Help for school's culture days comic, theme fear

[Dash]

Move or delete this if this topic doesn't belong here.

Every year, my school Schillerska (Gothenburg) have three special days in April called "the culture days". Means it is art galleries, music, movies and cafes by us students.
Last year we had a comic book there the theme was about fairy tells. This year we're going to do the same, some classes, with the theme fear or horror. And my class have to do one.
Well...
My creativity is minus 4 and a seagull right now. I don't know how to start or even get inspirations. Well, I can look at scary movies, but I don't know if it helps me so well. And I do can the comic based. I just, need ideas.
What do you think it would be scary? Ghosts, gore or psychical attacks?
The comic would be send in soon as possible.

This what it is:

Pages; 1-4
Theme; Horror, fear
Size; A5, A4 (will be resize it as A5)
Style; They hoping not so much manga in it. Only your style.
The comic will be inked!

You will be much help for me if you have some ideas. Thanks!

[Snowman]

Sometimes when I want to do a topic along those lines, I'll Google the term 'phobias' and open up a website that displays every type of phobia there is. Usually just reading through them starts generating ideas like mad. I'd say give it a try if you've got writers block, and build on a phobia that sounds interesting. Or combine a few different ones together if you can think of a way they'd mesh.
Like phasmophobia and siderophobia just for an example, which are fear of ghosts and fear of stars. I can think of a few stories to build off that one example. (Ghosts really come from the stars, therefore can only haunt us at night  )

http://www.phobialist.com/

Just an idea. 

[Katatafisch]

hmm when i hear the word scary, i mostly think of darkness, something unknown, when you are in a situation where you have limited access to your senses...like in darkness, our main sense is blocked, the sight without seeing something or barely seein shapes we feel helpless, all the other senses are somewhat connected to the sight, if we feel something, smell something, hear something we want to see where it comes from or what it is, without sight we can only guess what it is, in this situation, depending on what you see(shapes, silhouettes, movement), hear or feel or maybe even smell, even the most normal thing on earth can scare someone

in that case its the tension and atmosphere that makes the scaryness,

next to that we have the clichés:
monsters, such as Zombies, Werewolf, all kind of myth creatures
wild Animals(even a bunny can look scary if barely lit with eyes reflecting the moonlight, eyes wide open)
insects

fear could also be the fear of loss, the fear of failing, those kinds of fears are where people fear that the plans they made for their life, dreams or something they love gets inaccessible
sure if they love their life they fear losing it, so theyre afraid of everything that could be a thread to it

then like snowman said the phobias, there are alot of phobias, mostly connected with background stories, like something people saw in their childhood

its good that the comic may be 4 pages long so you can build up an atmosphere which is really creepy either for the protagonist or in the best case for the viewer/reader
since it will be resized to a5 much text would e stupid so make sure the pics you do speak for themselves, ah one thing ive learned when i wanted to draw comics was that for teh beginning of a comic an establishing shot or an environment is the best as a first panel because then the viewer has an idea where it all takes place, especially on those short ones

some ideas on the atmosphere: i think some smoke or fog is always good, long shadows, rare light and extreme closeups of the frightened protagonist, maybe hectic orientation between strange or sudden noises, a weird smell or some branch touching the protagonist, so hes/she without orientation, influenced by everything his/her senses can perceive

sounds like an awesome topic, hope some of my ideas helped ^^

[Markham]

What do you think it would be scary? Ghosts, gore or psychical attacks?

None of this is really scary in of itself.  Gore isn't scary at all, it's just gross.  To make something scary, you need to have suspense.  A monster you never see because it's too good at getting out of your field of vision so fast you just see a blur out of the corner of your eye, or a shadowy shape ducking around the corner, can be more scary than some monster popping up and screaming in your face.  Things that aren't where they should be are scary as well.  Let's say some character is snatched in the dark by a monster and re-appears some time later dazed and confused, but with their face on upside-down, can be really freaky - seeing their reaction to the realization and horror of what has happened to them, etc.  Pans Labyrinth, with the guy with his eye sockets in the palms of his hands, or whatever horror movie with the quadruped human-thing crawling on limbs that bend the opposite way they should.

One of my room-mates left a slightly-bigger-than-life-size cardboard cutout of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator in the kitchen this morning, and as it was dark, it was rather startling turning the corner and facing that.  It was out of the ordinary and didn't make any noise, so I couldn't have possibly have suspected it.

[H@m]

Markham gives an idea to me with "side of vision remark." Perhaps you should draw large cutouts of half a blury monsters and place it coming out of an object, making sure it's out of reach and can't be changed too much on perspective. Just so when they look, they have to look twice.
 Also maybe some monster arms n claws on windows/windowsills. I don't think a complete monster has to be necessary.

[Dash]

Sometimes when I want to do a topic along those lines, I'll Google the term 'phobias' and open up a website that displays every type of phobia there is.
Like phasmophobia and siderophobia just for an example, which are fear of ghosts and fear of stars.

I have the idea after I heard this. I knew I had ligyrophobia when I was a kid. I thinking of a comic with claustrophobia in. I know there are some people in my school who have this.

hmm when i hear the word scary, i mostly think of darkness, something unknown, when you are in a situation where you have limited access to your senses...like in darkness, our main sense is blocked, the sight without seeing something or barely seein shapes we feel helpless, all the other senses are somewhat connected to the sight, if we feel something, smell something, hear something we want to see where it comes from or what it is, without sight we can only guess what it is, in this situation, depending on what you see(shapes, silhouettes, movement), hear or feel or maybe even smell, even the most normal thing on earth can scare someone

its good that the comic may be 4 pages long so you can build up an atmosphere which is really creepy either for the protagonist or in the best case for the viewer/reader
since it will be resized to a5 much text would e stupid so make sure the pics you do speak for themselves, ah one thing ive learned when i wanted to draw comics was that for teh beginning of a comic an establishing shot or an environment is the best as a first panel because then the viewer has an idea where it all takes place, especially on those short ones

some ideas on the atmosphere: i think some smoke or fog is always good, long shadows, rare light and extreme closeups of the frightened protagonist, maybe hectic orientation between strange or sudden noises, a weird smell or some branch touching the protagonist, so hes/she without orientation, influenced by everything his/her senses can perceive

sounds like an awesome topic, hope some of my ideas helped ^^

Yeah, the normal fear or horrors like monsters is ok too. Since only some will get their pieces published in the comic book, I don't really care since mine is coming in too. Fear is not my thing since I like more funny or satirical politic comics. But it would be funny to make a try.
And I'll think of the atmosphere and the size too. Thanks for the tips!

[Alistair]

Arachnophobiais quite a common one.
Why dont you have a comic about fear from the eyes of the spider/monster thats causing the fear?
tis a suggestion.

[H@m]

You could be sick a cruel and sew daddy long legs onto the paper. Or you could just capture heaps and let them go in the classroom