Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

"Out of Skin"

"Out of Skin" is a fine Gothic Webcomic from Emily Carroll.  It tells the story of a lonely woman in a forest, beset by... disturbing things.

The art and design are lovely, carefully disturbing:

Carroll makes excellent use of plunging vertical pages to attenuate the power of certain objects and scenes.

(via MetaFilter)

Transilvane: a small blast of Kirby horror

Here's a tiny bit of horror from Jack Kirby.  Well, horror and madness.  Madness!

Originally introduced in Jimmy Olsen #142, the miniature world of Transilvane was created as an experiment in learning how to terraform other planets, but for reasons known only to Kirby, the scientist in charge of the project decided instead to seed Transilvane with tiny artificial people and use orbital projectors to constantly play horror movies in the sky.

To continue:

So naturally, this led to the Transilvanian lifeforms evolving into Draculas, Frankensteins and Wolfmen who eventually started blasting off to the larger earth around them in coffin-shaped spaceships, which in turn caused the scientist to try to wipe everything out with a handy dose of Genocide Spray. [emphases in original]

Alas, the Gothic world gives way to a non-Gothic world, just like in the second Matrix movie.

Fortunately, Superman and Jimmy Olsen stopped all this, and switched out the horror movies for westerns, and now THERE IS AN ENTIRE MINIATURE PLANET OF TINY COWBOY DRACULAS THAT IS STRAIGHT UP A THING THAT EXISTS IN SUPERMAN’S HOMETOWN, AND NO ONE EVER TALKS ABOUT THIS. [emphases in original]

Fan fiction writers, go!

(thanks to Steven Burnett!)

Gothic grammar instruction

Canny teachers have always known that Gothic horror drives grammar knowledge home. As when the Oatmeal teaches who vs whom:

 

Who throws the spiders? At whom are the spiders thrown? Simple and effective.

(thanks to Andy "for the bourbon" Havens)

Eerie accidental mashup

A 1983 editorial error switched captions for two very different comic strips.  When you mash up The Far Side with Dennis the Menace, the results can be delightful.

Here's the Far Side strip with the Dennis caption:

Dental fear, the comic edition

Sometimes dental fear can be funny and terrifying, as witness this comic by Dan Piraro:

Found on Facebook.  Can't find a link to the original.

Zombie web comic from Italy

Undead Trinity is an Italian webcomic about a zombie attack on an industrial area.  It's ongoing, and recommended.

The story is admirably focused on the working class, and develops well. The art is quite effective:

So far we've seen emergency throat surgery, stolid milk delivery ladies, racism, and brutal zombie killing. I enjoy this point of view shot from inside a zombie's mouth.

False Positive launches second season

Fine horror Webcomic False Positive (previously) has started a second season, and it's excellent so far.

The short story Seance has just finished, offering a fun take on how contacting the dead can go very wrong.

Chas Addams doing Mother Goose

The Atlantic has a nice selection of Chas Addams' illustrations for Mother Goose stories.

(thanks to Jesse Walker)

One more Gothic Christmas item

XKCD imagines how else the holiday could go wrong:

Comics for Halloween month

Atop the Fourth Wall is running a fun series about horror comics all month, Longbox of the Damned.  Every day Linkara presents another issue or ongoing title drawn from various sources: manga, superheroes, and, of course, horror comics.

Extra fun comes from the persona and atmosphere Lovhaug creates for Longbox.  He plays a classic horror host, a cackling, over the top vampire.  Opening credits have frantic music, screams, and a splattered logo.

Through this, we get nice intros to stories, with context and good interior shots.  For example, on Uzumaki part 1:

It's a fun change of pace for Linkara, whose usual metier is mocking bad comics.

(thanks to my awesome daughter)