San Francisco Frontiers - Horror comics boom in our age of anxiety

The New York-based writer sold around five million copies of his "Something is Killing the Children" series, which first appeared in 2019.

It follows Erica Slaughter, a mysterious woman with a stuffed octopus, who can see the invisible monsters that have been murdering children in a small American town.

Subsequent works "The House on the Lake" or "The Department of Truth" have tackled human survival and conspiracy theories, helping turn Tynion into one of the top-selling independent American comics creators across all genres.

"Horror allows you to talk about what you're afraid about in society, and what you're afraid about in yourself, and you get to dial it up to all of these extremes," he told AFP in an interview in Paris.

According to the affable 38-year-old, ultra-violent or supernatural stories -- from Netflix's "Stranger Things" to gaming favourite "Resident Evil" -- work as a sort of pressure valve.

But they also hold up a reassuring mirror, helping make real-life fears seem somehow less frightening.

"The benefit of the horror genre is that there are stories in which there are actual monsters. The things that are wrong in society are crystallised into these personas that then you get to see wreak havoc or get their comeuppance," he said.

"There's something very cathartic in engaging in horror. It's been like this in previous decades: when the world is more frightening, horror as a genre does better," he added.

The popularity of horror and crime comics in the post-war 1950s -- and outrage from politicians -- led to American publishers agreeing to the Comics Code Authority, which effectively banned the genre until the 1970s and 80s.

- 'Rules out the window' -

Societal problems are very much on Tynion's mind in his latest book, "Exquisite Corpses", which has sold 500,000 copies since its release in the United States last year.

The final chapter will be published in the United States in May, while the first French-language versions appeared earlier this month.

Created with Canadian visual artist Michael Walsh, the series imagines a dystopian world in which the 13 richest families in America organise a fight-to-the-death each year in a different town to decide who gets to rule the country.

Instead of battling personally, they each choose a fighter for a tournament which sees their mass murderers and psychopaths unleashed into the terrified local population.

Tyranny, oligarchy and a breakdown in law and order -- Tynion admits that contemporary America was very much on his mind when he, Walsh and a group of four other writers sat down to map out the initial 13-book series.

"I mean, it's hard for it not to be top of mind right now," he said, adding that most of his work was rooted in modern political and societal issues.

"Exquisite Corpses" is specifically about "what happens when the rules go out the window and you have immense bullies and people who are just in it for themselves. What happens over and over again is that people get caught in the crossfire," he said.

As well as drawing inspiration from series such as "The Hunger Games" or "Squid Game", it is rendered in bright and cold colours that give it a feel of the hit shooter video game "Fortnite".

"I think a lot of American horror comics are quite dreary in terms of their aesthetic," Walsh said.

- Multi-media -

Tynion previously worked at DC Comics, which owns the Batman and Superman superhero franchises that are the bedrock of the American comics industry, alongside Marvel characters such as Spider-Man and Captain America.

The success of Tynion's Tiny Onion studio has seen film and TV companies beat a path to his door, with "Something is Killing the Children" being developed by US horror film specialist Blumhouse.

He is also franchising his intellectual property, creating other products such as a card game inspired by "Exquisite Corpses" while holding talks with video game developers.

When he left DC Comics in 2021, Tynion was swapping the security and prestige of being in charge of the monthly Batman story for the uncertainty of life as an independent creator.

"I realised I needed to redirect all of my efforts to just focusing on my own original worlds," he told AFP. "I'm very happy I made that decision."

L.Ramos--SFF