Comments on: Horror Manga Movable Feast: What Is Horror?

By: MMF: Horror Manga from A to Z

MMF: Horror Manga from A to Z — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:58:57 +0000

[...] reviewed here at The Manga Critic. Keep in mind that my definition of horror is similar to MMF host Lori Henderson’s: I view horror as any type of story that inspires fear, dread, or terror in the reader, whether the [...]

By: Katherine Dacey

Katherine Dacey — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 12:48:00 +0000

Fair enough! All my years of academic training have trained me to think of the last 300 years as the “modern” period, but you’re right–30 years is plenty modern for all of us.

Nice job hosting the MMF, by the way!

By: Lori Henderson

Lori Henderson — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:50:18 +0000

Oh, I know it does, I was just trying to keep the article short. I could have gone on for a lot longer, but then probably wouldn’t have had time to write anything else! My definition of “modern” was in the last 30 years or so.

By: Katherine Dacey

Katherine Dacey — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 12:54:49 +0000

Hi, Lori! This is a very nice introduction to this month’s feast. Your definition of horror as “anything that inspires fear in the reader” is a very elegant one, and creates a lot of room under the tent for a variety of stories that might not immediately strike readers as horror.

One small thing: modern American horror fiction has deeper roots than Stephen King, as the publication of stories such as Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820) and Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843) attest. Most of the tricks and twists you find in King’s writing were pioneered in these nineteenth-century works, something that I think King himself would acknowledge, given how articulate he is on the genre’s history.