Interview: Peter Normanton
From the Tomb
Peter Normanton is usually buried under, what with just completing The Mammoth Book of Best Horror Comics, and the rigors of publishing his From The Tomb magazine. But his love of the dissolute images and outrageous stories that spring from the unsavory pages of horror comics, to linger in our minds long after those pages have yellowed with age, makes him the kind of person we like to be interred with, too…for a little chat.
What is it about the horror comic medium that’s made you such an uber fan?
It goes back to my childhood. Like so many other kids I loved to be frightened by Doctor Who. I was convinced as a six year old the yeti was on the landing, stood outside my bedroom door. Twenty years later I had that rotten feeling all over again after watching Aliens at the cinema. I think I got my first collection of ghost stories when I was about nine, I loved that book. After that I was hooked.
I was always reading comics, mainly titles published over here in the UK such as TV21, Sparky, Beano and Jet. In 1972 Marvel Comics began reprinting the Silver Age Hulk, Spiderman and Fantastic Four in The Mighty World of Marvel. This was an incredible revelation because American comics were that rarest of treats; now I had the opportunity to keep up with these legendry stories. The love of horror, however, wouldn’t go away. It was stimulated still further by an afternoon programme with British comedian Bob Monkhouse, who was an avid comic book fan. He had in his hands several old horror comic books with the most lurid images you could imagine. They were ECs and I just had to have one of them. How, I had absolutely no idea. I wasn’t to know these titles had ceased to be published almost twenty years before. They appeared so taboo, offering the most disturbing imagery you could ever dream. I picked up a couple of DC’s one hundred page Unexpecteds, while the covers promised much the interior stories rarely satiated my lust for terror.
A few months later I came across Skywald’s Nightmare 17. It’s one of those moments I will never forget, catching sight of the cover through the newsagent’s window, with that half naked woman and the beast in the background. I had to ask for permission from my mum to make such a purchase. I still don’t know what I would have done if she had said no. I ran all the way back to the shop clutching my eighteen pence (the US equivalent would have been around 40 cents) dreading someone had already snapped it up, but no, it was still there. It seemed so adult and at last satiated my craving for that darkest kind of horror. Well almost; typically I had to have more, but those Skywalds would prove to be incredibly rare. Marvels line of black and white terrors would appear over here in the weeks that came and while I enjoyed them immensely nothing quite matched the feel of that issue of Nightmare.
In the years that followed my love of these titles has just grown. Towards the end of the 1980s, pre-Code comics became available in this country and those ECs finally came my way. Over the years horror comics have dared to unsettle and offer some amazing artistry. At their best they refuse to conform or offer any degree of compromise. I think those horror comics that attempt to be too mainstream are never going to survive. A good case in point is DC’s Hellblazer, which after twenty years is still as challenging as ever.
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