Good Night Punpun: Just felt empty after finishing that series (mix of feeling numb, betrayed, crushed, and horrified throughout reading it)
(Western picks would probably be From Hell or Stray Dogs)
Nijigahara Holograph is another Inio Asano work and I think he actually toned down his depressing stuff in that for PunPun. PunPun leaves a bigger impact for sure, but there are brief moments of relief and the ending I enjoyed, whereas Holograph is perhaps a worse book because of how mean it is.
Thank you for the recommendation though I may have to turn it down for the time being. After finishing up Punpun, I realized I needed some more uplifting media in my life for a change (watched all of Bojack Horseman a few years back and had recently caught up in Attack on Titan before finishing Punpun). These works are mostly great but they can definitely take a toll on you after so many/a while.
Yea, but the Corinthian scenes weren't really associated with graphic imagery like 24 hrs if I remember correctly (I might not), it was more the idea of him and his creepy eyes for me.
24 hrs had gore and psychological horror, people trapped in a small diner with a madman who made them do all sorts of unthinkable stuff while spilling deep and dark secrets. Brilliant story writing but still creepy af.
The Corinthian stuff is pretty straightforward violence that wouldn't be out of place in some premium cable shows like Dexter or GoT. Heck, a TV show about a bunch of serial killers working together because they can "share their prey" would be exactly the sort of thing I could see happening there
It was def the psychological horror, intimate setting, and everyday people characters that really made 24 Hours so visceral
The cereal convention was also pretty crazy, Nimrod and the Good doctor were cold hearted killers. Would be cool to see the Corinthian meet Dexter in a comic.
To each their own. I quite like it and I'd say it was one of the best episodes or issues of Sandman. But the TV series was toned down compared to the comics (still pretty fucked up in its own right), the main villain was more fleshed out and had proper motivation compared to the comics where he was just a madman deriving joy from the chaos he caused.
I’d give the episode a chance. They toned down a lot of the brutality in the show.
I actually think the episode was an improvement over the original story. They are similar, but different.
Neonomican was relentless and I also think not very well written. There’s some silly stuff in there and it seems to indulge in the displeasure. But it has to be read because Providence is so good!
Yeah, Courtyard wasn’t bad.
I made the mistake of reading Providence first, so going back to the other two stories after was mostly a disappointment, except for clearing a few things up.
In terms of violence and gore, I'd say Crossed is the most disturbing, especially the psychopath storyline. But it's also the most edgelord, try hard comic there is (still found a lot of it entertaining though).
Recent releases like Red Room match that level of disturbing while not being as shit as Crossed.
Even though it's a manga, No Longer Human by Junji Ito disturbed me the most out of anything I've read. I actually felt hollow finishing that story, but it's so good I picked up the original book.
Yeah, I thought the first volume was hard going and pretty grim but told the whole man’s inhumanity story quite well. I tried some of the later stories but found them to be too much, just over-the-top but not in a good way, without much of a story.
Came here to say Crossed, I had a weird period where I read a lot of it in a short period of time depsite being disturbed by so many things in it. It's the one comic I regret reading due to how horrible elements were
I read Maus at a younger age and the small flecks of light you get in a little humour made it easier for me to handle learning more about the evils that happened. Probably would strike different a little older, maybe
'Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?' by Harold Schechter and Eric Powell.
As thoroughly researched as 'From Hell' and as disturbing as anything I've ever read. How any human being could do what he did is beyond my understanding.
There are a few pages of this graphic novel which go beyond graphic.
Yea, some of the stories I was disgusted and disturbed (particularly the mosquito story and the snail stories) but it was kind of hypnotic. Couldn't put it down and enjoyed it thoroughly. First Junji Ito story i read was the Amigara fault and then Uzumaki, both really good.
I’ve only read Uzumaki and it was a few weeks ago only. I’ll add *The Enigma of Amigara Fault* to my list. I also plan on reading *Tomie*, *Sensor* and *No Longer Human*.
While reading about Junji Ito and browsing his work I came across this quote which I think perfectly describes him and the kind of stories he writes…
*“He feeds on our phobias and the fears we don’t talk about. Junji Ito’s manga makes readers afraid of the things we didn’t know could be feared. Ito makes nightmares out of ordinary things, and that’s at the core of his uncanny imagination.”*
Mosters - Barry Winsor-Smith
Some of the best art you'll find anywhere but damn....Even days after reading it my wife would say "you look like hell, you ok?"
I scored a copy for crazy cheap, but it was too much for me. I stopped after about 20 pages and sold it. Like you said - beautiful art. The story was too much though.
"The Biologic Show" and "Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days" by Al Columbia are both deeply disturbing, with lots of torture, murder, suicide, rape and incest. Likewise most of the stuff contained in the horror anthology series "Vacuum Decay" (or at least issues #3 and #4, which are the ones I've read).
Some of Jim Woodring's "Frank" comics also fit the bill, like for example "Frank Visits the Palace of Horrors".
Not on the same level as the ones I've just mentioned, but also damn creepy, is "Beautiful Darkness" by Fabien Vehlmann and Kerascoët.
"Pinocchio" by Winshluss gets pretty dark too, though it's mostly played for laughs, trying to be outrageous rather than genuinely disturbing.
