In his essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature” (1927), author H. P. Lovecraft distinguishes weird fiction from other terror fiction, and stresses the importance of mood, or “atmosphere,” as a component of weird fiction:
“The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain – a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.”
Creating “a certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces” is an essential skill for writers of weird fiction, including weird comics, and one technique used to establish supernatural dread in a story is the use of arcane language. Comics creators use arcane language in a variety of ways to instill a dread of supernatural danger in readers.
Continue reading Magic Words: The Use of Arcane Language in Weird Comics →