Medium of Fear

In this exclusive interview with Art+, horror artists MilkyClear and Kieo Yomi share how they utilize art to create horrors that keep people awake at night.  

Words Marc Nathaniel Servo
Photo courtesy of MilkyClear & Kieo Yomi
November 04, 2025

Filipinos are fond of the supernatural—from the rich cinematic history of fear with Shake, Rattle, & Roll, Feng Shui, and Eerie, to the diverse mythological creatures that walk the night—horror is horrifically engraved to our local arts & culture. 

It is in these cultural foundations that horror artists Kieo Yomi and Milkyclear carve fear, penetrating social media to cast uncomfortable and chilling spells to captivate virtual audiences all across the country. As we celebrate Spooktober, Art+ summoned these artists from the dark to share their roots on how they scare people through gripping visuals.

For the Comfortable and the Disturbed

A visual shock—a horror that lingers at the back of your mind even after closing the page. 

This is how we discovered Kieo Yomi’s art, as he grew into popularity with manga-based gore fest that often ends with a chilling death to evils we often witness in reality: the rapists, the perverts, and abusers.

“When making my manga, I usually start by thinking of a concept where I can evoke a feeling of being disturbed and comfort after. It’s like, ‘This situation should be disturbing, but for some reason, it gives me comfort,’” Kieo shared. 

For him, the artworks are not merely about creating fear, but ultimately, relief—an ironic goal considering the graphic violence, yet something one would get to understand if they view each gory end as prevailing justice. Each line drawn in dripping entrails and innards carry his empathy for a reality that never felt safe for women. 

“My works aren’t entirely centered around “fear.” Instead, I like to create with the idea that, ‘the comfortable should be disturbed, and the disturbed should feel comfort,’” he added. 

A massive fan of Junji Ito, Kieo Yomi was inspired greatly by Ito’s titular work, “Tomie,” especially with how he portrays horror, led by his detailed linework that utilize facial expressions and heavy linework to create fear. 

Eventually, Kieo did manage to craft his first piece, one tackling the horrors of sleep paralysis which ended up resonating with many. In his process, he begins with building an atmosphere—an environment where fear could fully manifest. From there, he slowly ramps up the uncomfortability stroke by stroke, until he finally delivers the gripping climax which lies in either a jumpscare or something eerily subtle. 

Sleep Paralysis is a one-shot horror story about a boy trapped in a looping nightmare with an entity that looms behind with a manic grin. He finds himself stuck in sleep paralysis as the creature appears—only for him to wake up in a lucid dream and repeat the same scenarios again and again. 

Another favorite by the artist is Manyakis (Pervert) which shows the gory fate of a perverted teacher. 

Manyakis

“Manyakis came from the disturbing reality of teachers harassing their students and often getting away with it. I wanted to flip that narrative and create a page where the pervert gets the punishment he deserves, through an embarrassing death,” they explained. 

This thematic ending for abusers is also reflected in Mother’s Love, a story which Kieo Yomi poured their hearts into, with the bitter reality of mothers failing to protect their children from abuse. 

Mother’s Love

“Mother’s Love was born during a time when I was struggling with burnout. I was deeply affected by hearing real stories of mothers who failed to protect their children, or even blamed them instead,” Kieo shared. “I poured those feelings into the page, which made the piece very personal to me.”

For him, horror is truly effective when it leaves an aftertaste, a lingering feeling of unease, discomfort, or overwhelmingness after reading. It must strike deeply—and in his works, this is eerily marked by graphic deaths that will make your stomach crawl. 

Indeed, his horrors don’t lie on the supernatural, but the natural. The perverted evils of society that always go unpunished. In his works, the endings may be too graphic, but the reality is not worse off for those violated. 

Unraveling MilkyClear Horrors 

A teacher by day, and artist by night, Johan Castro, aka MilkyClear, crosses the boundaries of the real and the unreal in his works–particularly during the creepy month of October. Similar to his nickname, MilkyClear manifests horrors in metaphor—one that teases the mind to captivate the soul. 

MilkyClear

Originating from ZebraHead’s song “Playmate of the Year,” the lyrics “I’m gonna make this milky clear,” stuck to him—hence the name. Beyond that, he just loved the oxymoronic meaning of the term.

“Ang pinanggalingan kasi ng name ko medyo boring siya. Galing siya sa crystal clear saka sa the term na milky. So, ginawa ko siyang oxymoron na milky tapos clear? Hindi pwedeng milky pero klaro,” he said.

Aptly, his conceptualization of horror lies on the milky clear compositions—that more than the “money shot,” or the literal image of a monster, he creates a veil of mystery through the use of metaphorical elements that never spoils the plot of reader-submitted stories. 

