A Glass, Darkly

Words By Luis Silva

Art/Lettering/Colors by Joelle Blot

Hello, dear reader. My name is Luis Silva (@mr_lou_silver) and I hope you enjoyed this comic that me and my best friend Joelle Blot (@stardragonart) worked on just for you. While you’ve already read this story (it is a one-page comic, after all) this section will be akin to the creator commentary you’d see on the special feature section of a DVD you found in a haunted video store that not only survived the advent of streaming services, but which contains a great many goodies.

We’ll start with the title. A Glass, Darkly itself primarily a reference to the 1 Corinthian 13:12. From my understanding of this verse, it compares mankind’s inability to understand god to a person trying to look through a dark and distorted looking glass. However, this story title is not only a reference to that verse, but also the time of night in which I’d often look in the mirror. 

Yes, I know it’s cliche, but this is based on a true story. Specifically, it is based on a time in my childhood where I, as a superstitious Catholic (don’t worry, I’m completely lapsed now) would try to poke and prod at the supernatural that my father would always say lurked out there, waiting to get me. Anyway, I figured that looking at the giant mirror in my house in the dead of night would be a good place to start. 

I’d stare at my reflection, and stare often. The thoughts in the comic itself are ones that I genuinely thought when I was a kid doing this. However, the reason I stopped in real life was a bit different. I simply thought, what if, just what if… my reflection blinked when I didn’t?

That was too spooky for me.

Fast forward a good twenty years to when I presented this potential story to Joelle, and she drew it out pretty quickly! When I asked Joelle about the colors for the comic and why they seemed so familiar, she told me that, “The color scheme has elements of the ace and trans flags.” Joelle also told me that the nameless main character was inspired by an old Dungeons and Dragons character she made named Riot. 

We hope you enjoyed this story as much as we enjoyed making it, and if you want to see more queer horror, check me and Joelle and our friend Andres (@adbravoart) over at our up and coming publishing house, Creatively Queer Press! (Follow us at @cq_press on Twitter and Instagram, as well as our site creativelyqueerpress.com)

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Mothman 50’s Dinner Pinup

The though process I had whilst making this piece for Gender Terror, was akin to the consumption of queer-coded media for the general public. What once was a source of shame and guilt for many, has now been re-branded and put into a new light. Drag queens are now main stream, queer reality shows, and general access information about the LGBTQ+ can be found nearly everywhere. Thirty years ago that seemed impossible. The parallel to how a creature such as Mothman was once a source of fear, and now he is regarded as being a fun lovable pop culture character. I wanted my queer-coded rendition of Mothman to be especially colourful and alluring to the eye, the 50’s aesthetic without the rampant homophobia of the times. -Vivi

Vivi Partridge is a queer freelance illustrator, who draws many monstrous pinups as well as other cool SFW subject matters. They studied illustration at Seneca College for an amount of time, have two pet rats, unironically loves high school musical (1, 2 & 3), and wishes they could spend all their time making art.

You can find them on the internet (wow!):

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Our posts are 100% Patreon funded! If you want to see early posts, full resolution art, and WIPs, please consider supporting us on Patreon!

Twinning!

For me, this piece is a bit more fun than it is scary; I love scary twins and axes and blood splatters, so it hits a lot of my favorite tropes. I had a lot of fun with their hair and outfits as well! Obviously The Shining twins are rightfully iconic and infamous, but the girl on the left is serving some Red Guard mid-Cultural Revolution vibes. I think what’s so compelling about scary things, from True Crime to horror, is that sense of lacking bodily autonomy, but sometimes it’s cool to lean into the aesthetic of it as well.

Our posts are 100% Patreon funded! If you want to see early posts, full resolution art, and WIPs, please consider supporting us on Patreon!

Wet Wings

When I’m drawing, I’m thinking about the skeletons within the bodies i draw, the separation of them all and making sure everything is clear. This didn’t feel like the right way to go in a piece about blurriness AS physical mass, so instead of taking out my sketchbook i went to the kitchen and made play dough. I wanted to have to focus on the exterior, on the blurry lumpiness that could only come from drawing something from its exterior. This also freed me up to do some cool angle stuff and play with lighting. I made some models, mashed them together, and ran with it until the piece felt complete.

Our posts are 100% Patreon funded! If you want to see early posts, full resolution art, and WIPs, please consider supporting us on Patreon!

VIVA THE HUNTER: Werewolves, Undead, Swords, and More!

Do you like Evil Dead or Kill Bill? How about a a nunchuck-slinging werewolf? Or the main character being a training swordswoman tricked into killing her undead ex-boyfriend by a manipulative witch? Then follow Viva on her adventures for vengeance and blood-hungry madness in VIVA THE HUNTER!

GenderTerror was able to interview filmmaker and scriptwriter, Forrest DePoy, about his adventure in comics and with Viva and co.

GenderTerror: Kill Bill meets Evil Dead. Where did the inspiration for VIVA THE HUNTER come from? 

