Brian Gibson’s Reading Saki: The Fiction of H.H. Munro was a not very complimentary study of the author, published by McFarland, while Robert T. Tally, Jr.’s Poe and the Subversion of American Literature was a critical examination of the author’s career.
Edited by Massimo Berruti, S.T. Joshi and Sam Gafford, William Hope Hodgson: Voices from the Borderland: Seven Decades of Criticism on the Master of Cosmic Horror brought together numerous essays about the author by, amongst others, Brian Stableford, Mark Valentine, Leigh Blackmore and Andy Sawyer, along with a terrific Bibliography compiled by Joshi, Gafford and Mike Ashley and some useful indexes.
Edited by Patrick McAleer and Michael A. Perry for McFarland, Stephen King’s Modern Macabre: Essays on the Later Works collected thirteen critical essays covering the period 1994-2013.
The third book in Phil and Sarah Stokes’ monumental project Memory Prophecy and Fantasy: The Works and Worlds of Clive Barker was subtitled Masquerades and limited to 250 numbered hardcover copies. The volume covered Barker’s theatrical career with the Dog Company.
Paul Meehan’s The Vampire in Science Fiction Film and Literature from McFarland explored the science behind the mythology, while Paul Adams’ Written in Blood: A Cultural History of the British Vampire from The Limbury Press was an in-depth guide to British bloodsuckers that also included a section of photographs.
Zombie Book: The Encyclopedia of the Living Dead by Nick Redfern and Brad Steiger covered everything that was dead…but alive. That didn’t stop editors Shaka McGlotten and Steve Jones trying to dig up a different approach in Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead, which contained ten critical essays.
From The Alchemy Press, Touchstones: Essays on the Fantastic reprinted twenty-two articles by John Howard on such authors as Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Robert Hood, Carl Jacobi, Fritz Leiber, Arthur Machen, William Sloane, Hugh Walpole and Karl Edward Wagner, amongst others.
Jason V. Brock’s Disorders of Magnitude: A Survey of Dark Fantasy contained essays, articles and interviews. It was published as part of the “Studies in Supernatural Literature” series edited by S.T. Joshi for publisher Rowman & Littlefied.
In Monstrous Bodies: Feminine Power in Young Adult Horror Fiction from McFarland, June Pulliam explored the roles of women in YA ghost, lycanthrope and witchcraft fiction.
Michael Howarth’s Under the Bed, Creeping: Psychoanalyzing the Gothic in Children’s Literature from the same publisher looked at Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, amongst other children’s books and stories. So, too, did The Gothic Fairy Tale in Young Adult Literature: Essays on Stories from Grimm to Gaiman edited by Joseph Abbruscato and Tanya Jones, also from McFarland.
Edited by Laurie Lamson, Now Write!: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror included eighty-seven essays and writing exercises by Ramsey Campbell, Jay Lake and others.
Compiled by Robert Weinberg, Douglas Ellis and Robert T. Garcia, The Collectors’ Book of Virgil Finlay from American Fantasy Press featured stunning black and white and colour reproductions of the work of the “Dean of SF Artists”, taken from the original illustrations themselves. This was also published in a 400-copy limited edition signed by all three compilers, a Kickstarter-funded edition additionally signed by Finlay’s daughter Lail, and a twenty-six copy leatherbound lettered edition.
Containing more than 200 pages of never-before-seen and newly scanned images, Clive Barker: Imaginer: Paintings and Drawings Volume One 1998-2014 from Century Guild was the first in a proposed eight volumes of Barker’s art financed via Kickstarter campaigns. Featuring text by Thomas Negovan, it was issued in a 1,000-copy hardcover edition ($100.00) plus a signed bookplate, boxed, faux-leatherbound edition limited to 100 copies ($400.00).
Presented by Roy Thomas, the fourth volume in PS Art Books’ reprints of Dick Briefer’s 1940s Frankenstein comics included a wonderfully entertaining Foreword by Donald F. Glut.
Neil Gaiman had fun re-inventing the expected fairy tale tropes in his story The Sleeper and the Spindle. Bloomsbury’s beautifully produced standalone hardcover edition added copious pen-and-ink drawings by the talented Chris Riddell. Meanwhile, The Art of Neil Gaiman edited by Hayley Campbell contained illustrations for Gaiman’s work, examples of the author’s own sketches, script notes for comics, personal photographs, and plenty of other miscellany, along with a Foreword by Audrey Niffenegger.
Written by Kim Newman and Maura McHugh and illustrated by Tyler Crook, Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder: The Mysteries of Unland was a limited five-part series from Dark Horse Comics featuring the 19th century psychic investigator created by Mike Mignola.
From the same imprint, Timothy Truman, Tomás Giorello and José Villarrubia’s King Conan the Conqueror adapted Robert E. Howard’s ‘Hour of the Dragon’, while The Strain: The Night Eternal adapted the final volume in Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s vampire apocalypse trilogy.
Written by Jonathan Maberry and illustrated by Tyler Crook, Dark Horse Comics’ five-part Bad Blood was about a boy dying of cancer who fought back against the vampire that attacked him.
The Premature Burial included graphic versions by the legendary Richard Corben of both Edgar Allan Poe’s title story and ‘The Cask of Amontillado’. Corben followed it up with two more Poe adaptations for Dark Horse, Morella and the Murders in the Rue Morgue.
Dark Horse’s eighteenth issue of the revived Creepy celebrated the title’s 50th Anniversary.
Clive Barker’s Night Breed from BOOM! was a new series that revisited the author’s literary and movie mythos, while the publisher’s four-issue mini-series Sleepy Hollow was based on the Fox TV show.
IDW’s The Fly: Outbreak was a five-part sequel to David Cronenberg’s 1986 movie, and Millennium from the same publisher was a sequel to the 1990s TV show, in which a reclusive Frank Black teamed up with X Files agent Fox Mulder.
Cemetery Girclass="underline" The Pretenders was the first in a YA graphic novel series written by Charlaine Harris and Christopher Golden and illustrated by Don Kramer.
Founded by writer/editor-in-chief Debbie Lynn Smith to promote creative women in comics, Kymera Press was launched with the supernatural thriller Gates of Midnight, created by Smith and developed with Barbara Hambly.
Stately Wayne Manor was turned into a home for the criminally insane in Gerry Duggan’s Batman spin-off series, Arkham Manor, from DC Comics.
George A. Romero’s Empire of the Dead from Marvel Comics was set in the director’s long-running Night of the Living Dead universe and illustrated by Alex Maleev.
Jeff Lindsay continued the exploits of his sympathetic serial killer in Marvel’s five-issue mini-series Dexter Down Under, in which Miami forensics expert Dexter Morgan travelled to Canberra, Australia, to help investigate the brutal murders of Asian immigrants.