This Artist Illustrates People’s Deep Dark Fears And Some Of Them Are Unsettling (30 Pics)
Interview With ArtistFran Krause is a comic writer, illustrator, animator, and educator based in California, who teaches animation at the California Institute of the Arts. Fran needs no introduction to those familiar with the weird and wonderful world of animation, as he worked for various projects on television and a bunch of popular comic series, like James Kochalka’s SuperF*ckers.
But today Fran is best known for his “Deep Dark Fears” project where he puts a creepy, captivating, and insanely funny spin on things people fear the most. Fran gets sent fear submissions from strangers on the internet that he then turns into colorful comics, putting our irrational anxieties into a whole new spotlight.
In 2015, his first book “Deep Dark Fears” became a New York Times bestseller for hardcover graphic novels, followed by a second volume “The Creeps: A Deep Dark Fears Collection” in 2017. So welcome to the internet’s beloved corner of idiosyncratic fears that capture imagination and release the silent demons inside, some of whom are funnier than we tend to think.
More info: DeepDarkFears.com | Twitter | Instagram | FranKrause.tumblr.com
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Oh, I see this almost every night in bed. It happens when your brain is asleep and dreaming, but your body suddenly wakes up. A lot of people see monsters or other terrible things. I'm lucky enough to see only beautiful things. The best was an old pirate ship that floated through my bedroom.
This is similar to the hunter story where he got lost in the woods and found a cabin and decided to rest there for the night. When he entered and sat on the bed, he noticed there are nearly 8 portraits surrounding him and each has face has a hateful look. He fell asleep and when he woke up in the morning, he realized that the cabin has no portraits, only windows.
My mum has Alzheimer's disease and she often sees s**t like this. This is a progression of the disease, the brain doesn't understand what it's seeing.
Yes, in my teens for a few years I was a bit worried that God might make me pregnant.
Mary f***s the neighbour and makes up a story that some angel shagged her to cover for it. joe is naïve and dumb enough to fall for it. good basis for a religion here. founded on lies and fabrication.
Please calm down I get upset when people talk down about the bible. I know we all have our own thoughts but it's kinda best to say in-person rather then online. You might say it to the wrong person.🙃✨
Load More Replies...araya is. hanneman thought religion was the greatest evil mankind had to offer.
Load More Replies...I do that too! People have died because psychos threw them on the subway tracks. I don't want to be the next victim
I always stood back by the wall. There's some crazy SOBs out there.
well you may laugh but this actually happened in my town! Some psycho randomly pushed someone on to the tracks, he was run over by the subway and he did not survive... ever since this, this fear is very real for me!
To find out more about the weird and wonderful world of “Deep Dark Fears,” Bored Panda reached out to the artist behind it, Fran Krause. Fran’s captivating illustrations became an instant hit both online, and in the illustration industry. His first book, “Deep Dark Fears,” premiered as a New York Times bestseller six years ago and his fan base has been constantly growing ever since.
I knew a girl that refused to wear flip flops because of this fear.
I wear sandals with straps, not because of that but they stay on my feet better and are safe when driving.
I didn’t even know this was possible. I have a new fear to add to the list.
I remember this feeling well. The last few weeks of my mom's life, I was paranoid she'd die while I took a shower. Went a week without showering, as did my sister. We barely slept. Mom was unconscious and in a coma but it didn't matter to us. We didn't want her to die alone but that seems to be what she wanted. Hospice nurses said they see it often, sometimes as soon as the door clicks shut, their hearts stop.
My brother in law left the room to give his dad privacy while the hospice nurse was doing her thing. She came out moments later to say he had died. Just like that. 2 months ago he was at my door at 6 am as always working construction. Cancer sucks.
This made me cry. This is how my mom died. My father and I came home one night and she was gone. It's been 20 years this year and it still hurts. To anyone going through this at any point my heart is with you.
My grandfather was ill after getting covid. It become really bad in just one day. I was helping my grandmother to take care of him but everytime I was leaving I feared I seen him last time. Eventually one day, I saw him last time. He died in next two days in hospital
omg.... i told my dad to NEVER put a big mirror in my room even tho im kinda ok with the tiny ones.... thanks to my frnds i have a very good fear of mirrors now....
Ya, I heard about Bloody Mary from my cousin, and now I get freaked out about doing things 3 times.
Load More Replies...... and dolls.I am 51 yo but my entire life i've hated mirrors and dolls in my bedroom.
Load More Replies...Oh it's not even my reflection that scares me, it's the thought of a demon or something
I have a huge fear of mirrors, there are none in my bedroom and only the bathroom cabinet mirror in my house.