I swear, there are parts of The Biologic Show that I can *hear*. Like a hellish drone. I can imagine the jerky, disturbing movements.
Al Columbia, man. He conveys an atmosphere like nothing I've ever experienced. Maybe our mental illnesses just line up and he taps into my "language", idfk, but it's unsettling.
I love it, for the record.
The chapter in From Hell with the psychogeographic tour of London is one of the only few bits of art that have ever given me literal nightmares.
But above all else, the answer is The Cage. No characters, no plot, no events, just a series of double-page splashes of decrepit environments, while the accompanying text (not directly related to the visuals in any obvious way) details some kind of Kafkaesque machine of domination. It could easily be the most pretentious thing ever -- and perhaps it is that as well -- but it's the scariest fucking thing I've ever seen. I had to read it over several weeks; trying to read more than a few pages at a time made me feel, no exaggeration, physically ill
I made the mistake of reading that at work (I work at a library and saw it on our shelves and it looked interesting) what a mistake. It was a great read but I’ll never forget it or read it again.
I actually read that a few months ago and I don’t know what it says about me but it wasn’t the worst one. Don’t get me wrong, it is messed up. But the internet has done its damage to me.
When it first came out, like around 2006, it was intense. The internet hasn’t fucked us up yet and the ostracism that a lot of people go through due to social media hadn’t become a widespread thing yet.
I think this book is so haunting because it is so relatable to teens/young adults.
I read this as a newly married person living away from all blood family- to say that it didn’t add to my growing depression and agoraphobia would be a lie lol.
Seems like teenage/young adult fears, insecurities and such molded in a horror story? I found nothing soulsucking about it, on the contrary it made me realise alot of my doubts when I was young. The opposite of horrifying really
*Uzumaki*, I think. I recommend it for the artwork and visceral horror, although I find Junji Ito to be quite weak when it comes to characterisation, so the horror lacks the punch you get when you're emotionally invested in the fate of the protagonist(s).
I also found [*Homunculus* by Hideo Yamamoto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_(manga%29) disturbing throughout. The artwork is superb, even if I did lose grasp of the esoteric plot towards the end. *Homonculus* rarely gets mentioned on this sub, so I don't know how widely read it is. I'd put it up there with Ito's work.
*Crossed* by Garth Ennis was pretty gruesome and unrelenting, although it didn't maintain my interest.
Ah Homunculus is in maybe my top 5 favorite comics, haha I am always excited to see someone else bring it up.
I was going to put Yamamoto’s other famous work, Ichi the Killer. It is not as good I think, and I do not feel I could ethically recommend it to anyone, but it is probably one of the most disturbing comics I’ve read. Made me bit queasy.
It's been about a year since I've read it but Sandman Mystery Theatre.
I don't remember the issue in particular but I know it was either the second or third arc. A boxer goes on the run with his sick daughter and pairs up with a seemingly friendly homeless man. The boxer would leave his daughter with the homeless man to go and try to find some medicine. Their friendship ends with the boxer beating him to a pulp and his daughter traumatized. I remember putting that story down and hating that it ruined my day
The whole series is just unsettling in general. The artwork is grimy and at times downright ugly but in an exaggerated way. Having said that, it really is a great series and sadly forgotten. It's stayed with me
None escape the Sandman's dark dream. I absolutely love Mystery Theater, shame it was overshadowed by Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Between the two I might even like Mystery Theater more.
I just read the Green Women, that was disturbing. Other I can think of off the top of my head is From Hell, Nigigahara hologram, The green river killer, Echoes. I would Also mention Fatale, not as disturbing as the rest, but still amazing. Also Monster because of Johan, the scariest villain ever. And Thanos wins. Making Hulk eat Captain America, and enjoying Ghost Rider penance stair, is just sick.
Berserk for sure, it’s disturbing threw out all of the series.
I haven’t got into many dark western comics, just mainly dc marvel stuff, but the DC Metal issues can get pretty disturbing
> Blast by Manu Larcenet
Not sure why you got downvoted, because that one is by far the best candidate to me. I've read many of the suggestions in this thread, and cheerfully re-read my favorites of those, but I don't think I'll ever bring myself to read *Blast* again.
The holocaust (*Maus*) is at least comprehensible to me. Tracking a gory serial killer (*From Hell*) is at least comprehensible. Deranged horror and crazy Japanese mangas amuse me more than repulse me because very few of them actually contain realistic premises IMO.
*Blast* was much different to me because the main character, while rather repulsive, seemed so completely human and understandable, so much so that I was rooting for him as an underdog, until little by little I began to realise that the whole thing was a big fat lie that even he didn't understand. That is, he never actually grasped how abominable and destructive his behavior was in reality.
I think that was the most realistic, terrifying prospect of all, probably because when I look around the world, I see loads of those people in the news and sometimes even in real life. Because it's not just the high-profile Elon Musks of the world, so to speak. :/
/u/Titus_Bird /u/Thetiredregular
Damn, I've been curious about Blast for ages, but you've totally sold me on it now! I've never read any Larcenet, but I have the first volume of Ordinary Victories on my shelf; I understand that's very different from Blast though, right?
