Horror Comics About Small Towns

Though Andy Diggle is known for his horror comics, this small-town terror flew a bit under the radar. Set on the Isle of Man, this book focuses on Kay, a singer-songwriter with dreams bigger than her home island. But when an ancient pact is broken, beings from Celtic folklore come to the forefront of her life to decimate the residents of this small island.

I feel like I’m cheating here just a bit. Gideon Falls is set in a small town. It’s also set in a big city. But that’s because it focuses on a mysterious Black Barn that appears in both. Tattered and terrifying, this barn brings horror and madness along for its physics-defying ride, and the characters caught up in its wake are absolutely incredible.

Probably the most famous book on this list comes from Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez. It’s even become a great Netflix series. Set in a small New England town, Locke & Key focuses on the Locke family living in Key House, an ancestral family home filled with magical keys. But there’s something horrifying about the property, too. Down in the well. Hiding in the caves. The Locke children will need those keys if they want to survive.

Carmen Maria Machado is a NYT bestseller, and when she turned her attention toward comics, it proved terrifying. The Low, Low Woods is set in the fictional town of Shudder-to-Think, Pennsylvania, where a mysterious deer woman is stalking people. And grown men are violently losing their skins. When two teens wake up with no memory of the last few hours, it will fall to them to uncover the terrifying truth of their town.

In the small town of Redlands, Florida, there is a matriarchal force in charge. It’s mysterious. It’s violent. It demands sacrifices. One man is dead set on removing these women from power, but has no idea how far the people of Redlands will go to protect their status quo. This comic isn’t just about supernatural horror, but about politics and patriarchy.

E.M. Carroll gained a huge online following publishing “His Face All Red” before launching this book, a collection of five horrifying short comics in one book, including her online work in print for the first time. All of these stories are rural, set in the woods and often near small towns. Each one is chilling, focusing on that supernatural collision between nature and humanity.

Let’s get weird with this last book, one that’s a modern classic of horror manga. Set in a small Japanese town constantly beset by fog, a haunting begins. This is no ghost or beast, but a pattern. Uzumaki is a spiral, hypnotic and unyielding. Slowly and strangely, the residents of this town fall prey to an unending madness. Can anyone or anything save them?