By the time you turn around, it will be too late.
Behind You is a series of one-shot horror webcomics created by Irish illustrator Brian Coldrick, started in 2017.
Each image depicts a different and varied scenario with one central theme: someone is going about their business, completely unaware that something is creeping up behind them, with one sentence to sum up each small horror story. Settings range from abandoned malls, dark streets, and even futuristic labs.
The comic is currently updated at the artist's blog
and at Tapas Media, see here.
Behind You contains examples of:
- Abandoned Area: A very common setting, usually an old house or playground.
- Assimilation Academy: And a very literal example, at that:
- Bad Santa: At least this thing is supposed to be him:
- Body Horror: Many of the things that lurk are bizarre corruptions of the human body.
- Depraved Dentist: Soon it would kick in, he'd fall asleep, then wake up with it all over and done with.
- Cute Witch: Halloween Witch: the human's witch costume is cute. The real witch behind her not so much...
- Friendly Ghost: Birthday Cake has an old man celebrating a One-Person Birthday Party, with the skeletal ghosts of his brothers clapping cheerfully behind him.
- Hellhound: ...meow? has a cat being stalked by a multi-headed dog with hair dryer nozzles sticking out of its neck and a vacuum cleaner for a body.
- Monster Clown: Clown has a barrel-shaped clown with clawed hands trying to pop a grouchy kid's balloon.
- Monster Is a Mommy: This astronaut is about to learn why little aliens don't make good pets.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The whole premise of something lurking behind you while you're completely unaware, summed up with just one sentence and a picture. Half the time, you don't even know what these things intend to do or if they're even malevolent.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: And sometimes they aren't even the ghosts of people.
- Our Monsters Are Different: Very much so, the things in these panels range from humanoid spectres to otherworldly lifeforms.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: The "neighbor's kids" here simply wear masks labeled "boy" or "girl". One near the back is labeled "Birl" and another just says "human child". It'd be ridiculous it works if it wasn't Halloween.
- People Puppets: The so-called "freaks" in this picture, who are evidently about to welcome a new friend...
- Player and Protagonist Integration: DungeonBattler has a Knight wandering around a dungeon and musing he wants to go home and see his family but an inescapable feeling urges him onwards, with the Behinder being a modern kid holding a PS4 controller wired to the knight's right ankle.
- Shout-Out:
- States Beyond has a woman turn on a strange contraption that makes something visible, just like to From Beyond.
- Postman shows a hapless mail carrier delivering to the Whatley house, where a semi-visible giant stalks.
- 64 is outright titled "Locke & Key."
- States Beyond
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: In Halloween Pumpkin we actually get to see the Monster of the Week get their victim. It reaches out and turns the human's head into a pumpkin. They both turn to look at the viewer, and reach for them.