Part of its popularity probably has to do with the fact that “Deep Dark Fears” genuinely touches people in a way that not much art does these days. Fran said that while working on his comics, he noticed that everyone seems to have fears, which is what makes his work so relatable. “Even people who look totally normal are actually afraid that there are goblins in their attic, or that their food has been secretly poisoned by assassins!”
They say you never can dream of a strange face. You might not have associated with the people in your dreams but you have SEEN them in the past.
They say that we can only dream about people we've seen before in life or on tv. That we are unable to make up faces. Meaning everyone you see in your dreams, good or bad is someone you have seen or met before somewhere else. It's this thought that makes my nightmares so much scarier. I used to have this brutal recurring nightmare from which I would wake up violently ill. Would take me weeks to shake them off. But never saw the guys face until a few months ago when I suddenly started having the nightmare again. Turned out to be my first boyfriend. I really can remember much from our time together. I was mentally in a really bad state back then. I always thought I suppressed the memories to protect me from my own bad state back then. But now I can stop thinking if this is really what I'm trying to forget or if there is more reality to this dream than I like to admit. I've been thinking about trying a hypnosis session to dig deeper into this. Because something is definitely off.
What's wrong with that? You get to mess them up while they are dreaming!
What's funny is, I always wished the people around me could read my mind when I was growing up because it was very obvious they didn't understand me at all. The joys of being an Aspie...
I might or might not take the Peril approach and mentally scream MUSHROOMS and MONGOOSES…
Ever hear the story "The Licked Hand"? Brings a whole new view into place.
I’m in my late thirties and I never got over this. I don’t think I ever will.
Same here, and I am 70. It ain't going away. Just get a big bed and sleep in the middle.....
Load More Replies...This could be wholesome.. or scary.. depending on which way you think about it
Fran also said that “it would be very strange to be alone in your fear. If you've had a strange fear, it's almost impossible to be alone in that fear.” So he guessed that “there are probably millions of people who are afraid that a snake has found its way into their toilet.”
I sometimes fear that I'm not a little girl, but someone completely different and I'm dying, and I'm having a hallucination of how my life could have gone.
I worry that life is actually a test, and if I ‘pass’, I’ll move onto another life, that one worst, and the cycle with go on, until I ‘lose’, when I ‘lose’ I’ll be stuck in time, in darkness forever, able to think and hear, but unable to see, move and talk.
...only to realize that mentally you are only as old as you make yourself feel!
Mentally, all old people feel like young people trapped in old bodies. Nothing good about it. Your mind might stay sharp, but you body is old, broken, not good anymore. I feel like a 20yo. I remember being 30. Now I'm 42 and have no idea how did I get here. Scary.
Load More Replies...When asked how “Deep Dark Fears” evolved with time, Fran said that he still draws them the same way, “in my sketchbook with a little watercolor kit. I've tried not to repeat myself, so the subject matter wanders around as I look for new subjects.”
He also noticed that the earlier illustrations “were gory, and then they were spooky,” and added: “I've been doing a bunch lately on childhood fears.”
Same... Im scared that if i suddenly open my eyes there will be something crouching on my chest of something
Me, too! I will sometimes shout a warning if I'm alone at night so that the beasties know to hide.
Load More Replies...if i dont open my eyes i dont know where i am, who i am....do i have to go to school?..do i have a job?..am i married?...
When I wake up I dont know where I am in until I open my eyes..I am scared to open my eyes...
I was so sick of (and from) meds for my migraines that I decided to get a Daith piercing. I don´t know if it really helped, or if it is a placebo effect, but 2 years later and my migraines are still less frequent than before. (Once every 2-3 weeks, to once every 2-3 months.)
The placebo effect gets a bad rap -- it's really tapping into your innate ability to heal yourself. I mean, if you get your migraines every 2-3 months instead of 2-3 weeks that's a lot better than it used to be.
Load More Replies...Unsure if this is a fear, or more a selfcomforting thing... I have severe headarche Every Day, migrains very often, to the point where i wanna drill the darn thing out of my head, my fear is one Day i happens....
I used to get headaches that would paralyse me...I laid still until they went..now i dont get them..I wonder if I died and passed to a parallel life, where people in my old life found my dead body...
After about 12 years of severe migraines I discovered I am allergic to artificial colors. I never eat anything without checking the ingredients, even in a restaurant I ask for a list of ingredients in things I am not sure about, some of them look at me like I'm crazy.
Not to worry you, but a little girl floating three feet off the ground isn’t going to cast a shadow under your door.
this is actually quite smart tho because i'm afraid of the dark, but sleeping with lights on is difficult. maybe i'll try this!
People send their fear submissions to Fran and he receives quite a lot of them, anywhere from one hundred to five hundred, and if it gets onto a big website, he might get a thousand. In that sense, the artist goes through every single book on human fears on a weekly basis.
