Well, Allan once said to me,

Allan
Fern, what if there was no more sadness in the world?

...I don't think you'd have anything to make comics out of! HA HA! ...not.

so I guess my stories or comics in this case all revolve around a certain darkness. Every 10-20 strips I like to make a meaningful strip in TW just to show how truly depressed I am, heh.

But I beLIEve my darkest story would have to go to my mini comic, 100%... I don't want to give it away but it's pretty much your average high school relationship... or is it? Yes, yes it is.

We've got some delightful stories being discussed here. Flying Dutchman, I'm not sure what kind of fairy tales you're familiar with but the only ones I've read are horribly sick, twisted and severely deranged. Check out some 'familiar' originals and you'll be disgusted/amused for months. I also like that fairytale idea but then, I really like spiders so you've kind of sold me on that.

Mlai has a very good point about darkness being subjective. Which is why it's so difficult to write something dark or a horror story without being ridiculously cheesy. You are balancing on a very thin line. And half the fun of some of these things is that you can go right over the top and be completely ridiculous and still manage to disgust people.

I have a lot of 'dark' material but for sheer darkness and reactions of complete disgust, I'd have to say the story idea 'Jacob' clears first place easily. I had a test audience when I was working with this idea too and their reactions to it were priceless.

Essentially, 'Jacob' follows a chronically depressed ex-policeman who's girlfriend committed suicide fairly recently. While he's placing flowers on her grave, he notices a very strange looking boy in ill-fitting girl's clothing watching him.

This turns out to be 'Jacob' the youngest of a set of brothers. Jacob's older brother was irrevocably twisted by their horrible home life and essentially tormented Jacob to such an extreme degree, Jacob doesn't believe himself alive. He acts as though he's a living doll that exists only to be used and manipulated. Our policeman hero, becomes more and more entrapped by Jacob's story, learning about him through case studies and various events that were recorded by the authorities.

To make a long story short, the policeman eventually takes it upon himself to rescue 'Jacob' from his older brother. The policeman murders the older brother and rescues 'Jacob' keeping him secretly in his house where I guess they're kinda sorta happy with one another? The ending was fairly ambiguous. You're not sure whether Jacob is really this living doll, or rather he's acting the part to manipulate the people around him for his own ends. The policeman of course, has a guilt complex throughout the piece concerning the suicide of his girlfriend, which I think influences people's interpretation of events.

For some reason, the ending really grossed people out. I guess it's that whole 'lack of self awareness' thing that really got to them. And Jacob's 'rescuer' almost taking on the role of another kind of abuser.

The darkest story?...

It's by far the one I have worked for for a decade how- the Art of Veiling trilogy. It's basically a full range tour to man's basest and lowest on a very grand scale. There's gore and there's deceit and murder and mob killings and what have you but that is not what makes it very sinister and dark. It is the emotional impact of everything that happens.

And you know what the most delicious thing is? It begins as a rosy story of a young princess-lifestyle girl and when you least expect it the pink butterflies disperse to leave you to fall flat on your face on gore, mayhem and pure evil. Mwe heheheheh.

I keep getting e-mails the type: What was THAT!? how can you be sweet and cruel in the same time!? Should I love you or hate you!?

heheheheh. Like I said. Delicious. lol!

irrumator
We've got some delightful stories being discussed here. Flying Dutchman, I'm not sure what kind of fairy tales you're familiar with but the only ones I've read are horribly sick, twisted and severely deranged. Check out some 'familiar' originals and you'll be disgusted/amused for months. I also like that fairytale idea but then, I really like spiders so you've kind of sold me on that.

That's so true, the only difference with my own fairy tales is that they take much longer so you get a lot of crispy details that are mostly cut out of the classics ;) Thanks for liking it.

Dutchman... Do you read much of Brother Grimms? Your story about the girl turned into a moth reminds me of the story of a boy who got killed by his wicked stepmom and the stepmom cut up his body and cooked it for dinner for the unsuspecting Dad. However the sister was there and she gathered his bones and buried him under a jupiter tree. The boy was recarinated as a sparrow and flew around the town singing:

My mother she killed me.
My father he ate me,
but my sister Marlene
she gathered my pearly white bones
and buried me undereth a jupiter tree.
Tweet! Tweet!
What a lovely bird I am!

So he collected three items from people who loved the song which was work boot, couple of ribbons and a giant boulder (dont ask me how). He retured home and the family was drawn out of the house by his song... The father got the new boot, the sister got the ribbons for her hair and... The stepmom got a boulder dropped on her head. Hehe. Then the boy magically cameback in his self and they lived happily ever after!

Brother Grimms Fairy Tales... Gotta love em. :)

Yes, I have that on a casette tape :) It totally freaked me out as a kid. They added a sound effect from when the evil stepmom asked the boy to get something out of a chest and when he looked into it she closed it. Then his head came off and rolled over the floor! Dawmn... goosebumbs! (don't know how it's possible tough, that when you look into a chest and your head comes off that it rolles on the floor, but I'm most certain they did say that on that casette tape!)