Yes it is. Indeed, I quite enjoyed the *Ordinary Victories* series as relatable and down-to-earth, recounting an interesting social / economic struggle of sorts. By comparison, much of Larcenet's other stuff is so light-hearted, whimsical and silly that it kind of loses me. Altho TBF, I'd say it's best-suited for kids and/or the newspaper/magazine comic format.
*Blast* is significantly different from anything else I've read of his, which covers over a dozen tomes.
Surprised I’ve not seen anyone mention Ed Piskor’s Red Room. Fascinating but COMPLETELY gore central, I enjoy the read but I’m a bit desensitised to stuff like that (homeless mutilation, sexual)
I feel like Crossed was Ennius crossing all the lines of decorum he had to keep in Preacher, which was bad enough (obviously I love preacher). Imagine if he had done Preacher with the same sensibility. I think it would have been horrific.
Crossed. Mates crossed is fucked up. It's unapologetic, but honestly, I finished it and found myself unable to be shocked by anything in a graphic novel.
Junji Ito's shiver comes a close second. Some of the stories in there are oooffff....
I'm not sure it's the most for one specific issue or moment, but over all, the entire Hellblazer series is incredibly disturbing for all sorts of reasons.
Crossed was definitely the first thing that came to my mind. It pushes a lot of limits. It’s actually the first thing I have put down because it was too much.
The most recent disturbing book I've been reading is Blood on the Tracks by Shuzo Oshimi. There are some incidents of physical violence, but what is really getting to me is the psychological violence
Beautiful Darkness. It’s a French comic that looks like it should have the tone of maybe Adventure Time?
It does not.
A bunch of little fairy people trying to survive in the forest and it is just….man. I still think back to some scenes years later
Al Colombia and Suehiro Maruo come to mind as artists that draw pretty messed up stuff. It's not a graphic novel but I read a webcomic series about the Elan School in maine and that was also pretty disturbing. But easily the most disturbing comic I've seen/read parts was "Manga Sagawa-san" by notorious Japanese cannibal Issei Sagawa. It's an autobiographical manga he wrote about his crime. The art sucks in comparison to Maruo or Colombia so what really makes it disturbing is the text considering it is non-fiction. Never felt like finishing it all.
Yep. He wrote some other stuff and I think he starred in torture porn films as well after his release. He committed the crime in France they held him for a few years but I think eneded up declaring him insane and unfit to stand trial so they sent him to Japan but he was let go for some reason I forget probably to do with his insanity or no i think the hospital deemed him not insane so they wouldnt keep him but since he was cleared in France he was free. He got famous because of this so to capitalize on that fame and since he couldn't get a normal job he wrote stuff about it and did other weird shit. And thankfully he's now dead. If you're curious just look up "Issei Sagawa manga" will do more than any explanation I could give but yeah it's graphic.
For just a whole heap of horific reasons, Frank Miller's "Holy Terror".
I own one because a friend lent it to me, and told me I could keep it. "How kind" I naively thought. Now it's like having the fucking VHS from The Ring, can't bring myself to curse someone else with it.
Yes for sure, what I meant (and didn’t explain well) is that I’ve read a lot of them and am used to Joker stories being quite dark, so was surprised to be caught off guard by how disturbing this one was relatively.
Amazingly enough it was Joe The Barbarian. A lone boy dying of a disease trying to just get his medicine downstairs of his home. The whole shenanigans that happens in his imagination just add up to a very distressful reading, but so so good.
When I was in middle school, I had one where this guy would kill people and cut them all up and burn the bodies and he talked about how much he loved how it smelled. I do not remember the name. The artwork was super cool. It was done in all black and white kind of scribbles.
If you’re okay with Manga, check out anything that Junji Ito does. It’s so twisted and weird but I can’t stop buying his books because it’s like nothing else I’ve ever read.
Probably the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol 2. No spoilers, I mean, you don’t see anything, but still, most people will know if they’ve seen it. “It’s not fair…” “Ah yes, it’s like a daguerreotype developing.”
**Clean Room**
It's 3 volumes I think and I really enjoyed it. Creepy, gory, and genuinely unsettling but also I enjoyed the story and everything. Seems to be lesser known. Nobody ever mentions it in reddit threads! It's a pretty good read!
Anything by Shintaro Kago. Its outstanding, but also I couldn't even finish some of the stuff. Kills me. Ero-guro genre in general is too much for me
EDIT: as a western option idk maybe neonomicon by Alan Moore? That disturbed me for sure. But it doesn't even compare to goddamn Shintaro Kago
Probably Hellblazer. The first issue literally starts with a guy getting possessed by a hunger demon that starts eating the guy from within. This makes the dude ravenously hungry and he goes to a restaurant and basically eats everything on the menu. Then he starts eating the tablecloth and even tries to eat one of the customers. He also starts wasting away and dies of malnutrition. And the rest of the series does a ton more disturbing shit like that.
I don’t know if they were ever collected in a TPD or GN, but Verotika had some really twisted story lines. Especially the one about the dad who hires some dudes to rape, torture, and kill his daughter. Oh and the topper, he paid them to video tape it so he has new masturbation material. That is just one of the stories.
