It’s very rare that a comic is ever able to truly scare me. Usually the feeling of fear is reserved only for films like The Excorcist, The Shining, and Mulholland Drive, which are some of the only films that manage to effectively creep me out. My mind had long been set on the idea that comics can’t be truly scary, surely it’s impossible? Part of what makes a horror film scary is the inclusion of such things as music and sound design. Comics inherently lack these features. Comics don’t have a soundtrack, so how in the hell could they possibly be scary?
I guess it stands as a testament then, that the work of Junji Ito is able to so greatly unsettle me to my core.
I first came across Junji Ito around the summer of 2014, when it was recommended that I check out one of his most famous stories: The Enigma of Arigama Fault. I sat down to read it, and not expecting anything special, I didn’t make any effort to try and create atmosphere, so I read it in full daylight. What I truly didn’t expect was the absolute sense of dread the story would leave me with.
From here, I was hooked, I went on to read more of his short stories, like The Sad Tale of the Principal Post, which sees a father mysteriously wedging himself between the ground and the post that holds his newly built house up. This story, while only four pages long, manages to dig straight into the reader’s soul, and leaves them unsettled for hours afterwards.
Another fantastic Ito story is The Chair, which recounts the tale of Togawa Yoshiko, who slowly comes to discover that her grand chair has been host to a creepy figure who has embedded himself into the chair. This story unfolds with a sort of nonchalance, as the mysterious furniture-store owner recounts the tale with a seeming unawareness as to how creepy the tale actually is. What follows is a series of horrifying pages like those below:
Junji Ito’s work, unlike most other manga, sports an incredibly gritty, dark and harsh art style. Character’s faces are closer to reality than most would expect from manga; lacking the exaggerated eyes and softened features. The documentary attached below perfectly highlights the sheer amount of care and detail goes into each panel, of each page of Ito’s work:
Despite the lack of a soundtrack or sound-design that comics are characterised by, Junji Ito makes the absolute most of the comics form, twisting the characteristics of the medium to fit his haunted aesthetic. Because of the unique way in which comics depict time and motion, it stands to reason that horror conventions found in film, like that of a slow pan to a horrifying reveal, can not be easily emulated. In his excellent comic Understanding Comics, writer Scott McCloud perfectly sums up the inherent difference that comics have in their depiction of time, he writes:
“Comics panels fracture both time and space, offering a jagged, staccato rhythm of unconnected moments.”
Clearly, comics don’t adhere to normal conventions of time that we expect from such things as film, or TV. To get around this Junji Ito makes use of what is referred to as the “Page turn”. This video, from the Youtube channel Supereyepatchwolf, perfectly explains Ito’s use of the page turn:
To put simply, the concept of the page turn describes the way in which Ito prepares the viewer for a scare, by building up suspense, leaving them wondering what’s coming up next. Take a look at the page below from Uzumaki: (Read from left to right)
Take note of the slow creeping nature of the page; the ominous dark lighting of the room, the slow reach for the lid of the tub, and the final, and most important, panel in which we see our characters reacting to something. We as the reader do not yet know exactly what it is they are looking at, but we know for sure that it isn’t going to be pretty. From here, the reader becomes an active agent in the story, as they have to muster up the courage to literally ‘Turn’ the page to reveal what lies within the tub. The reader can take as much time as they like before they turn the page, but the longer they take the more the suspense builds up regardless. This adheres to another concept brought up by Scott McCloud, as he says:
“The comics creator asks us to join in a silent dance of the seen and unseen.”
Here, Scott argues that comics involve a level of involvement from both the writer and the reader, being that the reader actually has to turn the page, and move their eyes from panel to panel in order for the story to make sense. McCloud also brings up the concept of closure, which refers to the idea that the reader fills in the blanks between panels, as, in comics, writers do not detail every exact motion of the characters, or the story. To illustrate this McCloud brings up an analogy involving an axe murderer:
Clearly, Ito understands this relationship between the author and the reader, and he uses it to his advantage, involving them in the unfolding of each horror that resides in his comics.
Once the reader turns the page attached above they are then confronted with this grotesque image:
Moments like this, in which Ito masters the art of the ‘Page turn’ show just how well he understands the comic form, and how best to create striking images and emotions with it.
Since reading Ito’s work I have also come across a number of other horror manga, which are all effective in they own right, but one that continues to stand out to me is the zombie manga I Am A Hero, more specifically, what still stands out to me about this manga is these few pages:
These few pages perfectly adhere to the concept of the ‘Page turn’. Up until this point in the story I Am A Hero is a relatively normal affair, merely following the exploits of protagonist Hideo Suzuki, as he lives his menial life as a manga artist. Suddenly, at this moment, what was once a banal story of a down-beat otaku, suddenly becomes a tense horrifying zombie thriller. The pages above are quiet and tense, slowly leading us to the reveal of Hideo’s zombified girlfriend. The pages depicting the zombified girl take up two whole pages each in their original print form, meaning the reader has to turn the page a hefty number of times to watch the zombie slowly crawl towards them. This creates a palpable sense of helplessness, as all that the reader can do is read on, and turn the page. I still clearly remember the first time I flicked through these pages, and the incredible sense of dread that washed over me.
Junji Ito completely opened my eyes when it comes to storytelling through comics. Before reading his work, I vehemently believed that comics were restricted to only telling certain stories, due to the limitations that the form can present. Ito showed me that the best comic writers are those that fully understand the form; its strengths and weaknesses, and manipulate them to their own advantage.
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