***UPDATE*** Looks like I need to clarify something: Yup, this is the same artwork as we used on the last Harvey comic. He’s our backup strip when we’re working on something complex (or I’ve screwed something up). I kind of like telling different stories with the same artwork, but we won’t bust him out too often. – A

I’m always a little torn on how much horror, both in terms of gore and in terms of existential horror, I can actually get away with writing into the comic. For gore I very much rely on Natalie’s skill as an artist to get across the right amount of carnage whilst not going so far overboard that it ruins the joke. Having attempted to draw some carnage I can attest to it being a very difficult thing to draw*. Existential or even cosmic horror is a different beast as it relies a lot on the imagination of the reader/viewer to be scary. I think that’s why I like Harvey so much; he’s just so HAPPY that life is a meaningless puppet show for the entertainment of beings we can’t hope to understand.

I got asked in an email if Harvey was real or just the Giant Ceiling Squid playing around, to which the answer is ‘yes’. It’s also possible the Giant Ceiling Squid is just Harvey playing around. It’s that sort of universe. Either way, there’s a children’s TV show.

As Yahtzee Croshaw said in this article: comedy and horror are very similar things. Both rely on timing to do what they need to do, both involve surprise as an important factor…and both have different effects on different people. Gore mostly doesn’t bother me at all, but tension in horror movies just wrecks my mind. Others can live with the tension as long as no bits of people fly across the screen. I think that’s why I put this comic together, even though Cthulhu Slippers trends far more towards silliness than anything else. I just love the combination of horror and comedy no matter where a work falls on the scale between the two.

On that note my link for this week is to two of my favourite horror comedies: The first is Shaun of the Dead and the second is Ghostbusters . I doubt you need an introduction to either of movies, but I think they both combine horror and comedy moments to great effect. If you happen to buy either of them from those links then we get a tiny cut of the proceeds and you pay nothing extra. Until we get this Patreon thing happening then it’s the best way for you to support the comic.

I’d also like to mention Abbey Howard’s comic The Last Halloween not only because it blends comedy and horror, but because it’s pretty much my favourite thing on the internet right now.

Thanks everyone, see you next week!

Andrew

* Also difficult to draw, for me at least: Hands, feet, tentacles, shadows, blood, things.