“Kapag kasi nakita na ng viewers ko na ‘yon na agad ‘yong picture, nawawala agad ‘yong mystery, lalo na ‘don sa mga stories na walang specific [entity]. So for those stories, ang habol ko talaga is the emotion,” MilkyClear told. “Hindi ko na hahabulin na ma-represent ‘yong exact scene. I try to dig into it, try to make a metaphorical composition.”

One such example is his piece on the story, “Fratricide,” wherein a businessman took the aid of a shaman to kill his younger sibling. However, it’s not that striking to merely draw the businessman and the shaman so he took the symbolic meaning of pinky finger as the younger sibling, and sliced it off from a hand in an eerie imagery.

Beginning in 2019, Milkyclear admitted that his page was never meant to be a horror page, but a comedic one, similar to many other comic artists online. Prior to that, he’s been posting privately on the page since 2018, never having the courage until the pandemic when he found time to focus on his art.

“Most of my followers know me as ‘yong “Comic artist na hindi sikat hangga’t ‘di October,” he laughingly began. “Ang original content ng page ko, really, is same as other comic artist: nag-start ako comedy ‘e, apparently hindi pala ako nakakatawa.”

He found most of his jokes to fall flat then, so he tried to explore other niches, one of which is horror. He wanted to write a horror story about his school, a warning that his boss once told him on his first day—to never count his students, because a plus one might appear—entitled, “32.” 

His horror journey then is guided by several manga artists, from artists Junji Ito, Anji Matono (100 Ghost Stories that will lead to my own death), Masaya Hokazono (Freak Island), and Tomoki Izumi (Mieruko-chan, the girl who could see ghosts), to Masaaki Nakayama (Seeds of Anxiety).

“Si Masaaki Nakayama ay ang author ng ‘Seeds of Anxiety,’ and ibang klase ang approach niya—majority ng mga gawa niya is hindi episodic, parang compilation din. Actually, kahit ‘yong idea ng Spooktober, sa kanya ko kinuha, ‘yong may mga nagpapasa sa kanya ng stories then cinocompile niya,” Milkyclear shared. 

His Spooktober usually begins accepting entries from September 1-15, and by September 16, he starts conceptualizing and drawing some of the stories to ease the burden as a full-time teacher. He begins with a rough draft which he utilizes in the line art to create rugged and dynamic images similar to the art style of Tomoki Izumi.

“Kapag kasi nakita mo ‘yong line art niya, very rugged, very scratchy, parang hindi siya well-defined. But instead of looking dirty, it adds to the composition. Parang nageevoke siya ng fear,” he explained.

Since he does everything in monochrome, he is able to finish a drawing in about one to two hours, translating to about three artworks per night.

Aside from metaphors, Milkyclear carves fear out of the monstrosity—especially when the story has a clear depiction of an entity. However, he wants to maintain originality which adds to the difficulty, drawing unique monsters that evoke either deep malice or an air of mysteriousness. Other than that, he also focuses on emotions: sometimes captured through the protagonist’s face, or the monster. 

Among his favorite works is the story, “They came from the red,” which he said was a homage to another story, “They came from the floorboards.”

They Came From The Red

“It’s that one story na ‘di tungkol sa multo, but aliens, and tuwang-tuwa ako sa nagsubmit sa’kin ‘non. I was so inspired by it that I became experimental while doing it. Imbes na playing safe, ginawan ko talaga ng industrial elements ‘yong likod ng background. Pinaghirapan ko ‘yong anatomy of the face ‘don sa image, and syempre, the biggest change was that I made it red to really catch attention,” he said. 

Another is his original character, Lily, a creature characterized by elongated body and long hair which stood out from other entities for its distinct love for hair. Milkyclear longed for something original, something truly his own, and Lily is uniquely creepy—and it had a short-run as a marketable character.

Lily

When asked about his other titular works, especially the interactive story “Pass the Message,” he shared how he loves the uniqueness of user-submitted stories in twisting a theme—making the readers involved in them. 

In MilkyClear’s works, one can observe the unique ability of Filipinos to tell stories, finding their own twists on regular horror entities, and making each stand on their own. Spooktober, in itself, then felt like an annual celebration of horror: with thousands of readers awaiting what makes up the thirty days of fear in his page.

Just like his followers, MilkyClear also aims to one day publish his own horror book, although he believes it remains quite a distance away due to the copyright struggles and professional priorities as a teacher. For now, his most recent merchandise would be a partnership with another page owned by his friends: a playmat for card games and a mousepad, personally drawn by him. 

MilkyClear and Kieo Yomi, despite originating from the same mold, reflect different types of horror through art. One leans on the supernatural, the other on the natural, both horrifying in their own rights. It is in these subtle differences that fear truly permeates. It never lets you go, in your sleep or your waking nightmare.