If you liked this article, please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going
Happy Friday the 13th everyone, this weird day we’ve all decided is cursed for reasons we can no longer remember. Seriously, I have no idea why the fearful and unlucky reputation of the number 13 has persisted so long or even where it started but it has stuck around so we might as well indulge it. This Friday the 13th I’m celebrating with a dive into the single best argument for why this random day of the year has persisted as a national holiday: Jason Voorhees, star of the Friday the 13th film series.
Released in 1980, Friday the 13th may not have started the ‘80s slasher craze but it did cement it, helping to full launch the horror blockbuster and launching the franchise that would turn “Jason” into psycho-killer shorthand. Nearly 40 years later Jason has managed to invade every medium- film, television, video games, novels, music, and, naturally, comic books. There has been a cavalcade of Friday the 13th comic books over the years both tied to the films and independent of them and today we honor those comics by looking at their best cover artwork, let’s dive in.
13.
We open with a tie, mainly because I like both of these covers but didn’t want to do a Friday the 13th list with more than 13 entries. What’s more, while I like both of these covers I’m actually hard pressed to say which is superior as they both do an excellent job translating the iconography of the franchise into the language of comic books. While a lot of comic covers will attempt a more cinematic look, that’s not the case here.
The snake pit cover borders on the cinematic but the use of boundaries and definition are thoroughly grounded in the realm of comics. There’s an openness to the snake pit, the way it looks to go on beyond the borders of the frame, that feels much more like a comic cover than a film poster. I do really love how the snake through the mask eyehole doubles down on the way Jason’s mask has always been meant to evoke a skull.
On the opposite side, I like that we’re getting a shot of Jason sans mask, which was actually quite a bit more common in the films than most people think. The idea of casting his face mostly in shadow is a great touch and the use of backlighting, heavy inking, and dim coloring does a great job giving his twisted visage just enough definition.
Overall the left-hand cover has great use of negative space to avoid becoming over-detailed. The V-shaped blackness of the scene helps keep Jason and the girl in center frame without having to show us too much of Jason’s murder pit, as evidenced by the bones scattering her knees. These are the two most workmanlike comic covers of the bunch- steady and firm, getting the job done with no frills and plenty of well-tested technique.
12.
Man, that is truly grotesque. Like I said, the movie tended to actually relish in showing us Jason’s hideous face and this may be one of the best visions of it. We’re dealing with zombie Jason at this point like in the 7th film but I love the level of gory detail they’re able to render in this scene thanks to the artwork. The skin has completely rotted away and you can clearly make out the outline of his skull, which is almost incomparably disgusting. I say almost because that’s downright tame compared to all of the maggots eating their way through Jason’s face.
It’s a really subtle addition but somehow makes everything much, much worse. I also like how his teeth are clearly coming out and have gone crooked- teeth are naturally terrifying so seeing them going wrong like that is somehow infinitely worse. The use of rain is pretty nice as well, especially that really dynamic splash effect achieved where the water is falling on Jason. That’s a really cool effect that adds a layer of cooler, crisper texture to the scene beyond Jason’s sickening meat maw.
11.
That’s right- Jason Voorhees vs. a Tank, the match-up everyone’s been waiting for. I haven’t actually read this comic so I don’t know how Jason ended up fighting this tank or why he’s clearly winning but I’ll take it on faith that both of those things make sense. I mean, Jason seems to be a fairly unstoppable killing machine so I don’t think a big hunk of metal on treads could actually stop him, especially given that tanks couldn’t stop chimps in the Planet of the Apes movies. I think my favorite part of this shot is the massive fireball in the background because it makes so little sense. What’s supposed to be burning back there? The Tank? Who set the tank on fire? Was it Jason? Does Jason wield flames as well as machetes now?
I do really love the balance of color it creates, splitting the cover between the orange flames, green tank, and dark blue of the sky. It’s a nice trilateral split that makes the image a lot more pleasing and interesting. Honestly, stuff like this is exactly why horror comics should exist because if it was done in a film it’d be ridiculous. In the medium of illustration that’s already dominated by strongman in colorful costumes, it’s way more acceptable to put on this kind of overblown verbosity.
10.
This is a really interesting approach to a Jason comic and I love the ambition of not featuring Jason at all but having his fingerprints all over this visual. The whole concept feels very Jason Goes to Hell but in a better way than that film’s weird, body swapping approach. Firstly, the very idea of Crystal Lake in winter is curiously evocative and unique- it’s actually really rare to see Jason contend with snowfall yet the chill of winter adds a lot to his creepiness. Moreover, and I’m reading into this cover rather than speaking from knowledge of the book, I really like the implication that this is a murder scene unrelated to Jason Voorhees.
It looks very much like the man on his knees bound and killed that woman, it just so happened to be at Crystal Lake with Jason’s spirit hovering over it all. That’s part of what I meant earlier- Jason may not be here but the specter of his rage and violence is downright palpable. Finally, that neat trick of the blood-forming his hockey mask pattern is just golden. Overall the environmental details are really solid- I especially like the way the white of the snow gives way in a dark gradient to the sky and the edge silhouette of a tree, it’s very moody for a Friday the 13th comic.