“I think, if I'm reading someone's fear, and an image pops into my head, I'm more likely to draw it as a comic. I'm looking for things that have a text and a drawn component,” he said. “I like how the text can support the image, or it can do something totally different. I like playing with how they both interact,” Fran concluded.
The mummy’s in the glass case go ‘tap tap tap’, ‘tap tap tap’, ‘tap tap tap’, the mummy’s in the glass case go ‘tap tap tap’, all night looooong
Load More Replies...You can't leave fingerprint if you have no skin or all dry up.
Or maybe you're just a Daoist clone and your main body is trying to contact you.
This is actually pretty normal. I used to hear people say my name when I was a kid. Or I may have been haunted...
Okay so other people also hear their name being called. Good to know
When I was 6 or 5 I would try to go to sleep and hear voices whispering my name.
TBH, I think this is very common. When I'm trying to fall asleep after a hard day, I hear something like a radio when someone's changing stations by scrolling - random bits of conversations popping up, some in familiar voices, some strange... I learned to kind of enjoy those and drift off to sleep listening to that "radio." There's a scientific explanation for that phenomena though.
I think it would be easy for them to notice when they check for blown pupils. Even for clear contacts
It depends. I've had people get real close to me to show them how hard it is to spot them when they are on the eye. Mine even have a very slight blue tint on the weighted edge of the contact lens and people still can't see them.
Load More Replies...I always worry about how they will unlock my phone and get ahold of my loved ones. I know, crazy.
If you have an iPhone, if you select people you want as an emergency contact in your phone, then emergency staff can use your phone to call them. It just gives them access to just the people you nominate, not your whole phone. I'm fairly sure it works the same with other phones.
Load More Replies...I don't use contacts. But I do wonder about other things. Like how long it would take before they would discover a tampon, would they, and if so trim "the bush" downstairs if you're out for a long period or so. And armpits. I always imagine waking up very hairy and unkept. Oh and with very poorly dental hygiene. I mean with a tube in your mouth they can't really brush anything. I always wonder about that. Say you'll slip into a come for a few years. Can't imagine that won't leave any traces.
W-well now I´m scared they won´t remove my pad or smth
Load More Replies...I do this and enjoy a lot. Then I get back home alone and I feel so damn lonely. weird
That's a common worry but totally unfounded. Any ophtalmologist will tell you that something as thin and fragile as an eyelash can't make it behind your eyeball. Contacts however are quite another story, and people don't worry about contacts enough imo
Oh god this reminds me of that one story I read about. A woman had so many old contact lenses in her eyes 😣
Debbie Downer Disclaimer: This is a real concern for younger children, especially when wearing shoes with flexible rubber material. In my line of work, I've represented parents in two separate incidents, where their child's shoe got caught in the edge of an escalator stair and seriously injured and/or disfigured the child's foot.
I was watching a show once and a guy actually fell through the platform at the top of an escalator and lost his arm
A few years ago there was an accident in China with an escalator where the steps suddenly disappeared , the mom was able to get her toddler to safety but she disappeared into the escalator mechanics where she died. It's was on the news, and still uploaded on YouTube. It's quite a shocking video. I remember seeing it on tv just casually between other news items.
Load More Replies...When I was a kid, my grandmaw told how some girl with long hair fooled around in the escalator and her hair got stuck and her scalp ripped off... was terrified.
Oh god. Ohhhhh god. What... happened to the girl?
Load More Replies...my laces once got stuck. it ruined them, and i also almost had a panic attack
When I was a child, I used to dream about being sucked in by an escalator but it never was a real night mare, as I was just being tossed in a kind of space, as if having a bath in dark water. A strange thing.
No wonder this person is full of deep seated anxiety if their mom was telling them crap like that.
When I was young I did ice skating as a sport on a skating rink. We skated on the sharp speed skates and unfortunately this happened to a boy once. There was a big blood trail on the ice. It was terrible.
This happens to my aunt when she was young. Luckily they didn't slice the finger completely off, she just has a scar and a cool story
Ngl kinda ruined the sad vibe for me and made it hilarious hahaha
Load More Replies...dude wth if this is true then... OMG MY FRIEND SIRI IS BEING PAID?!?! (NOT THE IPHONE/ROBOT YOU IDIOT)
one day i woke up and I thought I was dead then I tried to pass through a wall and my mom came in she was like "what are u doing?"
Lately I've been feeling like I'm dreaming when I'm awake, and it all happens when good stuff happens
Those things do hurt a lot. Source : 7 year old me fell out of an old tree and impaled myself on one of them. Missed my femoral artery by 1/8th of a centimeter.
I haver this same dream and it's HORRIBLE, every time it feels SO real!
I also have this dream, but I learned it is the way my body lets me now I will get down with a cold...accurate every time
Load More Replies...I hate this dream. Im losing one tooth. And then another one. And then many more. Always horrible.