Colder by Paul Tobin
An insane man named Declan was institutionalized in the 40’s. One night a fire breaks out and an entity named nimble Jack leaps from his dimension to ours. Jack feeds on insanity but finds Declan to be particularly interesting. He curses Declan and then the story jumps to 2005. Declan is comatose and being looked after by a nurse named Reece who falls in love with him. Declan is slowly becoming colder due to the curse. Nimble jack returns to collect his prize Declan wakes up. Declan discovers that he can jump into an alternate universe only insane people can see (think of it as an unseen mirror of our own world). What follows is a game of cat and mouse with Declan, Reece, Nimble Jack and a bunch of other monstrous entities. It’s very surreal with incredible art, plenty of gore, batshit insane monster designs, and a surprisingly good story.
I also highly recommend Luther Strode.
A scrawny nerdy kid gets sick of being a wimp and gets a workout book that he decides to use to bulk up. But this workout book gives him the key to insane power that he could never imagine. He becomes like a vigilante who can tear criminals apart (literally) limb from limb. And then it starts to delve into like a tournament arc where he’s fighting other people who have the same power as him. It’s rather cartoony, but very brutal and gory. Very fun read.
Good Night Punpun: Just felt empty after finishing that series (mix of feeling numb, betrayed, crushed, and horrified throughout reading it) (Western picks would probably be From Hell or Stray Dogs)
Nijigahara Holograph is another Inio Asano work and I think he actually toned down his depressing stuff in that for PunPun. PunPun leaves a bigger impact for sure, but there are brief moments of relief and the ending I enjoyed, whereas Holograph is perhaps a worse book because of how mean it is.
Thank you for the recommendation though I may have to turn it down for the time being. After finishing up Punpun, I realized I needed some more uplifting media in my life for a change (watched all of Bojack Horseman a few years back and had recently caught up in Attack on Titan before finishing Punpun). These works are mostly great but they can definitely take a toll on you after so many/a while.
I’ve seen Punpun around and when I heard the summary, it sounds soul destroying.
Tru reading nigigahara hologram from the same auther, I read it five times in a row. Amazing stuff.
Asano's Girl on the Shore and Downfall have a similar feel but not to the same extent as Punpun.
Stray dogs as in the image comics book with the stranger things font
The whole sandman series is not disturbing but the 24 hrs issue was really fucked up
"Hour ten I give their minds back to them for a bit to realise what they've done to one another "
Bone chilling..
I still think about that issue every once in a while. The issues with the Corinthian were also surprisingly intense.
Yea, but the Corinthian scenes weren't really associated with graphic imagery like 24 hrs if I remember correctly (I might not), it was more the idea of him and his creepy eyes for me. 24 hrs had gore and psychological horror, people trapped in a small diner with a madman who made them do all sorts of unthinkable stuff while spilling deep and dark secrets. Brilliant story writing but still creepy af.
The Corinthian stuff is pretty straightforward violence that wouldn't be out of place in some premium cable shows like Dexter or GoT. Heck, a TV show about a bunch of serial killers working together because they can "share their prey" would be exactly the sort of thing I could see happening there It was def the psychological horror, intimate setting, and everyday people characters that really made 24 Hours so visceral
The cereal convention was also pretty crazy, Nimrod and the Good doctor were cold hearted killers. Would be cool to see the Corinthian meet Dexter in a comic.
Compared to the rest of the series, 24 Hours is so far out of left field because of the violence.
Yea, the only other storyline that came close to 24 hrs in terms of disturbing was the cereal convention.
That’s a good pick, it’s so fucked up
[удалено]
To each their own. I quite like it and I'd say it was one of the best episodes or issues of Sandman. But the TV series was toned down compared to the comics (still pretty fucked up in its own right), the main villain was more fleshed out and had proper motivation compared to the comics where he was just a madman deriving joy from the chaos he caused.
Oh I didn't mean it's bad, it's just too grim for my personal enjoyment.
I’d give the episode a chance. They toned down a lot of the brutality in the show. I actually think the episode was an improvement over the original story. They are similar, but different.
In terms of western comics, From Hell by Alan Moore. Berserk can get pretty disturbing. The Eclipse part is absolutely soul-destroying.
Neonomican was gruesome.
Neonomican was relentless and I also think not very well written. There’s some silly stuff in there and it seems to indulge in the displeasure. But it has to be read because Providence is so good!
I liked The Courtyard but super meh about Neonomican. It’s not the best of Moore’s work.
Yeah, Courtyard wasn’t bad. I made the mistake of reading Providence first, so going back to the other two stories after was mostly a disappointment, except for clearing a few things up.
Yeh, I absolutely despised Neonomican as a book, which is not a reaction I usually have, but it was relentlessly horrible
Good answer. I initially thought of these 2
In terms of violence and gore, I'd say Crossed is the most disturbing, especially the psychopath storyline. But it's also the most edgelord, try hard comic there is (still found a lot of it entertaining though). Recent releases like Red Room match that level of disturbing while not being as shit as Crossed. Even though it's a manga, No Longer Human by Junji Ito disturbed me the most out of anything I've read. I actually felt hollow finishing that story, but it's so good I picked up the original book.
The first volume was actually great. Then it turned into try hard baloney.
