A common frustration for horror movie fans is that the stories eventually have to finish – or lead to sequels that aren’t as good as the original. That’s why many horror lovers find ongoing scares and stories in comic books.
It’s natural for fans of horror to want their favorite stories adapted for television. Thankfully, many beloved horror comics have been successfully turned into TV shows, delighting dedicated fans of the genre.
Horror comics owe a lot to the anthology format, especially the frightening collections published by E.C. Comics during the 1940s and 50s. A prime example from this period is Tales from the Crypt, created by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein.
Originally known as The Crypt of Terror, this popular horror series influenced several films in the 1970s and even inspired the 1982 movie Creepshow. It was later reimagined as a successful and humorous HBO original. Hosted by Jon Kassir as the voice of The Cryptkeeper, the show ran for seven seasons and also produced a comic book series and three standalone movies. It’s now remembered as one of the best horror anthology TV shows ever made.
DC Comics became known for offering complex and thought-provoking stories aimed at experienced comic book fans. A prime example of this was Preacher, created by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon. The comic follows a Texas convict who becomes a preacher and gains extraordinary powers from a supernatural source. He teams up with his former girlfriend and a hard-drinking vampire to embark on a wild quest to actually find God.
Sixteen years after the original comic series concluded in 2000, AMC created a television adaptation developed by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Sam Catlin, a writer from Breaking Bad. The first season acted as a backstory to the main comic book storyline. Starring Dominic Cooper (known for playing young Howard Stark in Marvel films) as Jesse Custer, Ruth Negga, and Joseph Gilgun, Preacher ran for four seasons and was a hit. It successfully stood on its own as a show while still capturing the darkly humorous and fantastical spirit of the original comic.
I’ve been a big fan of Joe Hill for years. He’s written some incredible stuff – novels like Horns and the short story The Black Phone are amazing. Of course, a lot of people know him as Stephen King’s son, but I also really appreciate his work on comics like Locke & Key. He’s a seriously talented storyteller in any medium.
Locke & Key, a comic book series with art by Gabriel Rodríguez that began in 2008, centers on three siblings who move into their family’s old house and find magical keys that unlock incredible and dangerous powers. They must keep these keys safe from a powerful, evil demon. A Netflix adaptation of the story became very popular, running for three seasons between 2020 and 2022.
In the early 2010s, zombies were a huge trend in entertainment, especially in movies and on television. This surge in popularity of the ‘zombie apocalypse’ genre can largely be credited to the debut of the TV show The Walking Dead.
Frank Darabont, an Academy Award nominee, adapted Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard’s popular comic book series into The Walking Dead, a show about a group trying to survive in a world filled with zombies. It quickly became one of the most critically acclaimed and widely watched shows on television. While many believe the show declined in quality before its 11-season run ended—particularly due to overly long seasons and planned future content—The Walking Dead was hugely influential and helped define a peak period for zombie stories and horror on TV.
Before Riverdale came out, everyone remembered Sabrina the Teenage Witch, largely because of Melissa Joan Hart’s popular TV show. However, that family-friendly series, and the original comics by George Gladir and Dan DeCarlo, weren’t as focused on the darker side of witchcraft as Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Robert Hack’s reimagining would be.
First appearing in comics in 2014 as part of the Archie Horror line, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina presented a darker take on the character, focusing on her efforts to navigate everyday life while battling dangerous creatures and evil forces that only she could control—or potentially make worse. Kiernan Shipka, known for her role in Mad Men, starred as Sabrina in a Netflix series that ran for two seasons and is now widely considered the most iconic portrayal of the character.
With the huge popularity of The Walking Dead, many TV networks wanted to create their own zombie shows, but with a fresh angle. The CW found a promising option in iZombie, a DC Vertigo comic series created by writer Chris Roberson and artist Michael Allred.
Between 2015 and 2019, Rose McIver – known for her role in CBS’s Ghosts – starred in a series created by Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright. The show is a fresh take on the original comic, presented as a crime drama. McIver plays Olivia “Liv” Moore, a character who comes back to life and uses memories gained from what she eats to help solve crimes.
While many dystopian stories are dark and depressing, Sweet Tooth offers a surprisingly hopeful take. Though the story is set in a world devastated by a virus, it’s told in a charming and imaginative way, making it appropriate for families to watch together. It’s a shame that many viewers of the popular Netflix series aren’t aware it began as a comic book.
As a big fan of the source material, I was really intrigued by the premise of this show. It’s based on a DC Vertigo comic by Jeff Lemire, and it centers around Gus, a young boy who’s part of a generation born with animal characteristics – in his case, deer ears and antlers. It’s a cool concept, especially because this mutation gets wrongly linked to the disease that wiped out most of humanity. Now, the comic is much darker and more violent in its depiction of Gus’s journey to find his dad in a post-apocalyptic world. But the showrunners, Robert Downey Jr. and his wife Susan, made a conscious choice to tone things down a bit, and thankfully, Jeff Lemire himself was on board with that approach.
DC Comics features many versions of Satan, but one of the most memorable is Lucifer Morningstar, who originated in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman series. He’s appeared in adaptations like the 2005 Constantine film starring Keanu Reeves and the Netflix series The Sandman, portrayed by Gwendoline Christie. However, the character’s most well-known depiction in live-action is quite different from these versions.
Tom Ellis, a Welsh actor, plays the lead role in Lucifer. The show originally aired on Fox for three seasons before Netflix continued it for another three. The series follows Lucifer, who decides to leave his position as ruler of Hell and open a nightclub in Los Angeles. Surprisingly, he also starts using his ability to detect evil to help the police solve crimes, becoming an unlikely consultant.
Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead, didn’t initially set out to frighten readers. But between 2014 and 2021, he and artist Paul Azaceta aimed to create a different, more unsettling kind of horror with their collaborative work.
Before the comic book even came out, Robert Kirkman started working with Cinemax to create a TV show based on the story of a man trying to fight evil forces that have haunted him and his family since he was a child. The show, called Outcast, starred Patrick Fugit (known for Almost Famous) and received praise for its scary and unique take on demonic possession during its two seasons.
The initial trailer for FX’s The Beauty, presented like an advertisement for a beauty injection that makes people unbelievably attractive, led many to believe the sci-fi series was heavily inspired by Coralie Fargeat’s critically acclaimed horror film, The Substance. But the creator, also known for American Horror Story, actually based the show on a comic book series from Image Comics.
I’m really excited about the TV series based on Jeremy Haun and Jason A. Hurley’s work! It keeps the interesting idea of an STD that makes people incredibly attractive, but it’s different from the original. While the STD is still a big part of the story, the show adds new characters, and it’s cool that the two main characters, who were just friends before, are now a couple. Plus, they’ve thrown in this miracle drug that changes things up even more!
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2026-02-25 18:23