Fans of the Halloween season love to break out their favorite horror franchises to enjoy but can get sad that there are no more adventures for their favorite characters. Luckily most of these horror movie franchises have had their stories continue in comics form! Whether it's a long-running franchise that has numerous sequels or a cult favorite that didn't get enough love, all fans want is MORE!
Readers are lucky that they can flip through their four-color pages to get all the slashery, blood-drenched, and scream filled comics they can get their hands on. Everything fans love about their favorite horror maniacs in comic form.
10 Friday The 13th
Friday the 13th comics have been around since the 90s. First, he showed up at Topps to tie into the new movie Jason Goes To Hell. While at Topps he even had a crossover with Texas Chainsaw Massacre's Leatherface. He then made a stop at Avatar Press for a quick stint with some ultra-violent stories. Lastly, he ended up at Wildstorm before that label folded.
Fans of the Friday films get more of the same throughout most of these series. Camp Crystal Lake is reopening for like the 500th time and Jason is having none of it. Teens drink, do the sex, and then get sliced up in typical Friday The 13th fashion.
9 Hack/Slash
Hack/Slash is a great tribute to the slasher genre of the past. Cassie survived an attack by her own mother who had turned into a slasher called The Lunch Lady. She now travels the country in a van with her companion Vlad (who is very Jason Voorhees like) to take down slashers of all kinds.
While not being a horror movie property itself the title has crossed over with multiple horror movie franchises like Chucky, Re-Animator, Army Of Darkness, and Victor Crowley. The series is a lot of fun for fans of slashers and comic book hijinks.
8 A Nightmare On Elm Street
Much like it's counterpart Friday The 13th, A Nightmare On Elm Street jumped from comics publishers quite often. First up Marvel gave a Nightmare series a shot but they decided to cancel it after two issues after worries that they would be taken to task for producing violent content when they usually steer towards younger readers.
The license then went to Innovation Publishing. They put out a six-issue series called Nightmares On Elm Street which saw the spirit of Nancy return to help Alice fight Freddy once more. Eventually, they went bankrupt before their final series was complete. After that, it followed along with Friday the 13th with a stop by Avatar Press and finally Wildstorm.
7 Trick 'r Treat
Trick 'r Treat has become a modern Halloween classic despite Warner Bros. not having much faith in it. Put on the shelf for two years it was finally released on home video with a smattering of theatrical releases in bigger cities. Fans were quickly enthralled with the film and its spirit of Halloween, Sam.
A promised sequel has yet to materialize. Luckily fans did get some new Sam stories in comic form. Wildstorm released a 4 part series that adapted the story from the film but then Legendary Comics released a new miniseries that featured new stories set across different time periods. A hardback book collecting both of the miniseries was recently released.
6 Hellraiser
A series that definitely lends itself to the comics format is Hellraiser. After the first movie, they immediately started publishing comics through Epic Comics (an imprint of Marvel Comics). They had a pretty long run of original comic stories, movie adaptations, and even did a Hellraiser vs. Nightbreed crossover.
After ending their run at Marvel they jumped over to BOOM! Studios for some new stories along with reprinting old issues from their Epic Run. Eventually, Clive Barker decided to release comics through his own company Seraphim Inc. Barker wrote a few stories himself along with a bunch of other writers set in the Hellraiser universe.
5 Nightbreed
Nightbreed is a complicated movie. Fans love it but Barker was always upset that the film got butchered in the editing room. In the years since there have been numerous versions of the film released that restores cut footage that helps clear up some plot holes that the theatrical version had. Before that, the comics released by Epic Comics actually were based on the original script Barker had written so it had all the cut storylines intact.
The comics even ran past the end of the movie and told more stories of everyone's favorite monsters. They had the aforementioned crossover with Hellraiser before heading off to BOOM! Studios where they published a new adaptation of the Director's Cut of the film.
4 Halloween
One thing about Halloween comics is that they don't have to worry about screwing with the movie continuity. The franchise has been rebooted at least four times. Laurie is dead, no she's not, yes she is, no she's not. Starting in 2000 Halloween comics were released from Chaos! Comics. The first set of books were a story about Tommy Doyle wanting to finally rid the world of Michael Myers.
Devil's Due Publishing would eventually pick up the license and tell more stories about what happened to Laurie and Dr. Loomis between the end of Halloween II and Halloween H20. Sadly the series would never finish after multiple problems at Devil's Due. Multiple other stories set to be published after this one were also canceled. There hasn't been any Halloween comics since.
3 Child's Play
Innovation Publishing picked up the rights to the Child's Play movies and quickly put out an adaptation of Child's Play 2. They started Child's Play: The Series but it was canceled after five issues. Devil's Due would pick up the rights but only got a four-issue miniseries out before Devil's Due would cancel it.
The only real positive comic Chucky got was his one issue crossover with Hack/Slash. It is a fun story and the art is fantastic. There haven't been any Chucky comics since but with the upcoming TV series fans can hope for a comics revival.
2 Army Of Darkness
The series follows everyone's favorite S-Mart Housewares manager Ash as he continues his war with the Deadites and the evil of the Necronomicon. It has been long-running and has seen crossovers with all sorts of other horror characters. Besides the usual Deadites, Ash crosses paths with Re-Animator, Marvel Zombies, Darkman, Xena, Hack/Slash, Vampirella, and Bubba Ho-Top.
The great thing about the series is it really feels like the Ash fans know once again being thrown into his usual hijinks with the Necronomicon. He gets sent back in time, to heaven, different realities, and even explores the vast undiscovered adventure of marriage. For fans that love the chainsaw hand, smart-mouthed lunk then this series is worth a pickup.
1 Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash
After the 2003 movie Freddy vs. Jason, there were rumblings that for the sequel they would be bringing in Ash to take on the two slasher icons. The movie never came to fruition but the story was then taken from the failed script and turned into a six-issue comic crossover series. Ash comes to the Crystal Lake S-Mart to help open their store. His real intention is to investigate the reports of an undead monster killing people.
He runs into Jason and thinking he is a Deadite begins to battle him. Freddy is shown to be trapped in Jason's mind after the end of Freddy vs. Jason and sends the undead goalie out to find the Necronomicon. With it, Freddy hopes to bring himself back to the mortal world but with all his dream powers. For fans of 80s horror films, this is the ultimate crossover that everyone needs to read. They did a follow-up series called Nightmare Warriors but it didn't have anything on this original run.