of disease and of something invading our family . . . but don’t they also represent our fear of sexuality?
I think fear of sex and fear of disease are related. One certainly can lead to another. I realize the popular notion is that vampires represent sex, but I think it’s silly to ignore the other things they represent to us, and fear of invasion and disease are right up there with sex.
You also worked on the screenplay for the film adaptation of 30 Days of Night—was it a strange experience to re-imagine your work for a different medium? Or is working in film not that different from scripting a comic?
Ugh. Honestly, that wasn’t the best experience for me. I loved working with Raimi and Tapert but unfortunately there were fifteen other producers whose ideas I tried to incorporate. That was my first gig, and I learned the hard way that it’s impossible to make everybody happy. Technically writing a screenplay isn’t that much different than a comic. The biggest difference is in comics you freeze your moment and in a screenplay you move right through it.
Do you approach writing about an existing character—say, Batman, or DC’s The Creeper—differently from writing an original work?
Very different. When I get to work on a character like Batman, most of the work is done already, the world and all the characters exist, the toys are already there so all I have to do is come up with a new way to arrange the toys. When I do a new book I have to establish the world and characters, and that takes time.
With the Cal McDonald stories, you not only proved you could write prose, but that you had a real love affair with noir style, too. Where did Cal’s hardboiled side come
from?
Cal started with me just plain ripping off Raymond Chandler. I wrote a few stories and they seemed really dated so I added drugs and monsters and he’s been writing himself ever since. I have so much fun with him because he’s so cynical and I get to see the world through those eyes. He’s a dick, but sometimes it’s fun to be the dick, ya know?
One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about the Cal McDonald stories is that they really capture L.A. . . . as a seething home for ghouls, junkies and monsters, that is. Are these stories at all a deliberate comment on Southern California?
Oh yeah. Definitely. Cal is from the East Coast so he has some very grim attitudes about the silliness of the Hollywood lifestyle.
In 2008 you said you were writing “John Carpenter’s next movie”—can you talk about what happened to that? Any chance it’ll still see the light of day?
You might see the film but I doubt John and I will be involved. I butted heads with an idiot producer and got myself fired for mouthing off. I have very little patience for non-creatives giving creative notes. I’m working on that. Too bad too, because John and I had something good brewing. It would have been a scary one for sure. Carpenter and I got along great. Really too bad people couldn’t trust us to come up with something scary.
And how about the Wake the Dead movie—what stage is it at now?
That just stalled out. We have the script, director, and WETA on board. We just never found the financing. We haven’t quit. We’re still trying to find a home for it. Jay Russell and I are still out there shopping it around. I have new reps. Who knows? Maybe someday we’ll see it happen. This is one reason I love comics. At least they come out. I hate that about Hollywood. Way too much good stuff sitting on shelves while we get Captain Underpants Part 5 in 3D.