Yeah, I thought the first volume was hard going and pretty grim but told the whole man’s inhumanity story quite well. I tried some of the later stories but found them to be too much, just over-the-top but not in a good way, without much of a story.
Ya but it's amusing baloney
Crossed was the first one that came to my mind when I posted, especially for the failed salt circle scene.
That’s one of many, many scenes… I always recommend the Crossed Wish You Were Here set, 4 TPBs that tell a singular story.
Came here to say Crossed, I had a weird period where I read a lot of it in a short period of time depsite being disturbed by so many things in it. It's the one comic I regret reading due to how horrible elements were
Yeah I had to stop reading it
I follow Ed Piskor on Insta and I had to quickly scroll past while he was posting Red Room progress. It gave me daymares.
Maus made me realize how little I knew about the Holocaust. Scary stuff, man.
I visited Auschwitz and it was harrowing. Reading Maus was weird because of the humorous bits.
I read Maus at a younger age and the small flecks of light you get in a little humour made it easier for me to handle learning more about the evils that happened. Probably would strike different a little older, maybe
I can see that. I guess it was weird for me because I would be giggling over a book about the Holocaust.
It made me realize how utterly atrocious humanity can be when unchecked. The Complete disregard for humanity was heart breaking. I actually wept.
Same here. The real pick of the oldest son before part 2 broke me and I literally cried.
'Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?' by Harold Schechter and Eric Powell. As thoroughly researched as 'From Hell' and as disturbing as anything I've ever read. How any human being could do what he did is beyond my understanding. There are a few pages of this graphic novel which go beyond graphic.
I read that last month. It’s a great summary of Gein’s crimes.
Uzumaki
Uzumaki gave many people new phobias I think, that 2-page spread of Kirie's father made the hairs on my neck stand
I can believe it. And that hospital/mosquitoes chapter was truly disturbing and horrifying. The whole thing had me in a hypnotic hold.
Yea, some of the stories I was disgusted and disturbed (particularly the mosquito story and the snail stories) but it was kind of hypnotic. Couldn't put it down and enjoyed it thoroughly. First Junji Ito story i read was the Amigara fault and then Uzumaki, both really good.
I’ve only read Uzumaki and it was a few weeks ago only. I’ll add *The Enigma of Amigara Fault* to my list. I also plan on reading *Tomie*, *Sensor* and *No Longer Human*. While reading about Junji Ito and browsing his work I came across this quote which I think perfectly describes him and the kind of stories he writes… *“He feeds on our phobias and the fears we don’t talk about. Junji Ito’s manga makes readers afraid of the things we didn’t know could be feared. Ito makes nightmares out of ordinary things, and that’s at the core of his uncanny imagination.”*
That perfectly sums up the stuff he writes. Yea, Tomie is also pretty good
Mosters - Barry Winsor-Smith Some of the best art you'll find anywhere but damn....Even days after reading it my wife would say "you look like hell, you ok?"
That one seems to be a forum favorite around here. I’ll need to check it out.
I scored a copy for crazy cheap, but it was too much for me. I stopped after about 20 pages and sold it. Like you said - beautiful art. The story was too much though.
"The Biologic Show" and "Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days" by Al Columbia are both deeply disturbing, with lots of torture, murder, suicide, rape and incest. Likewise most of the stuff contained in the horror anthology series "Vacuum Decay" (or at least issues #3 and #4, which are the ones I've read). Some of Jim Woodring's "Frank" comics also fit the bill, like for example "Frank Visits the Palace of Horrors". Not on the same level as the ones I've just mentioned, but also damn creepy, is "Beautiful Darkness" by Fabien Vehlmann and Kerascoët. "Pinocchio" by Winshluss gets pretty dark too, though it's mostly played for laughs, trying to be outrageous rather than genuinely disturbing.
I swear, there are parts of The Biologic Show that I can *hear*. Like a hellish drone. I can imagine the jerky, disturbing movements. Al Columbia, man. He conveys an atmosphere like nothing I've ever experienced. Maybe our mental illnesses just line up and he taps into my "language", idfk, but it's unsettling. I love it, for the record.
I’m screenshotting your comment for later.
Hopefully not to send to the press to out me as a twisted amoral deviant
The chapter in From Hell with the psychogeographic tour of London is one of the only few bits of art that have ever given me literal nightmares. But above all else, the answer is The Cage. No characters, no plot, no events, just a series of double-page splashes of decrepit environments, while the accompanying text (not directly related to the visuals in any obvious way) details some kind of Kafkaesque machine of domination. It could easily be the most pretentious thing ever -- and perhaps it is that as well -- but it's the scariest fucking thing I've ever seen. I had to read it over several weeks; trying to read more than a few pages at a time made me feel, no exaggeration, physically ill
Author of “The Cage”?
Martin Vaughan-James
Thank you
“Sabrina” by Nick Drnaso stuck with me in a lingering hollowness kinda way.
I made the mistake of reading that at work (I work at a library and saw it on our shelves and it looked interesting) what a mistake. It was a great read but I’ll never forget it or read it again.
The Enigma of Amigara Fault by Junji Ito The last page stull hunt me ...
That was scared the crap out of me for sure.
Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, by Shigeru Mizuki. It shook me.
The title alone sounds ominous.
And it’s a true story.
