13 Tempting Horror Comics about Romance and Sex

13 Horror Comics about Romance and Sex – and Why You Should Read Them!

There are likely few people who consider horror to be sexy or romantic, but it is undeniable that intimate relationships have long played a part in the genre.  Just look at the ‘rules’ for the slasher genre and sex is right there. This likely stems from our complicated relationship with, well, relationships. After all, everyone of us has some kind of intimacy issues (or perhaps that’s just me).

Horror lets us examine our insecurities and the powerful emotions tied to these intense connections we develop with other people. 

The comics on this list dive into the darker side of romance and sex, but also might just show that they aren’t the terrors we make them.

---

1. The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love

This is an interesting Gothic horror-romance series from DC Comics that ran from 1971 to 1972. It only ran four issues before it was re-titled as Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion and dropped the romance in favour of more standard horror and suspense tales.Each issue contains its own one-shot story, with the first two being more grounded in reality while the latter two move into more supernatural territory. Certainly products of the time, the first issue does contain a romance between a woman and her kidnapper, but nonetheless The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love is a fascinating piece of Gothic-Horror comic history.

2. The Beauty

Taking a look at modern society’s obsession with attractiveness, The Beauty by Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley introduce us to a world where physical beauty is attainable through a sexually transmitted infection. As the infection spreads it becomes apparent that there are some fatal dark sides to chasing an ideal.

While not strictly about sex itself, and is more largely about society and corporate conspiracy, you cannot untangle the story from sex as it directly pertains to how ‘the Beauty’ spreads and the natural correlation between attractiveness and sex. There’s also blatant themes of the risk of sex, with the lethality of ‘the Beauty’ spread through sex giving some allusions to real life issues such as the AIDs crisis.

3. Haunted Love

A horror-romance anthology series from Charlton Comics that ran from 1973 to 1975, Haunted Love was part of the Gothic Romance that The Dark Mansion of Love also sprung from. The series saw a host of known talent during its run; including Joe Gill, Steve Ditko, Nick Cuti, Vince Alescia, Pat Boyette, and Pete Morisi. Haunted Love was a part of Charlton Comics’ push into horror in the early 70’s that included several other anthology titles that were all more strictly horror focused. Sadly the series had about the same longevity as many other romance-oriented comics of the period.

4. Love and Heart

Moving into manga, which is where many may first think to look for horror-romance, we have Love and Heart by Chitose Kaido. Going with a more human horror, college student Yagisawa has not only just found out that her boyfriend has cheated on her but also discovers that she has a new male roommate. The new roommate, named Haruma, reveals that they used to be childhood friends, and Yagisawa is left confused when her mother confirms it yet she cannot recall them being friends herself.

This is very much a horror about manipulation and gaslighting, a suspenseful tale as Yagisawa finds out that being childhood friends with Haruma is only the first of many lies. Given the nature of the story, and particularly for having a ‘manipulative nice guy’ character, this one will likely hit a lot harder than vampires or monsters for some people.

RELATED: 10 Unhinged Frankenstein Adaptations in Comics

5. Black Hole

Heading back into the territory of sexually transmitted infections we have Black Hole by Charles Burns. The series is set in Seattle in the 1970’s, where an outbreak of an STI known as ‘the Bug’ that causes strange mutations has started to spread. As teens become infected they become outcasts due to their mutations and wind up in even more dangerous situations as a result.

The twelve issue series had the original four issues printed by Kitchen Sink Press, only for them to be reprinted by Fantaghraphics after they went out of business. Fantagraphics then published the following eight issues. Burns has said the mutations can be read as metaphor for sexual awakening and transition into adulthood.

6. Delphine

A four part series written and illustrated by Richard Sala, Delphine is a twist on the Snow White fairy-tale done in Sala’s signature Gothic style. Set in a contemporary world, we instead follow Prince Charming (in this an unnamed traveller) as he searches for his love Delphine in a small town surrounded by a dark forest.

With the intent to return the tale to its roots, we don’t get anything like Disney in this bloody and sinister story. This one is for fans of dark fantasy as we see how far this unnamed man will go to reunite with the titular Delphine.

7. InSEXts

Published by Aftershock Comics, Marguerite Bennett and Ariela Kristantina bring us another Gothic story for the list with InSEXts. Lady Bertram is in a loveless marriage to a Viscount who hates her for her infertility, even as her heart belongs to her maid Mariah. Mariah is not quite human, and when the pair make love she passes unto Lady Bertram an ‘egg sac’ that allows Bertram to make the Viscount pregnant with the child of Bertram and Mariah, who then must fight for the survival of their child and themselves.

