Ground Floor Comics

Josh Brown’s picks · 13 reviewed books

Best Horror Comics for Halloween

Haunted houses, hungry woods, and ordinary lives that have become impossible to live.

The best horror comics for Halloween depend on what you want following you into the dark. Sometimes it is a single image: a familiar face drawn slightly wrong, a bright color where it should not be, a room you can no longer trust. Sometimes it is a character’s decision that makes the book difficult to put down.

These are my picks from Ground Floor Comics’ Comics for Halloween series. Each has a full, spoiler-light review looking at the story and the artwork, with interior examples and suggestions for what to read next. They are different ways into horror, rather than a ranking from scariest to least scary. The notes below help you choose the kind of unease you want.

For a short read, start with Through the Woods. For a longer haunted-house mystery, try Locke & Key. If the artwork is your main draw, compare the bruised, splattered pages of Wytches with the disorienting layouts of Gideon Falls. Each review includes a content note: these picks include graphic violence and difficult themes, and this is not a children’s Halloween reading list.

Find your kind of horror

Choose a book, then take a closer look at the art.

Ice Cream Man, Vol. 1 coverVideo · 2:54

For a short, cruel twist

Ice Cream Man, Vol. 1

Ordinary lives are already fraying before the impossible arrives. Choose Ice Cream Man for self-contained stories where regret, addiction, and loneliness make the supernatural hurt more. Start with Rainbow Sprinkles; you can read an episode at a time.

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Through the Woods coverVideo · 1:54

For fairy-tale dread in one sitting

Through the Woods

Emily Carroll makes color, lettering, and the spaces between panels feel dangerous. These five stories suit an October evening when you want something brief that keeps working on your imagination after you close the book.

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Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees coverVideo · 2:11

For a cozy-looking town with a killer inside

Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees

Patrick Horvath’s inviting animal community makes its brutality more disturbing. Choose this if the collision of comforting art and terrible behavior is your kind of horror. The original six-issue story is collected in one volume.

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The Me You Love in the Dark coverVideo · 2:58

For a haunting that becomes an intimacy

The Me You Love in the Dark

An artist’s retreat becomes a relationship with something she cannot fully understand. Read this for the seduction of isolation, the danger of dependence, and Jorge Corona’s expressive shadows. It is a complete five-issue story.

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Wytches, Vol. 1 coverVideo · 2:52

For parental fear and art that feels infected

Wytches, Vol. 1

Jock’s jagged drawing and Matt Hollingsworth’s splattered color make the woods difficult to look into comfortably. Choose Wytches for a family under pressure and a threat bound up with what people will trade to get what they want.

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Gideon Falls, Vol. 1: The Black Barn coverVideo · 2:09

For a mystery that unsettles the page itself

Gideon Falls, Vol. 1: The Black Barn

Andrea Sorrentino and Dave Stewart make circles, fragments, and deep blacks part of the fear. Start with The Black Barn if you like examining a page and losing your bearings at the same time. This first volume begins a longer mystery.

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Everything Dead & Dying coverVideo · 2:45

For grief that refuses to leave the room

Everything Dead & Dying

Jack’s undead family still follows its old routines, and he helps keep those routines alive. Choose this complete story when you want the emotional discomfort of care and denial, rather than another escape from a zombie horde.

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Locke & Key, Vol. 1: Welcome to Lovecraft coverVideo · 2:58

For a haunted house you want to explore

Locke & Key, Vol. 1: Welcome to Lovecraft

Keyhouse offers the Locke children impossible discoveries while their grief remains close. Choose Welcome to Lovecraft for family-focused horror with moments of wonder—and an opening volume that invites you into a larger story.

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Uzumaki coverVideo · 3:14

For a pattern you cannot stop seeing

Uzumaki

Junji Ito turns a coastal town into a connected nightmare of spirals. Choose the complete deluxe edition for precise black-and-white drawing, escalating body horror, and the urge to inspect every ordinary detail.

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Harrow County, Vol. 1: Countless Haints coverVideo · 2:47

For folk horror with someone to care about

Harrow County, Vol. 1: Countless Haints

Emmy’s kindness meets a community afraid of what she might be. Start with Countless Haints for warm watercolor landscapes, unsettling creatures, and a young woman trying to understand where she belongs.

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Something Is Killing the Children, Vol. 1 coverVideo · 3:12

For the relief of finally being believed

Something Is Killing the Children, Vol. 1

A survivor and a mysterious monster hunter anchor a brutal investigation. Start with Volume One for expressive faces, dangerous woods, and a longer series to follow.

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The Autumnal coverVideo · 3:30

For beautiful leaves you learn to fear

The Autumnal

A mother and daughter’s fresh start meets a town’s inherited rules. Choose this complete story for autumn color, family hurt, and folk horror that makes the scenery part of the threat.

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These Savage Shores coverVideo · 4:19

For a vampire story with a love worth protecting

These Savage Shores

An immortal rakshasa’s home and love meet the hunger arriving with a vampire and the East India Company. Choose this complete story for historical gothic horror, patient page layouts, and intimate moments.

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Keep exploring after Halloween

For more books beyond this review series, visit our horror comics guide. Its shelves let you explore psychological horror, body horror, Gothic stories, and other approaches to fear. Or browse all reviews for a closer look at individual books.