What is grimdark? It was coined from the tagline for Warhammer 40,000, “In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.” Grimdark describes fiction, usually speculative, that is dark, amoral, violent, and often dystopian or anti-utopian. Settings are often bleak. Protagonists and antagonists alike are often morally questionable or bankrupt. Problems are solved in violent, irreversible ways. Content warnings abound. As the days shorten and the nights elongate, we break out the blankets. We snuggle up with a fire and turn to our bookshelves more than normal. This is the time when I turn to grimdark most, letting the darkness outside find purchase on the pages before me. And there’s no genre of books that captures grimdark quite so well as comics. Prose can pull it off, sure, but letting an inker go ham on blackening a page really immerses me in the darkness. Here are 10 of the absolute best grimdark comics. Grim enough? Dark enough? If reading this list depresses you just a little, then it’s a good list of grimdark comics. Sometimes you just need that in your reading life. What are some of your favorites that I missed?
