Exploring the Existential Horror of Nameless with Artist Chris Burnham
The most horrifying horror comic ever published
🚨🚨Trigger Warning: Nameless is an incredibly disturbing comic that contains horrific depictions of gore, torture, sexual assault, and numerous acts of debauchery.🚨🚨
Anyone who has subscribed to this Substack or spent any amount of time around me knows I love the horror genre. I have rated over 300 horror films on Letterboxd, and I’m sure I’ve seen plenty more that I just haven’t rated yet. I’ve read copious amounts of horror novels, horror comics, horror poems, and horror short stories. I listen to horror podcasts and subscribe to horror YouTube channels. I just can’t get enough of the genre. An unfortunate side effect of consuming so much horror content is it becomes increasingly difficult to be genuinely frightened or disturbed by new works within the genre. Only a select few movies, novels, comics, etc. truly scare or disturb me now.
Enter Nameless. Nameless is a six-issue comic book limited series written by Grant Morrison, illustrated by Chris Burnham, and colored by Nathan Fairbairn that was published by Image in 2015. Describing this comic without spoiling it is going to be a challenge, but here it goes.
Nameless tells the story of a Scottish occultist (who is referred to by others as “Nameless” because he has forsaken his name to prevent enemy sorcerers from invoking it to harm him) who is recruited by an eccentric billionaire to lead a team of astronauts into space to stop an asteroid called Xibalba that is on a collision course with Earth. I know what you’re thinking: “Why would they recruit a Scottish occultist to go into space to neutralize an asteroid?” Well this particular asteroid happens to be branded with a giant magical sigil. Some intelligent entity had to have put it there, and that entity must have some connection to the occult. From there the series turns into an ungodly amalgamation of Event Horizon, Hellraiser, and Lovecraftian existential horror. As Xibalba gets closer and closer to Earth, the global population is driven to madness and acts of depravity on an unimaginable scale. There are countless atrocities committed, characters begin losing their grasp on reality, and ancient deities worm their way into the consciousness of our protagonists.
Our protagonists are terrorized throughout the series both physically and psychologically. One moment they are in the cold endless depths of space, and the next they are questioning their own reality in hallucinatory nightmare sequences. What is real? What is the true enemy? What is human? These are questions that both the characters and the reader find themselves asking throughout each of the six issues. It’s incredibly bleak, and Chris Burnham’s art brings these nightmares to life in vivid detail. Burnham’s style grounds the story in a gritty realism despite dealing with a tale of interplanetary existential horror.
Mr. Burnham was kind enough to take some time out of his busy schedule to discuss Nameless with me. Without further ado, here is our discussion.
How did you and Grant first come up with the pitch for Nameless?
Even before we started work on Batman Incorporated, Grant proposed working on something creator owned after we finished. So we met for lunch at San Diego Comi-Con the summer after Batman Incorporated wrapped and kicked some ideas around. The sci-fi horror idea won the day, but if I’d been in a slightly different mood we might have gone with the rejected Indiana Jones pitch! :D
How much of the horrific violence was scripted out by Grant and how much free reign did you have to go wild with it?
Grant was pretty specific with the big moments in the script, but I was always on the lookout for a way to make things even more horrible! Pretty sure I added that one guy drinking cum out of a decapitated head [Editor’s note: Gross!]. And I came up with some of the weird storytelling conceits like the panels shaped like the dream machine cutouts and the flash-forward in the gutters of the seance scene.
Do you have a favorite page or panel that you illustrated for the series?
I’m probably proudest of the fact that the big brain-shattering climactic reveal is the single grossest moment in the series. Somehow we managed to save the best for last. It hits on a plot level, an emotional level, and a totally visceral gore level, all while paying off a number of storytelling motifs… we absolutely NAILED that bit.
I’m always annoyed when horror movies blow their gore wad too early. Seems to me that saving the biggest kill for last would be the most obvious choice, but no one EVER goes for it. Bah!
Did you draw any inspiration from other horror properties when illustrating the series?
I was mostly drawing inspiration from http://reddit.com/r/wtf , which at the time was a dizzying stew of trypophobia, horrifying skin conditions, drug cartel murder photos, bug infestations, and Russian car videos. It doesn’t really exist in that form anymore - the last time I checked, the gross stuff got absorbed in WatchPeopleDie, which is a bit much for me these days.
Nameless is obviously pretty similar to Event Horizon and Jacob’s Ladder and, I dunno, Galaxy of Terror, but I wasn’t really actively looking at those for inspiration. But did I go on Google Images to find out exactly what a severed penis really looks like? I SURE DID!
You recently wrote and illustrated the “Take One” story in the first issue of the Creepshow comic published by Image this year. How did you get involved with this anthology series?
For shits and giggles I showed a short (as yet unpublished) horror comic that I wrote and drew to Robert Kirkman (the Walking Dead guy and my co-creator on Die!Die!Die!) and Skybound’s EIC Sean Mackiewicz. They liked it, and a few weeks later told me that they were going to do a Creepshow comic and wanted me to pitch a story for it. Easy as that!
What is your relationship to the Creepshow films and television series?
Creepshow is one of the first horror movies I ever saw, and one of my favorite movies of all time. I go back and forth between “Father’s Day” and “Something to Tide You Over” being my favorites. I definitely didn’t like “The Lonesome Death of Jordie Verrill” when I was a kid, but now I love it. An amazing depiction of anxiety! Creepshow and Creepshow 2 became default rentals whenever we couldn’t decide on anything else, and I’ve seen them a million times.
You nail the distinct tone of not just Creepshow but also the older comics and horror anthology magazines from EC Comics and Warren Publishing like Tales from the Crypt, Creepy, and Eerie. Do you have a history with any of those titles?
Thanks! I read a fair amount of Tales from the Crypt when they were reprinted in the early ‘90s to coincide with the TV show, but I’m not a die hard super fan with the big fancy slipcases. I do love some Ghastly Ingels though! I’ve read a bit of Creepy and Eerie from random Ditko reprints etc., but it’s not something I’ve ever really dived into.
Last but not least, what else are you working on that you can tell us about?
I can’t tell you what I’m working on now, but a 3-part Alfred serial that I wrote and drew recently finished up in Batman Urban Legends #18-20. It’s kind of Richard Sala / Edgar Wallace Krimi sort of thing. Alfred takes on a case of his own while Batman is out of town and gets in over his head. Secret societies, murder, hidden treasure, that sort of thing. Pretty good!
Thanks again to Mr. Burnham for taking the time to share his insights on Nameless. I’d like to state for the record that I did not include any of the most disturbing images he drew for this comic including the pure unadulterated nightmare fuel from the climax that he referenced. You’ll have to read the comic for yourselves to see that.