Looking for some horror/macabre artistic reference

[El_Psy_Congroo]

So I'm in the process of outlining a short self contained story. Its a psychological-horror about a person who's inner demons manifest themselves as a monster. I don't want to give too much of the story but I was influenced by shows like Hannibal, where Will's representation of the Chesapeake ripper (ie the infamous Dr. Lecter) is manifested as a stag-monster-thing.

I'm relatively squeamish and not very knowledgeable with horror type stuff (I may come to regret this post haha) so I don't have a lot of experience or knowledge of good references.

To be clear I'm looking for art or artists that draw macabre, monstrous, things but I am NOT looking for shock value or excessive gore or body horror. (Though I will probably will have to draw grisly murders eventually... sigh why am I doing this)

I know it might sound snooty and pretentious, but I'm looking for something artsy, maybe even with a lot of symbolism thrown in. So anyone know of any spectacular artists who draw scary things?

[Michelle]

Have you checked out much of Junji Ito's work? He's the best at that kind of thing. Seldom has a comic artist made my skin crawl like that guy does.

[El_Psy_Congroo]

Oh that brings back old nightmares haha. I remember reading all of Uzumaki years ago (don't know how I did). Haven't checked out his other stuff but from what I can see a lot of it is body-horror stuff. Not quite what I'm looking for but thanks!

[J.Z.Castillo]

Michael Hussar makes some awesome creepy things!!

Check out his work! Lots of creepy inspiration there!

[jdk]

Bernie Wrightson is a classic horror artist

[indagold]

Zdzisław Beksiński work I find is a good reference for horror.

[Valalaraptor]

Francis Bacon, while prone to shocking, gory images, also has a penchant for images that were just downright disturbing for their use of color and composition. His study of Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X is one of my favorites.

There's also Bosch. While more whimsical, he definitely has some disturbing characters. Check his Garden of Earthly Delights tryptic.

Along with seconding Junji Ito, I also recommend looking at the works of Tsutomu Nihei (the mind behind Biomega and Knights of Cydonia) and Norihiro Yagi (of Claymore fame). All three are masterful at creating humanoid and not-so-humanoid creatures. Beware of spoilers when looking them up!

[alaingrey]

These are movies, but my favorite super symbolic artsy horror films are:

1. Pi (1998) About a guy who goes crazy looking at numbers. no film has induced a migraine within me as much. The ending is iconic.

2. Pig (1998) No one likes this movie, and if you're under 18 you definitely shouldnt see it. The whole thing is online for free. It's about a serial murder, and the whole thing is very very symbolic. It's very much in the same vein as Pi, just shorter and even more graphic.

^^ For these two the soundtrack definitely does a lot. A lot of the horror comes from anticipation, which can be difficult in a comic where anticipation means drawing a tooon of panels.

3 La Piel Que Habito- a medical horror story with really lovely cinematography and the weirdest film plot ever. There's a lot of rape scenes, but if you're looking for highly symbolic horror, I can't recommend it enough.

These are all films, but film and comic share a lot. Other than Ito, I don't know if I can recommend too many horror comics that legitimately frightened me, and even so I'm not terribly afraid of a lot of Ito's work (the comic that scares me is one everyone else thinks is stupid) i think concept and anticipation will do more for you in a comic than any scary picture ever will, because the scary picture can be avoided by just turning the page.

[El_Psy_Congroo]

Really dig the manga reference there, especially Nihei. Thanks!

@jdk Forget about the horror, his inking technique in general is godly. O_O

[tsukiko]

Hmm though im not too sure about this but ayami kojima is one of my macabre artist

although as you can see they are a mix of grotesque and pretty faces xD

[Michelle]

Francis Bacon, while prone to shocking, gory images, also has a penchant for images that were just downright disturbing for their use of color and composition. His study of Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X is one of my favorites.

Ohh yeah! Francis Bacon is a really good one. I found out about him when I learned that Silent Hill drew inspiration from his work. His stuff is so fascinating and bizarre.