9.
There are going to be quite a few “Jason vs.” comic covers in this list so let’s settle in slow with one from his fight against both Freddy Krueger of Nightmare on Elm Street and Ash Williams of The Evil Dead. I’m usually mixed on close-up face shots but this one is offering more than just an ugly mug, which is nice. Firstly, I really like the texturing done with the shading and line work on the mask, it looks rough-hewn and rocky, an aesthetic that’s increased by the big slash going through the top right side. Also, that blood splatter parallel to the gash is a really nice touch.
Most of all though is how much emotion is wrung out of this image through the mirrored eyes. That fiery lighting gives a real sense of rage to Jason’s vision even without any other facial cues to pick-up on and I really love the way Freddy and Ash are depicted. Freddy looks more monstrous than ever with a real trypophobic design to his burned flesh and that fang-like quality to his teeth is nice.
Ash looks a lot more human, more of an Evil Dead 1 vision of Ash compared to his swaggering bravado from Army of Darkness and Ash vs. the Evil Dead. It’s a nice balancing act, not unlike the blood and cuts above it or even the darkened lighting around the left eye socket compared to the lighter sheen around the right one. It’s a very binary cover which fits the subject of a “versus” comic.
8.
I told you to expect versus covers and this one was probably inevitable. I feel like Jason X has been afforded a degree of re-evaluation in recent years, in so much as people are more willing to admit that the film has dumb charms as opposed to no charms. I don’t think anyone genuinely thinks it’s a great movie but there’s a lot of “so bad it’s good” fun to be had with Jason in space, especially once he gets made over like a Power Rangers villain. Having that vision of Jason throw down with his Earthbound-self was basically the kind of thing the comics were made for and I am loving it. The pose and design of this cover are very classic, both for comics and for movie posters.
The looming, clashing figures were a common visual trope in Silver Age comics though there it could just as easily be literal as opposed to stylistic. Actually, if this book was about Jason X and normal Jason blowing up to Kaiju size to do battle like something out of Leprechaun in Space I’d be down for that. I’m also very curious about the two glowing planets and spaceship trail on the bottom of this cover. I think that’s probably tied into whatever time travel is allowing this crisis of multiple Jasons but it makes for a very dynamic background to the above action.
7.
Settle in folks because this series had such good cover art that all 3 issues are showing up on this list and if I ever do a ‘Top Texas Chainsaw Massacre covers’ list you’ll probably see them there as well. I’ve just never seen a more terrifying vision of EITHER of these characters, they’re so sick and distorted and wrong in a way that defies their very franchised nature.
Firstly, the background detail is absolutely incredible, this perfect blend of deep green and blue coloring that gives the look of an apocalyptic swampland- it’s primordial. Then the two slashers themselves are absolutely horrifying. Jason’s mask has abandoned the hockey design and looks more like an actual skull and his trademark machete is now a giant hooked blade like from a slaughterhouse.
I suppose that’s a fitting switch given he's fighting Leatherface, whose sporting his own belt of hooks and the biggest, scariest chainsaw I’ve ever seen. What really makes this cover though is the sickening way it depicts the human form- the twisted, exaggerated muscles, the exposed teeth, the slouching gut, it’s pure, inhuman ugliness.
6.
One of the curious quirks of this list is that’s heavily favored towards the later Friday the 13th movies like Jason Goes to Hell or Jason X. That’s more a function of how franchising comics works than anything else. Basically, during the ‘80s and some of the ‘90s, any franchise that wasn’t toy and kid-friendly couldn’t be franchised through the big two companies so it wasn’t getting a comic. That’s why this book, much like the Jason vs. Leatherface books or the Jurassic Park comics I reviewed two years ago, is being published by Topps Comics- who specialized in this kind of thing.
I love how creepy this cover makes Jason look without being the exact same kind of scary as the previous covers. This vision of Jason feels more like an urban legend come to life than something truly human. The way he’s shrouded completely in darkness except for the mask and machete suggests something, not of this world, he almost looks like the grim reaper actually.
I also love how the scale and angle of this cover do A LOT to increase that aesthetic. Firstly the POV is angled upwards, to the point, we’re getting the ceiling in the shot. However, assuming the woman is standing up straight, her mirror has to be HUGE and Jason is even bigger here. He’s towering over to the point he might actually be bending his head to avoid hitting the roof. He fills this room in a decidedly spooky and unnatural kind of way.
5.
Well, this is even more horrifying than the last one. This is Simon Bisley on the covers, incidentally, an amazing artist whose great blend of creepy anatomical designs with heavy metal sensibilities have not been appreciated nearly as much as they deserve. This mini-series alone has some of the most fundamentally horrifying visuals I’ve ever seen, especially this one of Jason Voorhees having impaled the various members of Leatherface’s cannibal family. I like the idea that Jason has basically claimed Leatherface’s chains and butcher hooks as trophies before murdering the family, throwing his hands up in triumph like a lower, Paleolithic version of the YMCA dance.
