Graphic Literature Review: The Nightmare Factory - Edited by Heidi MacDonald

Some horror fiction is so devoted to spanning the space between the seen and the unseen that its suitability for comic art adaptation is questionable at best. Prior to the publication of The Nightmare Factory (Harper Collins/Fox Atomic Comics) I'd have placed the works of writer Thomas Ligotti in that rarefied subgroup.

Peopled by unreliable narrators whose hold on sanity is tenuous at best, set in a universe where reality is mutable, Ligotti's unsettling style of horror is a far moan from the more physical imagery of the old EC horror floppies – or the splatterpunk work of modern comics horror scripters like Steve Niles. It's certainly an approach that's harder to effectively transform into pure comics than, say, a Fox Atomic property like The Hills Have Eyes.

Yet the four tales featured in the 112-page collection capture Ligotti's unique blend of nebulousness and gothic gloom far more effectively than I would've guessed possible. I credit the book's four artists for this success. Though the book's two scripters, Stuart Moore and Joe Harris, do a fine job parsing Ligotti's elegantly depresso prose to the comics format, it's this quartet of moody visual stylists who efficiently layer on the atmosphere.

To ease the reader into Ligotti's profoundly slippery world of horror, editor Heidi MacDonald has chosen the most "traditional" of the four tales, a Lovecraftian piece entitled "The Last Feast of Harlequin," for the book's opener. Set in a decaying Midwestern town (beautifully conveyed by artist Colleen Doran, who frequently tilts the visual plane ever so slightly to convey the place’s wrongness), it focuses on an academic suffering from seasonal affective disorder, who treks to the small town during its winter festival. The mysterious festivities involve two sets of clowns who roam the streets: the first of which suffers abuse at the hands of drunken townspeople, the second of which appears to exercise a sinister power over them. It's the latter who provide the story's ultimate moment of visual horror in a claustrophobic tunnel outside of town: the panels showing row upon row of gaping harlequin are particularly disturbing.

Article Author: Bill Sherman

Bill Sherman is the Comics & Graphic Novels review editor for Blogcritics. With his lovely wife Rebecca Fox, he has recently co-authored a sudsy size acceptance novel entitled Measure By Measure.

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