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Keep Your Readers Terrified with these Tips on the Horror Comic

Boo! This week’s mini-comic masterclass sets its sights on horror comics.
Panel selection from The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina by Robert Aguirre-Sacasa, Robert Hack, and Jack Morelli. Screencap via

Why is it so hard to make a good, truly scary horror comic book? That’s the question at the center of this week’s comic masterclass Strip Panel Naked. Created by Hass Otsmane-Elhaou, the web series breaks down a specific comic convention or technique weekly. Otsmane-Elhaou wanted to focus on horror this week because, “I've had some feedback since starting the channel about horror comics, about how it's hard to make a horror comic 'scary'. So I take a look at the most famous horror effect in cinema, the sharp, quick cut to a scary image, and we dissect how you can create a similar effect with page turns in comics.”

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The comic used as a focus for this week’s episode is The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina by Robert Aguirre-Sacasa, Robert Hack, and Jack Morelli. The comic takes the classic Sabrina the Teenage Witch character and acts as “kind of a re-boot, re-imagining of some of the Sabrina world, and the other cast of Archie characters. It's set in the 60's, and Sabrina is a young witch-in-training. Of course, some bad stuff ends up happening and she has to try and protect some of the non-witch people in her life. As we see in this episode, maybe it doesn't end so well.”

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Panel selection from The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina by Robert Aguirre-Sacasa, Robert Hack, and Jack Morelli. Screencap via

With a focus on the page turn inherent in comic reading, Otsmane-Elhaou explains that creators can thoroughly manipulate their audiences. “In comics, you have to build pace for the reader, and part of that is page turns. Using a page turn as an 'unknown,' you can get readers burning through pages to create speed and wanting to get to the next page, the next, the next, and so on. You can build pace this way, and create this 'inclusive' effect where the reader gets more sucked in because they're becoming part of that storytelling process. Then you can hit them with the scary images.”

Watch the full horror rundown below:

To see more, visit the Strip Panel Naked YouTube page, and the SPN Patreon page to donate to the series.

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