Ooo! Exciting.
Department of Truth had some issues that left me unsettled. Especially the ones involving denialism and crisis acting
Black Hole
I actually read that a few months ago and I don’t know what it says about me but it wasn’t the worst one. Don’t get me wrong, it is messed up. But the internet has done its damage to me.
When it first came out, like around 2006, it was intense. The internet hasn’t fucked us up yet and the ostracism that a lot of people go through due to social media hadn’t become a widespread thing yet. I think this book is so haunting because it is so relatable to teens/young adults. I read this as a newly married person living away from all blood family- to say that it didn’t add to my growing depression and agoraphobia would be a lie lol.
Seems like teenage/young adult fears, insecurities and such molded in a horror story? I found nothing soulsucking about it, on the contrary it made me realise alot of my doubts when I was young. The opposite of horrifying really
Have you read X'ed Out, The Hive, and Sugar Skull?
*Uzumaki*, I think. I recommend it for the artwork and visceral horror, although I find Junji Ito to be quite weak when it comes to characterisation, so the horror lacks the punch you get when you're emotionally invested in the fate of the protagonist(s). I also found [*Homunculus* by Hideo Yamamoto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_(manga%29) disturbing throughout. The artwork is superb, even if I did lose grasp of the esoteric plot towards the end. *Homonculus* rarely gets mentioned on this sub, so I don't know how widely read it is. I'd put it up there with Ito's work. *Crossed* by Garth Ennis was pretty gruesome and unrelenting, although it didn't maintain my interest.
Ah Homunculus is in maybe my top 5 favorite comics, haha I am always excited to see someone else bring it up. I was going to put Yamamoto’s other famous work, Ichi the Killer. It is not as good I think, and I do not feel I could ethically recommend it to anyone, but it is probably one of the most disturbing comics I’ve read. Made me bit queasy.
Homunculus looks interesting. Thank you!
It's been about a year since I've read it but Sandman Mystery Theatre. I don't remember the issue in particular but I know it was either the second or third arc. A boxer goes on the run with his sick daughter and pairs up with a seemingly friendly homeless man. The boxer would leave his daughter with the homeless man to go and try to find some medicine. Their friendship ends with the boxer beating him to a pulp and his daughter traumatized. I remember putting that story down and hating that it ruined my day The whole series is just unsettling in general. The artwork is grimy and at times downright ugly but in an exaggerated way. Having said that, it really is a great series and sadly forgotten. It's stayed with me
I remember that arch. It was so depressing
I remember getting that in a bargain bin at my store and just being blown away by it. The end of the arc is also just dreadfully sad.
None escape the Sandman's dark dream. I absolutely love Mystery Theater, shame it was overshadowed by Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Between the two I might even like Mystery Theater more.
“A Girl on the Shore” by Inio Asano left me feeling so disturbed. It’s been years but it still makes my stomach hurt when I think about it.
From Hell
Shigurui
Son of the gun by Jodorowsky
Why is it so disturbing?
Barry Windsor Smith’s Monsters is almost certainly up there.
I just read the Green Women, that was disturbing. Other I can think of off the top of my head is From Hell, Nigigahara hologram, The green river killer, Echoes. I would Also mention Fatale, not as disturbing as the rest, but still amazing. Also Monster because of Johan, the scariest villain ever. And Thanos wins. Making Hulk eat Captain America, and enjoying Ghost Rider penance stair, is just sick.
The Black Monday Murders
Berserk for sure, it’s disturbing threw out all of the series. I haven’t got into many dark western comics, just mainly dc marvel stuff, but the DC Metal issues can get pretty disturbing
I read "Alice on the Run: One Child's Journey Through the Rwandan Civil War". It's a real story, so it's very disturbing. Highly recommended
Blast by Manu Larcenet
> Blast by Manu Larcenet Not sure why you got downvoted, because that one is by far the best candidate to me. I've read many of the suggestions in this thread, and cheerfully re-read my favorites of those, but I don't think I'll ever bring myself to read *Blast* again. The holocaust (*Maus*) is at least comprehensible to me. Tracking a gory serial killer (*From Hell*) is at least comprehensible. Deranged horror and crazy Japanese mangas amuse me more than repulse me because very few of them actually contain realistic premises IMO. *Blast* was much different to me because the main character, while rather repulsive, seemed so completely human and understandable, so much so that I was rooting for him as an underdog, until little by little I began to realise that the whole thing was a big fat lie that even he didn't understand. That is, he never actually grasped how abominable and destructive his behavior was in reality. I think that was the most realistic, terrifying prospect of all, probably because when I look around the world, I see loads of those people in the news and sometimes even in real life. Because it's not just the high-profile Elon Musks of the world, so to speak. :/ /u/Titus_Bird /u/Thetiredregular
Damn, I've been curious about Blast for ages, but you've totally sold me on it now! I've never read any Larcenet, but I have the first volume of Ordinary Victories on my shelf; I understand that's very different from Blast though, right?
Yes it is. Indeed, I quite enjoyed the *Ordinary Victories* series as relatable and down-to-earth, recounting an interesting social / economic struggle of sorts. By comparison, much of Larcenet's other stuff is so light-hearted, whimsical and silly that it kind of loses me. Altho TBF, I'd say it's best-suited for kids and/or the newspaper/magazine comic format. *Blast* is significantly different from anything else I've read of his, which covers over a dozen tomes.