The Victorian period, an era that become obsessed with death and struggled with an uncertain world, is arguably the perfect era for a story like this. In many ways this was the period that saw the rise of horror in popular consciousness, and the tie between monsters and sex is very reminiscent of tales like Dracula that were written in the period.

8. The Other Side: An Anthology of Queer Paranormal Romance

The Other Side delivers 19 stories from 23 creators, filled with LGBTQ+ protagonists and paranormal beings from werewolves to poltergeists. The anthology does lean more towards romance than horror, looking to provide positive romance stories for queer and trans people.

The anthology was funded largely by Kickstarter in 2016 and was edited by Melanie Gillman and Kori Michele Handwerker.

9. Safari Honeymoon

While it may not offer up many traditional scares, Safari Honeymoon by Jesse Jacobs delivers plenty of body horror and surrealism as a young couple discover themselves in a strange jungle. A pair of newlyweds take their honeymoon in a strange landscape full of bizarre and unsettling creatures, discovering something terrible within themselves along the way. There are plenty of horrors for the couple to discover including strange telepathic humanoids and tongue replacing parasites.

This comic is just plain unsettling in so many ways. The most obvious is the art, the way Jacobs designs the flora and fauna as these upsetting monstrosities. Perhaps more deeply, however, is the way it explores the darkness within ourselves.

10. Girls

Girls was a comic by the Luna Brothers (Jonathan and Joshua) and published by Image Comics. After Ethan Daniels finds a naked and injured woman on the street of Pennystown he takes her in, and eventually has sex with her. Afterwards she lays a clutch of eggs that hatch into identical copies of her that begin to attack the town, notably any women. Things only escalate further with the discovery of a massive sperm monster occupying a cornfield and that a dome has entirely cut the town off.

Girls goes deep into questions of sexuality and gender, as many men try to take advantage of the mysterious Girls’ desire to breed with them and the women see them as only a threat. The Luna Brothers themselves commented on how the perspective of the story and characters seemed to be heavily influenced by the reader’s gender and experiences, and note that they tried for the most realistic version of the story they could.

RELATED: Top 10 Horror Movies with Cornfields

11. Undying Love

Created by Tomm Coker and Daniel Freedman through Image Comics, Undying Love mixes vampire mythology with Chinese folklore when an ex-soldier falls in love with a vampire. The story follows John Sargent’s battle through the Honk Kong underworld in order to break Mei’s vampiric curse. The series was intended to be eight issues across two arcs, but only four issues were published.

The creators both spent months researching Chinese folklore and mixed it with Romanian folklore on vampires. If the romance between John and Mei wasn’t enough for the comic to make the list, Coker says that it was inspired by the news report of a man who fell in love with a woman forced into prostitution and killed her pimp and several others only to end up in prison for his actions.

12. Black Bird

Another manga on the list (there were a lot of choices), Black Bird by Kanoka Sakurakoji is a romantic dark fantasy. Misao is able to see monsters that others can’t, and normally are just harmless. Except from her sixteenth birthday they suddenly become lethal in their motivations. She is only saved by her childhood friend Kyo, who turns out to be a type of yokai known as a tengu. Things escalate with the fact that Kyo wants to marry her, but any who does will bring great prosperity for their demon clan, so he must risk more than just his life for her.

Black Bird is not considered a great work of literature, more akin to a ‘bodice ripper’ or something like a manga version of Twilight. There are criticisms of how Misao seems to have little agency in the story or self-preservation, and that younger readers may miss Kyo’s selfish manipulations for the sexy exterior. Still, it can be a fun romp if disengaged enough to not let the more problematic elements irritate or influence you.

RELATED: Coming of Age: 35 Movies like Thirteen That Everyone Needs To Watch

13. Nights of Horror

Finishing out the list with the oldest comic included we have Nights of Horror, published by Malcla and written by a pseudonym ‘Clancy’ with art by Joe Shuster (yes, the co-creator of Superman). Nights of Horror was a series of horror fetish stories that included thing like bondage, bloodletting, torture, lesbianism and even sexual slavery, yet had very little actual nudity. Both men and women were portrayed as victims and tormentors.It only became known for certain that Shuster provided the art in 2004 when it was published.

It is believed Shuster took the job from his neighbour ‘Clancy’ (real name not known) due to his failing vision and financial situation, though it is speculated it may also have been a kind of revenge for losing the rights to Superman. Nights of Horror were a key element in the social turn against comics following The Seduction of the Innocent and them being found in the possession of Jack Koslow of the Brooklyn Thrill Kill Gang, which led to obscenity laws that saw Nights of Horror banned and most copies destroyed.

Have you read any of these Horror Comics about Romance and Sex?

Have you read any of the comics on this list? Do you think there are any that should have been included? Let us know on social media.