I have no idea where this scene is meant to be taking place, incidentally, as there’s nowhere on earth where you can naturally find this intersection of red mist, glowing green, and blueish-orange clouds. A lot of the coloring and the way this is shaded is part of what I mean about Bisley’s heavy metal sensibilities- they way it emphasizes neon colors and thin line differentiation. I may need to do a future list solely about this guy because his work is truly amazing. Also, I really dig that skull Jason has sent flying by celebrating.
4.
I admit I’m kind of a sucker for horror origin story shenanigans. I know that the remake boom of the mid-to-late 2000s really killed a lot of folks’ interest in this but I think that was more about poor execution than poor conception. I mean, both Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers first appeared as kids so there’s certainly precedent. Friday the 13th is actually even more of an outlier the way it originally focused on Jason’s mom and essentially serves as its own dive into Jason’s origin, especially with all the psychology in Friday the 13th Part 2.
That’s part of why I like this cover so much, the creepy kind of dive into Jason’s past. What made Jason Voorhees the killing machine he became is a pretty fascinating question and while I’m not a huge fan of the hockey mask as a presence in his life prior to Part 3 it’s hard to deny the chilling, evocative nature of it here- especially combined with a child. I’ve always suspected that part of what makes prequels enjoyable is when they’re made specifically to make the audience feel smart for recognizing things the characters don't’ know will be important and this cover is a great example of that. In the moment the hockey mask and campgrounds don’t mean anything- but we know what terrible importance they’ll have in the future.
3.
For such a weird, crook-eyed entry in the franchise, Jason Goes to Hell’s comic book adaptation sure made it look amazing. Seriously, this depiction of the film’s final scene, in which demons drag Jason down to Hell, looks genuinely gothic and evocative in a way the film decidedly wasn’t. I really love how blocky and built Jason Voorhees ends up looking in comic renderings, he’s given a physique like Bane most times but it works with the brutality that tends to inform a lot of his kills. This is also one of the more skull centric depictions of his mask, using a stylized take-off of the film’s rendering.
If you haven’t seen the movie, Jason Goes to Hell made Jason’s mask look like something under his skin as if the flesh that covered his face was peeled off to reveal the hockey mask. That’s definitely on display here with the way the mask is embedded into his face through the shading really gives it the shape of a skull, which it’s always meant to evoke. I also really love the design of the demons here as twisted living wood. I don’t know what that’s meant to symbolize or where that conception of the infernal originated but it’s a nice look regardless.
2.
Well…this is hell. Seriously, this is probably the best blend of the most terrifying aspects of both Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. A lot of that has to do with the focus as this is the first cover of the three where the real focus is on the faces of the characters rather than their deformed bodies.
You can’t get away from it- all up and down the banquet table there’s some new and unique visage of ghoulish ugliness to be confronted. Some of them are recognizable like Leatherface while others are new like the Nazi sitting in the bottom left corner. I think what really sells the cover is the creepy blend of ideal domesticity with the macabre and gruesome.
I mean, they’ve poured Jason Voorhees (who looks like he’s on steroids here) into a dress suit- that should be hilarious but in this context its just more creepiness. It’s like watching people play at being human but clearly not grasping the subtleties and the dead girl being served a the main course is incredibly disturbing.
Even the usual eccentricities of horror do nothing to diminish the terror here, like the “Help Me” written on the wall behind Jason. That’s too tall and too sideways for anyone to have written and even if they could who would they be writing it for? The answer is that they were writing it for you, audience, which is somehow even more frightening in its implication.
1.
Monochromatic covers are always a gamble but this one absolutely nails it. There’s something deeply unsettling and brutal about this image that it is absolutely haunting. I admit that the silent killer observing his work has always been more of a Michael move but it works just as well for Jason, even more so given the implied violence of the attack.
If you can’t tell, Jason has just finished beating someone to death with a boat oar, breaking both the oar and the person in the process. You can see part of the oar sticking out of the victim while Jason holds his snapped other half, blood seeping into the water form the kill.
The quiet of the aftermath reminds me a lot of the opening to Friday the 13th Part 4: The Final Chapter. It fits the whole creepy nature of the Friday the 13th oeuvre really, the idea of local legends and pasted over nightmares that have long haunted the placid face of places we take for granted. The red mist curling around Jason is a really nice touch as well to add to the eerie stillness of the moment, while the presence of crystal lake itself helps makes the environment a character in the scene all on its own. It’s a great cover that zeroes in on the most disturbing part of any slasher kill- the creeping stillness that comes in the aftermath.
If you liked this article, please like us on
Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going 
promise day love quotes
ReplyDeletelove messages on teddy day for dear hubby
valentine day image for whatsapp
happy proposes day quotes for grilfriend
happy hug day sms messages for best friend