Must've been inspirated by that ;)

They have those on casette tape? :O I never knew... I got those big thick book with old illustrations long time ago and read the whole thing in one sitting. I should try and get one to listen to. XD

RobertTidwell
Fuck. All my stories are dark. What ranks darkest?

Suicide? Check.

Rape? Check.

killing children? check.

defacing tombs? check.

Your stories and my stories need to get together and go bowling. :D

My current story is relatively dark but I think my darkest one has to be my third book. Post-apocolyptic, betrayal on all levels, killing children, rape, insanity, war... it makes SCD look like child's play and I'd think it's almost worse than my serial-killer story that I'm working on in my spare time.

junoblairb

RobertTidwell
Fuck. All my stories are dark. What ranks darkest?

Suicide? Check.

Rape? Check.

killing children? check.

defacing tombs? check.

Your stories and my stories need to get together and go bowling. :D

My current story is relatively dark but I think my darkest one has to be my third book. Post-apocolyptic, betrayal on all levels, killing children, rape, insanity, war... it makes SCD look like child's play and I'd think it's almost worse than my serial-killer story that I'm working on in my spare time.

See, I don't think either story as particularly "dark". Maybe describing something as such has a cheesy connotation to me? Or maybe it's because I read history books and current events.

That said, I would freak out in happiness if you guy's stories got together.

Rori
See, I don't think either story as particularly "dark". Maybe describing something as such has a cheesy connotation to me? Or maybe it's because I read history books and current events.

That said, I would freak out in happiness if you guy's stories got together.

Well, my story that's online right now isn't dark yet, I suppose. As it is right now we're only dealing with police scandal and mafia betrayal. Wait till the other characters come in.

I consider Oneiric to be dark because of its mood and subject matter. Assembly Required which is the serial-killer drama I would consider dark also for subject material but maybe darker in the whole 'mind of a killer' aspect.

So here's a question: What do you consider dark? Is it like Underworld or Schindler's List? Is it cinematography or subject matter?

I think both. One being literal, one figurative. I find carnival of souls a very dark movie, figuratively. Taxi driver is dark both ways, as is Seven (until the end). As far as subject matter, it's not just degradation or death, but an absence of hope or love, or their defeat. Books like 1984 and The Stranger I think of as "dark." But not, say many vampire books I've read, because the nasty has a redeeming quality, or is misunderstood, or is defeated.

My stories tend to play on the lighter side in both content and presentation, so it's no contest - my darkest story is The Many Misfortunes of Lady Luck. I'm not writing it alone, though, so I don't know if that counts. If it doesn't, I have no clue x_x Possibly Three Pi Aces. It's about a group of high school students who have the power to travel into dreams. It has its moments going into the unhappier side of dreamers' minds, but I wouldn't really consider it an overall dark story.

my latest page (pg49) is probably the darkest page i've created so far.
It's very serial killeresque.

I think the darkest tale I ever wove was where Mr. Bunny went to visit the elves in Buttercup Forest. They supped on Parsnip Tea, Blueberry crumpets, and had a nice tossed salad (dressing on the side).
They topped it all of with a few bottles of elderberry wine and dreampt of riding little, white unicorn ponies through rolling green pastures of lilacs and daisys.

As you can probably surmise, I'm not quite the master of the macabre, yet, but I'm working on it!

The darkest story I've ever written? :) Depends on your definition of dark, I suppose... I once wrote this thing that was entirely set in the armpit of the giant of midnight, who was stuck in a hole seventy bazillion leagues under the earth, in a land where the sun never rose, and...

Uhm. No, of course not. XD

I've written probably most of the darkest aspects of humanity, and these subjects tend to be something I gravitate towards both in my art and my writing. I'm always interested in the imperfections of humanity - the broken bits of our minds and ideas, as well as the broken parts of us as a whole - our societies and cultures, even our buildings and landscapes to some extent. It's what makes us imperfect that's so beautiful, in my opinion - and this is reflected in the style of my artwork, too, which tends towards choppy, textured life rather than glossy, plastic photorealism (which I can also do, if I am so inclined, but feels dead to me and, I fear, my audience too).

So yeah. With such a fascination for what you could generously term 'dark' subject matter, I guess I've pretty much done most of it... I've written rape and murder and torture, abuse and bullying, apocalyptic cities, slavery, the works... but I try to put an interesting spin on whatever I do. There's nothing interesting in the cliche, the idea everyone has... and everything interesting in looking at these things from a skewed point of view.