Forrest DePoy: It all started with a bathtub! Before VIVA THE HUNTER there was Some Place Safe, which is my 2018 student short film that served as my senior capstone project. That short film’s script was then adapted into the first issue of VIVA THE HUNTER, and from there the project expanded into a series! I first began writing the short film’s script in July of 2018 based off the idea of something I saw – the blood-filled tub in Joji’s “Will He” music video. A lot of what I create comes from visuals or cool phrases. I loved the blood bath look in the music video and just kind of ran with it, developing characters and a location based around it. I really wanted to work on a horror film at the time, and since I was planning to keep the main action in one location for budgetary reasons, I think the Evil Dead inspiration came naturally as most of that film took place in the infamous cabin. During the development of this short film, I used the script as an exercise for my character development skills at the time. As a student, one of my weakest skills were (and maybe still are) well-written protagonists. I wanted Viva, the lead character, to be entirely different from anything I have tried before. I wanted her to be a badass in the making, so I really took notes from Beatrix in Kill Bill, so much so that Viva even took up kung-fu and sword training. In the end she kind of ended up being a huge nerd, which was awesome! This made the film really become a horror-action flick with a big grindhouse aesthetic, especially so once Panos Cosmatos’ 2018 film Mandy came out later that year. That seriously had a huge impact on the final script for Some Place Safe. The character dialogue was compartmentalized and redesigned in a way that the actors could really define them as they saw fit, something of which I really admired in Mandy. Each of these serve as key elements in the way I approach the expanded comic series now!  Continue reading “VIVA THE HUNTER: Werewolves, Undead, Swords, and More!”

Grrr… Don’t Misgender Me!

 

This piece recalls horror that’s much cheesier by today’s standards, such as the old Universal mummy movies, but it also does touch on a very real horror of misgendering and a loss of control. Sometimes, it would be easier to have a monster spook someone into acceptance rather than correct them and talk about your preferred pronouns. But having this discussion can be an immensely empowering experience (as long as you’re in a safe environment to do so).

Enjoy my painting! I’m Will Jamison, a genderqueer cartoonist/illustrator, and you can find more of my artwork on Instagram and Twitter under @thewilljamison. Thank you so much for checking this out, and please let me know what you think!

Our posts are 100% Patreon funded! If you want to see early posts, full resolution art, and WIPs, please consider supporting us on Patreon!

Healing

I think for many of us, especially in the queer and trans communities, we’ve had to endure trauma that we simply cannot share with just anybody. Sometimes, only people who have gone through it know, and get it, and can listen. They may be the only ones able to help us open up and release the emotions trapped within. Those helping us heal may still be on their own journey of learning and growing from their trauma, but healing isn’t finite yet it’s worth pursuing.

Much of my art comes from emotional experiences and places of vulnerability. I find that all too often, men don’t get the chance to express vulnerable feelings in a healthy way. As someone who identifies as androgynous most of the time (I am comfortable with she/her/they pronouns), I use my empathetic nature to illustrate vulnerable figures of all kinds, and I frequently draw men in positions of vulnerability. I think people need to see more depictions like that, so they can feel comfortable seeing themselves reflected, and changing the conversation about vulnerability to make it universal.

I’m Natalia, and I go by @mystodraws on Instagram. My official website is https://www.mystopress.com/ where you can see the illustration and comics I do, as well as art prints and comics for sale.

Our posts are 100% Patreon funded! If you want to see early posts, full resolution art, and WIPs, please consider supporting us on Patreon!

Evil Eye – Page 4

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Page 4 of a comic about a peculiar evil eye bracelet! I’m Jaime Mosquera, a Latinx nonbinary comic artist and illustrator who loves body horror and birds! You can find more of my work and tip me here:

Twitter | Kofi

Our posts are 100% Patreon funded! If you want to see early posts, full resolution art, and WIPs, please consider supporting us on Patreon!

Evil Eye – Page 3

<< Prev | First | Next >>

Page 3 of a comic about a peculiar evil eye bracelet! I’m Jaime Mosquera, a Latinx nonbinary comic artist and illustrator who loves body horror and birds! You can find more of my work and tip me here:

Twitter | Kofi

Our posts are 100% Patreon funded! If you want to see early posts, full resolution art, and WIPs, please consider supporting us on Patreon!

Bad Bark

“Do you hear that behind me? Sounds like…a dog singing heavy metal?

What a smell, am I right? Hellhounds stinking up the block and setting off car alarms, all to protect nearby graveyards and ghosts. Seems to me that they’d be safer without all the snarling and smoke. I’m Ari, an agender writer/illustrator that loves skull dogs, spears and sad stories. You can find me posting dumb doodles on twitter and getting into trouble at your local gas station.

portfolio | kofi | twitter

Our posts are 100% Patreon funded! If you want to see early posts, full resolution art, and WIPs, please consider supporting us on Patreon!

Halloween Raffle 2019

It’s that time of year again! Pumpkins, ghosts, goblins, werewolves. All manner of spooky creatures, books, movies, music, etc. to celebrate the time of the year dedicate to horror!

To celebrate the best season, the best month, and the best holiday, we’re holding a raffle.

Continue reading “Halloween Raffle 2019”

an angel comes and names it fire (3)

a story of a moth prophet, her adoptive parent, and her father.

Continue reading “an angel comes and names it fire (3)”