This research project will trace the development of Japanese horror manga and American horror comics in the late 20th century and conduct a comparative analysis. It will compare the expressive and formal characteristics of horror comics produced during the formative periods of the genre in both national settings, focusing on Japanese horror manga and American horror comics published before the 1990s. This focus will allow the study to comprehensively analyze artists active from the 1950s to the 1980s to deepen and the historical overview of the genre and to compare the development of graphic (visual) horror in two comics cultures.

　The principal investigator, Christopher Craig, will use physical media, online and digital archives and databases, and fan and amateur scholarship and other publications to examine the genre-establishing horror works published in the United States by EC Comics and other American publishers from the first horror comic book published in 1949 to the institution of the Comic Code Authority, which aimed specifically at censoring horror and crime comics, in 1955. The co-investigator, Olga Kopylova, will examine horror manga from the 1950s to the 1980s in a variety of physical archives in Tokyo, as well as digital archives and collections.

　This research promises to reconstruct the development of the horror genre in graphic narratives in Japan and North American during its formative periods and will contribute to cross-regional media studies by tracing the unique formation processes of the genre in each national setting.