The holidays have arrived, and while some people are celebrating with the glow of lights and generosity of gift-giving, others have different ways of enjoying the wintry months. Instead of warm cheer and family gatherings, there are those who like to put a bit of Halloween fright into their winter holiday celebrations.
For fans of horror comics, these holiday tales will make the chill of winter run down spines and raise hackles.
10 Batman: Noel
Batman: Noel is an original graphic novel written and drawn by the incredibly gifted Lee Bermejo, who has adapted Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol into a story about three ghosts visiting Bruce Wayne.
While the original Dickensian tale was filled with gothic horror, paranormal spooks, and strong anti-capitalist themes that rejected the inequality of Victorian England, Noel takes a unique look by seeing how poverty has driven one of Joker's henchmen to crime, forcing Batman to admit that some criminals are driven to crime by desperation. Bermejo's art brilliantly captures the deathly white of Gotham in winter and the ghastly haunting visitations of the three "ghosts" with a level of detail worthy of Dickens.
9 Batman: The Long Halloween
This story by writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale is an instant classic that shows how Gotham transferred over the course of a year from a city ruled by the mob to one that has become overrun by monstrous supervillains.
There are a year's worth of different holidays, but during Christmas, the mysterious killer takes out one of mob boss Carmine Falcone's bodyguards in a mysterious act that earns him the nickname "Holiday." This story is one of the biggest inspirations of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy.
8 The Wicked + The Divine Christmas Annual
The original premise of The Wicked + The Divine Christmas Annual was to give the characters a chance to be happy together. And for some of the stories, this holds true. But the comic deals with broken people, and a number of the stories here show aspects of this. Written by Kieron Gillen with numerous artists, this is a sexy, sweet, and sometimes cruel comic.
A particularly chilling tale is "If You're Feline Sinister" in which Sakhmet--known as one of the most wickedly callous of the characters--wakes from a night sleeping with Lucifer, only to realize just how wicked Luci really is. And "Decomposition" is one of the most harrowing tales of them all, seeming sweet and innocent, but when contrasted with what fans know about later events in the story, this story is truly merciless.
7 Vertigo: Winter's Edge
Vertigo Comics was DC's adult imprint. Between 1998 and 2000, they released three winter specials, all of which contained numerous titles connecting to their various titles by different writers and artists.
In the first issue, Peter Milligan and Sean Phillips's story for Vertigo's The Minx, entitled "Mazel Tov, Leo" is the rate Hanukkah story on this list, narrated by Tom Jones, a young man going to meet his girlfriend's eccentric parents for Hanukkah, intent on proposing to her, but the occasion is interrupted by ghosts, supernatural madness, and Jones's own failings. That same issue had a Sandman story by Neil Gaiman and John Bolton about a satyr partaking of a mournful winter bacchanalia before leaving the world forever. In the third issue, Caitlin Kiernan's story "Borealis" concerns a pre-Abrahamic holiday mourning the loss of the sun as cavemen faced off against the monstrous predators of the Ice Age.
6 Hellblazer: Lord of the Dance
Written by Garth Ennis with Steve Dillon doing the art, this is a short, sweet story--at least as Hellblazer comics go--but that is not to say it lacks for supernatural horror. John Constantine is out on Christmas Eve, shopping for a gift for the woman he has been crushing hard on, when he notices a spirit following him.
The two sit down together, and the spirit explains that he was once known as the Lord of the Dance, long before Britain and Ireland were Christianized and the famous folk-song celebrating him was appropriated with Christian imagery. He took part in the mirth of the solstice celebration. Mournfully, the Lord recounts the loss of his status as he faded away. To remedy this, Constantine takes the spirit out to a pub to drink and sing with some of the locals.
5 Hellblazer: Nativity Infernal
"Nativity Infernal" is a brilliantly subversive story written by Garth Ennis with William Simpson drawing it. This is a dark twisted re-imagining of the story of Mary and Joseph seeking shelter in a manger to birth their child
But the couple in question are an angel and a pregnant demoness who must hide their soon-to-be-born offspring from both of their respective overlords, lest the child be killed with a Herod-like severity.
4 Hellblazer #250
This jumbo-sized comic has multiple stories by different creative teams, all with a shocking twist on the usual seasonal holidays.
The first story, "Happy New F*cking Year," by Dave Gibbons and Sean Phillips, has Constantine track down a desperate occultist who stole an ancient Egyptian artifact, the the Scythe of Osiris, and a baby, planning to sacrifice the child to gain immortality. Another story, Brian Azzarello and Rafael Grampa's "All I Got For Christmas," is written as a lyric poem as Constantine tries to dispel the Curse of the Billy Goat plaguing the Chicago Cubs. China Mieville partnered with artists Giuseppi Camuncoli and Stefano Landini for "Snow Had Fallen," a story where sickly children are living in medical tents outside an industrial plant, making "snow angels" in the ash that is being pumped out by the plant, even as devils are manifesting in the camp. And these are not the only stories.
3 Krampus
This miniseries from Image Comics is a blend of comedy and horror written by Brian Joines and Dean Kotz follows the exploits of Krampus, the evil German anti-Santa who is committed to punishing those wicked children undeserving of gifts.
With sadistic sugar plumb fairies and a secret society of Santa Klauses, this comic is just as likely to make fans laugh as to have them aghast at the horrible violence and unrelenting hate displayed by of some of its supernatural characters.
2 Hellboy: Krampusnacht
Mike Mignola's Hellboy series is one of the best horror comics around. This one-shot by Mignola and artist Adam Hughes is a subdued ghost story set in the snows of Germany.
After a ghost appears before Hellboy and asks him to save her child, he arrives at a remote house in the woods where he finds an old man is waiting for him, having prepared a dinner for them to eat. This man claims to be Krampus, and boasts of how he has killed wicked children, even as he asks a boon of Hellboy.
1 Detective Comics: "Slayride"
In Detective Comics #826 by Paul Dini and Don Kramer, the Joker kidnaps Robin, knocking the Boy Wonder out with gas. Robin awakes to find himself tied up with Christmas lights, gagged, sitting in a car as Joker speeds down the road, plowing down civilians in the street.
Two corpses lie in the back seat, Joker's recent victims. As the Harlequin of Hate laughs with Christmas joviality, he commits one brutal killing after another, as Robin awaits whatever cruel fate Joker will present him with.