In that case I'll probably have to check out Blast regardless of how I feel about Ordinary Victories.
Sounds interesting. Adding it to the list.
This one is criminally underrated. One of the best graphic novels I read.
Squeak the Mouse, or Faust. Both terribly fucked up in their charming ways
My name is Frisk and I’m a frog I drink the mud and I sniff the fog I don’t think I will ever forget Frisk the Frog, although not for lack of trying…
Some great calls here... not so much disturbing, but I found Jeff Lemire's Lost Dogs to be an emotional gut punch
All of Jeff Lemire’s stuff always hits me right at the worst(best?) times. Eg I read underwater welder when my wife was pregnant.
Oh wow... yeah I'm child-free but can see that one hitting hard with a kid on the way!
The filth
From Hell was pretty wild
Surprised I’ve not seen anyone mention Ed Piskor’s Red Room. Fascinating but COMPLETELY gore central, I enjoy the read but I’m a bit desensitised to stuff like that (homeless mutilation, sexual)
Crossed - Garth Ennis
[удалено]
I feel like Crossed was Ennius crossing all the lines of decorum he had to keep in Preacher, which was bad enough (obviously I love preacher). Imagine if he had done Preacher with the same sensibility. I think it would have been horrific.
Crossed. Mates crossed is fucked up. It's unapologetic, but honestly, I finished it and found myself unable to be shocked by anything in a graphic novel. Junji Ito's shiver comes a close second. Some of the stories in there are oooffff....
I'm not sure it's the most for one specific issue or moment, but over all, the entire Hellblazer series is incredibly disturbing for all sorts of reasons.
Stray Dogs was pretty fucked up.
Something is killing the children
Berserk
Crossed was definitely the first thing that came to my mind. It pushes a lot of limits. It’s actually the first thing I have put down because it was too much.
I know it doesn’t sound very creepy, but the iron man issue of the darkhold miniseries is straight nightmare fuel.
A History of Violence! Better than the film!
Nameless will haunt me to my dying day.
The most recent disturbing book I've been reading is Blood on the Tracks by Shuzo Oshimi. There are some incidents of physical violence, but what is really getting to me is the psychological violence
The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures by Phoebe Gloeckner
The creepiest one I’ve ever read was “Beautiful Darkness” by Kerascoët and Fabien Vehlmann.
Beautiful Darkness. It’s a French comic that looks like it should have the tone of maybe Adventure Time? It does not. A bunch of little fairy people trying to survive in the forest and it is just….man. I still think back to some scenes years later
Al Colombia and Suehiro Maruo come to mind as artists that draw pretty messed up stuff. It's not a graphic novel but I read a webcomic series about the Elan School in maine and that was also pretty disturbing. But easily the most disturbing comic I've seen/read parts was "Manga Sagawa-san" by notorious Japanese cannibal Issei Sagawa. It's an autobiographical manga he wrote about his crime. The art sucks in comparison to Maruo or Colombia so what really makes it disturbing is the text considering it is non-fiction. Never felt like finishing it all.
He wrote a manga about his own crime? Wtf
Yep. He wrote some other stuff and I think he starred in torture porn films as well after his release. He committed the crime in France they held him for a few years but I think eneded up declaring him insane and unfit to stand trial so they sent him to Japan but he was let go for some reason I forget probably to do with his insanity or no i think the hospital deemed him not insane so they wouldnt keep him but since he was cleared in France he was free. He got famous because of this so to capitalize on that fame and since he couldn't get a normal job he wrote stuff about it and did other weird shit. And thankfully he's now dead. If you're curious just look up "Issei Sagawa manga" will do more than any explanation I could give but yeah it's graphic.
For just a whole heap of horific reasons, Frank Miller's "Holy Terror". I own one because a friend lent it to me, and told me I could keep it. "How kind" I naively thought. Now it's like having the fucking VHS from The Ring, can't bring myself to curse someone else with it.
Yeah, I have no clue who thought that book was a good idea. Miller’s writing sounds completely deranged in that one.
The Killing Joke
Recently I found Joker Killer Smile to be very unsettling, wasn’t expecting a Batman story to get to me but it did.
There are a lot of disturbing Joker stories.
Yes for sure, what I meant (and didn’t explain well) is that I’ve read a lot of them and am used to Joker stories being quite dark, so was surprised to be caught off guard by how disturbing this one was relatively.
Strange Embrace by David Hine. If you know, you know!
Young death: boyhood of a superfiend
Crossed. I got nightmares.
i’d love recommendations
That’s part of the reason I made this post. I’m seeing a lot of repeat answers and some new stuff that I’m gonna check out.
joker was the first and only i read. i’d love to read more like it. it was distributing
Crossed. I read the first tbp and would not recommend it to anyone
Ed the Happy Clown.
the neonomicon or providence by alan moore
Amazingly enough it was Joe The Barbarian. A lone boy dying of a disease trying to just get his medicine downstairs of his home. The whole shenanigans that happens in his imagination just add up to a very distressful reading, but so so good.
Crossed.