I have even seen that I'm chewing my own teeth and swallow them! So horrifying
Load More Replies...It is the worst nightmare I ever have. Zombies, murderers, my father, cemeteries and dogs are nothing compared to this horrible experience when you see and FEEL your teeth falling and crumbling.
I often have similar dreams, it's either crumbling teeth or falling out without being rotten or something, and in my dream I always ask myself 'How on earth am I going to tell my parents?'
My brother has these dream, but I don't. I wish my teeth were made from titanium or somethin.
Only in my dreams, thankfully! Usually it's that I suddenly cannot find the brake pedal or get it to work.
I drive without thinking, I reach a destination and wonder how i got there...I have no memory of the journey...
I used to have a fear that I will stick the gear from 5th to reverse. Accidentally did it once but the synchronized gearbox just made a screetching sound so the gear didn´t stick in. That's how I got rid of that fear. No one drives automatic here.
When I was a kid, I'd have dreams of being in the backseat of a car that has no driver and is out of control. When I practised driving as a teen, I'd have the same dream but now I was in the driver's seat but didn't know how to control the car. After I got my license, the dream turned into me trying to control the car but the breaks don't work fast enough.
I have a reoccurring dream where I am driving but for some reason I'm in the back of the car and can't see the road.
I'm sure it will greatly help the person with that fear xD.
Load More Replies...My mom always taught us that when you feed a horse something, place it on the palm of you flat hand. That way your fingers are less likely to get chomped.
Horse will more likely goes for a kick than a bite. Either case, don't be a d**k to a horse and you will be fine.
if a horse does take hold of your hand though, just aim for the eyes then run
And the state where the most serial killers come from is Alaska.
Load More Replies...Used to get drunk and watch "true criminals" before going to a bar. Oh god how I just knew there was a sniper in every tree.
thankfully that's not what happens. imagine how much more painful it would be than it already is! *shudders*
So this one is using past tense verbs. Does this mean that it actually happened?
I often have dreams where I get chased. I believe seeing terminator 2 as a kid did this.
I used to thick that of horses. I'd cry - like ugly cry - every time a horse died in a movie, and be angry at everyone who participated in the movie, for killing horses - I couldn't understand why no one was sad that horses are dying.
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Load More Replies...I feel this especially when you get water in your nose it feels like its sucking your eyes harder and it is PAIN
Never wearing goggles again. Which sucks... cause I swim a lot. And I swim underwater mostly. Well... do I really need my eyes?
ytfcde5rtfvyguhiohutgvresasedcfghjkjhgfrdeswsdefrghjkhgfdsadfghjhgfdsa error found.
I can't unsee The Man in the Yellow Hat in that scenario LOL!
Load More Replies...Holding in a sneeze can tear the carotid artery - I'll take an unexpected blessing over that
Load More Replies...Well, accidentally stabbing an intruder is not really a thing about which anyone should worry.
For some reason, I have never been able to audibly scream in a dream. I always open my mouth but no sound comes out or it's so muffled that no one can hear.
OH GOD PLEASE DON'T!! TAKE THE HOLY MIRICLE PLEASE HELP THIS GIRRRL
I have pet snails. I can confirm this doesn’t happen... I hope.
I'm worried I'll swerve the car if I sneeze while driving and cause an enormous accident.
You living alone, and when you check your phone, you have a photo of you, sleeping. At midnight, when someone knocks at your door and you look at the slight opening below the door, there are no feet. You may be woken up by the feeling of someone's touch on your feet while you are sleeping. Goodnight. Happy sleeping. 🤗
When we die. We remain conscious, While our bodies rot Or are burned.
The ones that are the most scary for me are the ones that say the reality I'm living in is in fact, not real, or it's just a dream. The worst part is, there's no way to prove whether your life is just a dream or not
I have one. I kinda leave my body while I'm sleeping. It doesn't happen so often anymore which bothers me a lot. It used to be I was afraid I would die and bot be able to get back in but now I'm more afraid I'll never leave again.
You living alone, and when you check your phone, you have a photo of you, sleeping. At midnight, when someone knocks at your door and you look at the slight opening below the door, there are no feet. You may be woken up by the feeling of someone's touch on your feet while you are sleeping. Goodnight. Happy sleeping. 🤗
When we die. We remain conscious, While our bodies rot Or are burned.
The ones that are the most scary for me are the ones that say the reality I'm living in is in fact, not real, or it's just a dream. The worst part is, there's no way to prove whether your life is just a dream or not
I have one. I kinda leave my body while I'm sleeping. It doesn't happen so often anymore which bothers me a lot. It used to be I was afraid I would die and bot be able to get back in but now I'm more afraid I'll never leave again.
