T-OoOoOo-nstack
Spooky cartoons about ghosts
It’s that time of year again, ghouls and gals. Personally, I’m not the Halloween type. Or the pumpkin spiced latte type. To be perfectly honest, I’m not really any type. Except in the case of type-casting, in which case I am happy to play the same role over and over again in the pictures (casting directors, did you hear me?!).
Speaking of the pictures, there’s nothing that scares me more than a movie with ghosts. Personally, I don’t actually believe in ghosts (but I’m happy to play them over and over again *ahem*), but give me a movie with a good haunting and I won’t sleep for weeks. The Sixth Sense? I see dead people on my way to the bathroom at 3 am. Ju-On? Little Japanese boys still scare me. A Ghost Story? Well, I was more confused than scared.
The word “ghost” comes from Old English gast, "breath; good or bad spirit, angel.” And even further back, from the PIE root *gheis meaning “excitement, amazement, or fear.” Interestingly, to “ghost-write” dates back to 1919. Even more interestingly, I’m available for hire to ghost-write your next book *ahem*.
This week, I’ve asked my fellow toonstackers to share cartoons about ghosts, the scary spectral kind and even scarier phone-related kind.
Enjoy! I mean: Boo!
- Navied
Suerynn Lee
Words fail, images too. It’s just another language, after all. What we can rely on is fumbling for a light switch in the dark and grasping a finger instead – bony, beckoning, hooking your collar, drawing you closer to the crone you’d repelled on the street, clad in stinking, billowing rags, now cackling at your terror, pressing against you in your cupboard-sized bathroom, thrusting her threadbare skull and roving eye in your face as she expands to giant proportions, unfurling new, disjointed limbs, furred like a spider’s, wrapping its mammoth digits around your body, snaking into every corner of your mind, choking out your thoughts until–
You wake up. You go about your day. You turn lights on and off. You fling dinner plates against the wall. You scream and wail while the father tunes the radio away from the frequency that will play your voice. You sit, moonlit, at the foot of the child’s bed and sing to her. You hover behind the mother in the bathroom, willing your body – the image of your body – into existence for just one moment, so you can meet her eyes in the mirror and say, “Help me.”
Jon Adams
When I was asked to contribute a ghost cartoon, I defensively asked, "Why don't you contribute a ghost cartoon?" I was covering for my lack of confidence—I didn't actually know what a ghost was. Sure, I'd heard the word tossed around in conversations, but it was right alongside other words I'd never learned the meaning of like wallaby, haiku, or perpendicular. Needless to say, I had some research to do. The more I learned about ghosts, the more questions I had. Where do ghosts come from? Is there a ghost inside me right now, waiting for me to die so it can come out? Is Casper the Ghost a little kid who died, or is he the result of two ghosts making love? As a ghost, does no longer fearing death mean you're free to finally experience life? How is the supernatural/romance/thriller Ghost still so good despite being over 30 years old and directed by one half of the team that made the comedic classic Airplane? I was never able to answer any of these questions because I got distracted watching Airplane and Ghost.
Jason Chatfield
Last week I typed a great text response to someone I was arguing with. I typed it in a dream (the perfect text. Truly. It was so good you shoulda seen this thing.) Then I woke up and went about the rest of my life thinking I had sent it. When I never heard back, I assumed I’d won the argument forever. Game over.
Just this morning I opened the text thread.
It was empty. I never sent anything, and I can’t remember the text I wrote in my dream.
I’m just going to ghost them forever instead.
Avi Steinberg
I love ghosts. They are versatile. They are elegant. They are the funniest things I would never want to see in real life. I can't stop drawing them.
We’ve got NEWS!
Check out Avi Steinberg’s Substack and picture book.
Jason Katzenstein and Sofia Warren are your hardcore cartoon drill sergeants: join us on the afternoon of Sunday, November 3rd at the Center for Fiction for Cartoon Boot Camp (in person!).
Coming up at the New Yorker Festival: see cartoonists draw live at Cartoon Improv! We’re honestly not entirely sure what this event entails, so whatever you see will be truly once-in-a-lifetime. Featuring Toonstack regulars Sofia Warren and Colin Tom on Saturday, and Jason Chatfield and Emily Bernstein on Sunday.
Hilary Campbell releases Cartoons by Hilary every Friday!
Want more Amy Kurzweil? You can watch her new TED Talk, read her award-winning graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story, and sign up now to join her Patreon Creative Community, with new classes every month.
Check out Navied Mahdavian’s critically acclaimed graphic memoir, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America.
Jason Chatfield has two substacks: New York Cartoons (Cartoons about life in New York) & Process Junkie (Lessons on the creative process) and has a book coming out in Fall 2025 called "You're Not A Real New Yorker Until..." You can get a discount on your pre-order here.
Cartoonists, like Tinkerbell, only exist if you believe in us. Please, show us you believe!