Probably one of my favourite characters to write, ever, was a sociopath named Finley. I wrote him on a public creative writing forum, so he got to interact with the characters of lots of other writers, which was fun. He wasn't a slick, smart, impossibly cool sociopath like you always see in movies and books (Silence of the Lambs, and practically every other horror movie starring a mass murderer ever), he was a regular sort of bloke who just had a complete inability to understand 'right' from 'wrong', making him the ultimate hedonist, but at the same time hopelessly alone and unable to ever satisfy his desire for fun and joy in his life, because he pretty much couldn't feel any positive emotion. (Most positive emotions stem from relations with other people - love, for example, requires that you are not an island). The fun thing about him was exploring our own reactions to morality... and discovering that morality is in inherently flexible idea anyway... that morals are always subjective. I delighted in showing my readers the parts of themselves that felt and acted the way he always did, because it bloody terrified them... and I got endless notes telling me how much they enjoyed reading him, despite the fact that he horrified them. During his time he killed a handful of people, and raped two others, and he always had a damn good reason. It wasn't a logical reason - the guy was crazy - but it made sense, to the readers. And that was what scared them, and made it fun for me. He was a very interesting challenge, and one that I enjoyed. :)

My darkest story? We-ell... It's not written yet - it's in my head, and I'm planning it out and doing all the plotting - but it's the script for a short comic I hope to have time to do one day.

It's about this little girl who goes to play by the river one day. Only, there's a demon/spirit living in the river - some sort of water-type thing - and she runs into that. She's not very easily frightened, and so she doesn't run away screaming like most people would; the demon/spirit is confused for a while, and then tries to talk to her. Days go by, the little girl returns to the river every day, the girl and the demon/spirit become friends, blah, blah, blah.

And the years go by. The little girl grows up, starts spending less time by the river and more time with her considerably more human friends. The demon/spirit feels abandoned and betrayed, and one day happens on the little girl's other friend, and, you know, stabs him/her to death in a violent rage. Cue confrontation little girl vs. spirit, in which the spirit goes completely batshit and tries to explain away the sudden, brutal death with the fact that he felt lonely and can they still be friends, please?

The end-scene is a little gory, and I haven't really decided the outcome of it yet. It all boils down to dealing with themes of loneliness, friendship, the moral definition of evil (is the demon/spirit thing fundamentally evil, or just caught up in its own rage? etc., etc.), abandonment-issues and how human beings react when faced with something they can't comprehend.

Polo is the darkest story so far! Somethings i've had to water down so that i can share it on other sites!

Well, there was a considerable amount of rape, drugs, murder, insanity... As well as, no matter how much against it I am, incest. There's almost no suicide evah because I'm opposed to that on the basis that I find it completely illogical. But, really, any of my dark stuff would come out where the characters wouldn't think much of it. Almost like shock value, where something shocking will happen, yet none of the characters would really care.

Sometimes I just throw some of what I consider the worst of humanity and toss them all together and force a coherent story out of it. I always get my most interesting characters from that.

My darkest is the one I posted here on DD. Check it out. Need feedback. It's in this forum! Help a brother out people!

About five years ago, I wrote a graphic novel called "Cleaning Service" about a happily married woman, who finds out her husband is cheating on her with the hired maid. It cuts her so deeply that she basically goes insane, kills her husband and the maid, puts on the maid's outfit, decides that all men are bastards, and decides to weed the f**king bastards out, one by one--sort of like a weird vigilante. So she starts a maid service, but really what she does is seduce the men while they're at home. If they take the bait, she seduces them more until she gets them in bed and...BAM! She brutally kills them and takes their money.

I was reading "Sin City" at the time, so the drawings were very dark & gritty. It was fun, but depressing.

Wow Sucubus Cleaning. Sucked to be them. I kinda wish I could see it.

Darkest thing I ever wrote, eh? Hmm...let's see...

I'd say in my case it would be a story I wrote a few years ago about post-Katrina New Orleans that dealt with a Lovecraftian entity dwelling under the floor of Lake Ponchartrain. It certainly wasn't my best work, but it had a really evil ending.

Mine... is a fanfic and the autobiography of my first genuine character (The first character I'd ever fully developed--she's now to the point of evolving independently of me). It has a happy ending, but it's got rape, murder, jail, getting cut up by your lover, and more murder. She deserves a happy ending. May contain loliyuri. (Thankfully not described.)

However, Dreams (Short for And So Pass Our Dreams--the book I work on from time to time) is a bit darker towards the end and in general. The revolution for equality is put down quite brutally, there's much slavery, and then the main character offs himself at the end. Because he thinks he stopped warfare. Oh, and he'd gotten himself a daughter by that point, too. Single motherhood ftl.

The darkest one is a comic I am working on right now, has the name of Metropolis, (until I find something better), abou two maniac killers, which are cats, just killing people. It will be, if ever published, A-Rated.

The darkest one I have online, right now, is Mmm... Kittens. It's about a cat that eats other cats!