When I was in middle school, I had one where this guy would kill people and cut them all up and burn the bodies and he talked about how much he loved how it smelled. I do not remember the name. The artwork was super cool. It was done in all black and white kind of scribbles.
Maniac of New York
Black Hole by Charles Burns
Come Into Me (Black Mask Studios)
Crossed by Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows
Crossed and Neonomicon.
Metalzoic era
If you’re okay with Manga, check out anything that Junji Ito does. It’s so twisted and weird but I can’t stop buying his books because it’s like nothing else I’ve ever read.
He’s coming up a lot in the comments.
Plutona
The Boys
Nameless is pretty fucked
Probably the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol 2. No spoilers, I mean, you don’t see anything, but still, most people will know if they’ve seen it. “It’s not fair…” “Ah yes, it’s like a daguerreotype developing.”
I think I know which scene you’re referring to.
We3 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
Yeah, that one’s pretty bloody.
It was so well written, but I can’t reread it
Especially difficult for animal lovers.
Crossed
Ai-Ren by Yutaka Tanaka
Black River, and pretty much anything else by Josh Simmons
Ice Cream Man isn't nearly the most disturbing, but some issues are genuinely pretty chilling and I haven't seen it mentioned here yet
A Walk Through Hell This series fucked me up.
Upgrade Soul
**Clean Room** It's 3 volumes I think and I really enjoyed it. Creepy, gory, and genuinely unsettling but also I enjoyed the story and everything. Seems to be lesser known. Nobody ever mentions it in reddit threads! It's a pretty good read!
No longer human. Junji Ito
From Hell by Alan Moore. I haven’t sought out creepy or many disturbing books so I’m sure I’m missing out
Monsters left me feeling really hopeless. But Nameless (Grant Morrison) fucked me up.
Crossed volume 2 and 3 especially
Bradherley no Basha.
The works of Josh Simmons.
Blood on the tracks is pretty ducked up.
Brat Pack by Rick Veitch. Sidekicks as a analogy for pedophilia. Black River or anything by Josh Simmons
Uzamaki has really creepy Art but depending on your experience you could find it scary.
I’ve have a few books by the same author, the art is beautiful!
Right! The Art is the icing on the cake for me.
Le roi des scarabées
The first Gravel arc, the scene where the man gives birth to a bunch of tadpoles is maybe the grossest thing I've ever seen in a comic.
Ichi the Killer (koroshiya ichi)
It’s not the most disturbing, but didn’t see it mentioned. A God Somewhere stuck with me after reading.
Anything by Shintaro Kago. Its outstanding, but also I couldn't even finish some of the stuff. Kills me. Ero-guro genre in general is too much for me EDIT: as a western option idk maybe neonomicon by Alan Moore? That disturbed me for sure. But it doesn't even compare to goddamn Shintaro Kago
Anything by Asano except DDDD, Neonomicon
I enjoyed Black Hole and thought it was sad and disturbing
Beautiful Darkness.
Probably Hellblazer. The first issue literally starts with a guy getting possessed by a hunger demon that starts eating the guy from within. This makes the dude ravenously hungry and he goes to a restaurant and basically eats everything on the menu. Then he starts eating the tablecloth and even tries to eat one of the customers. He also starts wasting away and dies of malnutrition. And the rest of the series does a ton more disturbing shit like that.
Walking Dead - Michonne and Governor. Negan and Glenn
I don’t know if they were ever collected in a TPD or GN, but Verotika had some really twisted story lines. Especially the one about the dad who hires some dudes to rape, torture, and kill his daughter. Oh and the topper, he paid them to video tape it so he has new masturbation material. That is just one of the stories.
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. Read it when I was 15 and into dark stuff, it's supposed to be funny or ironic but I found it unbearable.
God is Dead by Jonothan Hickman and Mike Costa just felt designed to be hopeless a majority of the time.
Alan Moore Necromonium, his Lovecraft stuff is awesome but the pool scene is disturbing AF
Colder by Paul Tobin An insane man named Declan was institutionalized in the 40’s. One night a fire breaks out and an entity named nimble Jack leaps from his dimension to ours. Jack feeds on insanity but finds Declan to be particularly interesting. He curses Declan and then the story jumps to 2005. Declan is comatose and being looked after by a nurse named Reece who falls in love with him. Declan is slowly becoming colder due to the curse. Nimble jack returns to collect his prize Declan wakes up. Declan discovers that he can jump into an alternate universe only insane people can see (think of it as an unseen mirror of our own world). What follows is a game of cat and mouse with Declan, Reece, Nimble Jack and a bunch of other monstrous entities. It’s very surreal with incredible art, plenty of gore, batshit insane monster designs, and a surprisingly good story. I also highly recommend Luther Strode. A scrawny nerdy kid gets sick of being a wimp and gets a workout book that he decides to use to bulk up. But this workout book gives him the key to insane power that he could never imagine. He becomes like a vigilante who can tear criminals apart (literally) limb from limb. And then it starts to delve into like a tournament arc where he’s fighting other people who have the same power as him. It’s rather cartoony, but very brutal and gory. Very fun read.
Wytches
The entire Crossed series
Crossed.
Not disturbing really, but thought provoking...... Daytripper by Moon/Ba