Just in time for Halloween, there’s a great interview with Stephen Bissette up at Comic Book Resources. Although he sadly retired from comics back in ‘99, Bissette is really a master of horror comics, and his greatest contribution (yes, I’m putting this above his work on Swamp Thing) was the brilliant anthology Taboo.
Taboo was pure magic. It was horror comics done right. Yes, there were some purely E.C. influenced stories in there, but it also managed to produce stories of true horror, something I haven’t seen in comics since. Take a look at the Taboo Legacy page on Comicon.com to see what a profound effect this had on the comics industry. From Hell, Black Hole, Through the Habitrails, Lost Girls, Joyride…all of these major graphic novels got their start in Taboo, and that page only scratches the surface of the anthology’s contents.
Bissette says in that interview that he lost a fortune running Taboo, which is a real shame, much like the fall of Tundra was a terrible blow for the industry (however poorly and irresponsibly run Tundra was, you can’t deny that some of the best books of the last few decades came out of there). Also a shame are the stories that never got off the ground. I still have my pre-order bonus mini-book of Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli’s Sweeney Todd, and between that and the first (and only) installment that ran in the last issue of the magazine you could see something great starting.
It took me years to track down every issue of Taboo. There are eight in total (seven issues plus one “especial”) and they’re all gems of horror goodness. Steve Bissette still sells most of them through his website, if you’re looking to pick some up, but be warned, they’re quite pricey.
Recently, DC Comics announced Toe Tags, an upcoming horror anthology that will list George Romero as one of its first contributors. It sounds like they’re on the right track with this one, but it won’t have the size, ambition, quality or sheer style that Taboo did in its day. Much like Raw set the bar for the alternative comics anthology, Taboo set such a high standard that we may never see its like again.