Greetings ghosts and ghoulies and welcome to The Theatre of Terror the home of horror comic news, reviews, classic comic scans and creepy art from around the world. Just remember, it's not for the nervous!
This year sees the 25th anniversary of the appearance of Scream! comic on newsagents shelves. So we at Back From The Depths were thinking… What better time to pay tribute by producing our very own Scream! inspired tribute publication?
That’s where you lot come in. Back From The Depths are looking for artists and writers to help bring this idea to fruition.
We initially plan to produce a 32 page “issue zero”, which will be available to download for free in pdf format. However, we may stretch to 64 pages if we receive enough contributions, and this is the pagecount we’d be aiming for with any subsequent issues.
Ideal submissions should be horror orientated and must be weird or spooky to make the final cut. We are mainly looking for completed comic strips between 1-7 pages in length. Eerie illustrations and artwork along with interesting horror/comic articles, scary short stories, petrifying poems or anything just plain creepy will also be considered.
We’ll also consider material previously published elsewhere, as long as the contributors own the copyright.
Completed artwork should preferably be A4 (21cm x 29.7cm) 300 dpi jpegs.
Submissions can be sent to malcolmkirk(at)hotmail.co.uk or you can join the ning group and upload stuff there if you prefer.
To get involved visit the forum for more information, post your suggestions and stories and check out existing story ideas…
I bought this game a few months ago and although I no longer play it as much as I did, it is certainly worth a mention on this site. I’ll try not to gush about it too much as I can do about things that get me excited.
Left 4 Dead is a survival horror first person shooter game available for the Xbox360 or the PC. Made by Valve, the people behind Half Life 2, this very simple game is quite possibly the best horror game ever made. If you own a PC or Xbox then I recommend that you go out now and buy it.
It is like sombody reached in to my head and made my ideal Zombie holocaust game.
The game begins with a 5 minute intro movie that will scare your pants clean off and will have your blood pumping from the adrenaline rush. From then on the game involves sneaking round buildings and streets trying not to awake any zombie hordes. Obviously is you never met any zombies the game would be poor, so when you do accidently set of a car alarm and the zombies attack, the game becomes a frenzy of blasting as many zombs as possible as they pour out of holes in the ceilings or burst through doors in their hundreds. Not only is this completely terrifying, but it’s also an absolute hoot!
The zombies are a slow moving Romero type bunch, until startled, when they suddenly become enraged and come out you 28 Days Later style. Brilliant! There are also specialist zombies which are harder to kill and this adds a bit of variation to the game.
The graphics aren’t amazing but do the trick. The key to this game lies in the addictive gameplay and the online 4 player story modes. It really is a game that needs to be played with other humans to get the full benefit.
Back from the Depths Rating:
Thoroughly entertaining this game is a must for any fan of the Zombie genre. 10/10
If you still need persuading to buy this wonderful game then just check the intro movie below.
‘The Spine Chillers’ is a weekly comic strip exclusive to the Renegade website. ‘The Spine Chillers’ relates the little known story about the time the worlds greatest writers shared a small boarding house to create some of the most loved horror stories of all time.
Small press comic genius Ben Clark is the creative talent behind the strip and will be delivering a freshly drawn adventure each Friday.
Marvel at HP Lovecraft’s inspiration for Cthulu, gasp as Ambrose Bierce struggles under the weight of his own creative output, and marvel as Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mud wrestle to determine once and for all who is the better horror writer.
Click the picture or the link below to read the story…
I found the following on an abandoned Yahoo Group. Apparently it’s from the 1970s House of Hammer magazine. Issue 7 to be precise. Both script and artwork are by Dave Gibbons of Watchmen fame.
Issue 2 of the London Horror Comic was released in March and has been receiving good reviews.
“Collecting a series of short quirky and downright sinister tales, this book will have you rolling with laughter in scenes of social awkwardness one minute, while checking the locks on your doors the next.”
Not exactly horror, but definitely worth a mention, (despite what you may have thought of the last couple of series). Science fiction sit-com, Red Dwarf returns to screens tomorrow night, (Friday 10th April), after an absence of ten years.
Three brand new episodes, (collectively titled “Back To Earth”), will be shown at 9pm over three consecutive nights, on the UK freeview channel, Dave, with all three episodes and the “making of” documentary being repeated on monday.
Impossible Pictures animation subsidiary Firestep have announced plans to develop full motion comics in collaboration with Rebellion, Europe’s No.1 independent games developer.
Rebellion are rights holders of 2000AD, Britain’s multi-award winning sci-fi comic that has been at the cutting edge of contemporary pop culture since it’s first publication in 1977.
Firestep’s Steve Maher says “We have an enviable creative challenge ahead of us in translating the extraordinarily diverse visual and narrative worlds of the 2000AD originals into animation. Beyond that we also want to structure the series in a way that mirrors the comic book- several short fully animated TV episodes of ongoing adventures, each starring a different 2000AD hero, each contained within a single show – a full motion comic.”
The latest issue of free PDF comic, Temple APA is now available for download. Compiled by John Kirkham, it features stuff from Adam Grose, Dave Hailwood, Jim Stewart, Paul Eldridge, Simon Mackie, Tony Suleri and Malcolm (that’s me, that is) Kirk. Also included within it’s 64 pages is a directory of British Small Press publications.
If you’re a comic artist/writer who’s interested in joining the Temple APA, then more details are available on the site which you can visit by clicking this link… http://templeapa.ning.com/
To download issue three, right click on the link below and “Save Target As…” or “Save Link As…” if you’re using Firefox.
I just received an email from someone wishing to remain anonymous because they have in their possession something that could potentially be worth rather a lot of money. Namely, Scream! number 16!
Yes, you read that correctly. I don’t know the exact details, but apparently a dummy issue of number 16 was produced before the decision was made to merge it with Eagle. I’ve been provided with a couple of scans which I’ve included below. The front cover (which depicts a scene from the final part of the “Doctor Death” Tales From The Grave story), and what appears to be a preview panel for Terror of the Cats 2, which would have begun in issue 17.
Cool or what?!? Hopefully more scans and information will be provided soon. Watch this space!
Do you want to join the Scream team? We're looking for enthusiastic people to contribute articles on horror or comics here on The Theatre of Terror. Contact me for more info.
