#Review: House of Mystery Issue 1


#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @KryptoDies


Interesting…. “House of Mystery” by Matthew Sturges, Bill Willingham, Luca Rossi, and Ross Campbell raised SO many questions but answered them at the same time. The comic opens with a man talking to his brother Abel over evening tea and cakes, talking about Abel’s new diet. He excuses himself, saying that the “House of Secrets” isn’t as interesting as the “House of Mystery”. The panel shows his brother slumped into a chair with an axe stabbed into his gut. I generally don’t carry on conversations and eat and drink in front of cadavers, but that’s just me…
The next section of the comic is sort of a sub-plot. A girl is running, house plans in hand, pursued by two figures. She trips. Not much is answered here, but lots of questions are raised.

The comic changes to a pub full of people sending a coworker (Rina) off to somewhere. “Cress” is complaining about how she never gets to go anywhere and how she is extremely bored with her life. She is so bored, in fact, that she is jealous of Rina leaving, despite the fact that she could be being led to her death. Later, the crew says goodbye to Rina, who steps through a portal, grasping the hands of a skeleton-like, masked magician.

Back to the running girl. She’s carrying tons of drawings of house plans that she’s sketched from dreams. She drops them and escapes her pursuers in an alley.

The next section of the comic is pretty disturbing. A character called “Hungry Sally” is being made to “pay” for her meal (she keeps eating, and eating!). The tender at the pub is a good story.

The story gets really interesting here. Sally tells a tale that is pretty ho-hum. She moves away from her hometown once her parents die with her inheritance, meets a “man”, and becomes pregnant the night of her wedding. Once her children are born, she can’t bring herself to love them and eventually leaves. Her dialogue tells a completely different story than the art of the comic.

The art shows Sally leaving home and arriving in a town full of inhabitants. These inhabitants don’t walk around on two legs as you and I do…they’re FLIES. Sally meets the “man” of her dreams and the comic shows their experience on their wedding night. Soon, Sally is puking orange fluid and maggots explode from her back. Each maggot turns into a baby fly and Sally decides to leave. At the end of her story, you see her from behind. She’s dubbed “Hungry Sally” because she always eats. Her reason for always eating? She has no back…she’s half a human.

The comic then turns to the running girl finding the house in her dreams. That house is a pub…and that pub is the same one that Hungry Sally is at…the “House of Mystery”.


Creativity of Art: 4/5 I like that, between stories/plots, the color scheme changes. In the “House of Mystery”, the colors are bright and warm. As the girl runs from her pursuers, the color scheme turns to cool blues and purples with dark shadows. As Sally reminisces of her life, the color scheme is very natural and muted. Changing the color schemes allows the reader to make more of a separation between each plot. I think the coloring and character design are brilliant. The artists did an incredible job of capturing emotion through the facial expressions of the characters. It makes it much easier for us to relate to them.

Creativity of Story: 5/5 I like the idea of a hidden place with a semi-large following. Especially when the currency is a good story. The people value the words of their friends and I think that’s something that is a rarity today. Everyone in the “House of Mystery” is encouraged to be creative and ideas flow freely. Sounds like my kind of place!

Overall Casual Read Rating: 3/5 This story is interesting, but if I were waiting for a bus or at an airport, I would hope to have other issues or other comics with me simply because this is such an introductory comic. The switching between three plots is somewhat tiresome (although they all tie in at the end), but I think it’s essential for what’s to come.


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