The Art of Horror: An Illustrated History
Hardcover
Edited by Stephen Jones
Foreword by Neil Gaiman
Applause Books
Release Date: September 1, 2015

Applause Books, a division of Hal Leonard Performing Arts Publishing Group, has created the ultimate coffee table book for horror geeks and fans of classic cinema: The Art of Horror: An Illustrated History, edited by Stephen Jones. The book is 11 square inches chock full of 256 beautiful pages, complete with classic movie posters, original art work, and contributions from some of the legendary minds in all field of horror fiction. The contributors guide in the back reads like a who’s who of horror history: author, painter, and director Clive Barker; acclaimed sci-fi artist H.R. Giger (who inspired the Alien franchise); comic legend, writer, and poet Neil Gaiman (who also pens an introduction for the book) are just some of the names. A book of this sort is not meant to be read straight through, but rather gazed at over and over piece by piece, like the films and tales it details.

In his Foreword, Gaiman writes, “The art that takes its impetus from horror is fun for the observer, and, it is pretty obvious from this book, if you were in any doubt, it is enormous fun for the artist.” He talks about how while horror of course is based in death and fear; it is the fun (“that moment of revulsion that sashays into delight”) that keeps fan coming back. In Stephen Jones’ introduction, we see some of the classic portraits, including Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” as well as some truly amazing modern paintings. From there the book breaks into 10 fear-inducing chapters covering all the monsters of the genres, starting with vampires, zombies, Frankenstein creatures, and werewolves, and moving on to ghosts, psychos, demons, slashers, aliens, and giants.

Some of my favorite individual pieces:

– Zombie (1973), a pen and ink by Bernie Wrightson in chapter 2.

– I Shall Be With You (1983), pen and ink by Bernie Wrightson again, in chapter 3.

– House on Haunted Hill (2011), acrylics on watercolor paper by Jason Edmiston in chapter 5.

– Cthulhu Rising (2006), digital art by Michael Komarck.

My favorite chapter was chapter 8: The Old Gods Waken, written by S.T. Joshi, which focuses on the art and horror of my favorite writer, H.P. Lovecraft, delving deep in the Cthulhu mythos. As a horror super geek I found that this book provides so much enjoyment. The old foreign movie posters and the cover art from anthology sets like Weird Tales and Astounding Stories were just so cool to see. This will remain a vibrant feature of my coffee table for years to come. Anyone into horror, classic cinema, or art history will love this added to their collection.

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