Well shucks! This is fantastic volume but so sad it is so late. Structurally, narratively and artistically this is exploding with amazing ideas and techniques. It’s a shame that some of these couldn’t have been siphoned off to make the preceding volumes a bit livelier. It appears Sturgis does endings and beginnings well but the middle not so much.

The art is great with plenty of detail, bold colours exciting layouts and energetic guest styles. There is a really dramatic desaturated sequence that I haven’t seen anywhere outside photography.

Going out with a bang this is a strong thumbs up!

After the awkward non-ending of the last instalment it is virtually business as usual. Sadly the tension of characters trapped in an unknown location has evaporated. What we have are characters who look to jump about every few books and get visited by plot. Maybe like an inverse Dr Who.

The main story art is fine and the guest artists are generally good at fitting in with the gothic template. But then Sergio Aragonés turns up with his cartoonist style and things feel a little jarring.

The whole thing feels like a page out of a writer’s notebook whose portmanteau of stories fit together more by happy accident than design. Not enough to persuade you to stop reading but enough to make you cross your fingers for future episodes.

Thumbs Up – for the minute.

This is the volume where the cracks start to appear. There is an ending of sorts in this volume but it isn’t exactly revealed making you wait till next volume for the cliff-hanger. The short stories also become more diversionary and their relevance, if they have any, is most obscure.

The art is great and plenty of ghostly blues are employed effectively for an otherworldly effect. There is also some clever panel use with each frame representing a room of the house.

Included in this book is the Halloween special which features appearances by Constantine, Merv Pumpkinhead, and Madam Xanadu (barely), etc. Sadly these are not about the content, but more about the cameos.

There is no reason to stop reading but the shine definitely wears off.

Thumbs Up!

If this seems familiar to you then it was written by the team that wrote Fables and Jack of Fables. It’s kind of an anti-Fables with real characters going into a fictional world as opposed to the other way around.

The currency of this fictional world is stories so the main plot will halt for four or so pages while a gothic and macabre short story is unveiled. This title was based on the DC supernatural horror anthology House of Mystery that began publication in 1951. The story within a story format works quite well and the whole tone is very surreal. Think of it as a mix of Alice in Wonderland and Hammer Horror. It is reminiscent of Grant Morrison’s 7 Soldiers of Victory.

The art is typical Vertigo fare with a little detail going a long way. Each short story is drawn by a different artist which really helps separate the narratives and showcases some bold and vivid styles.

It does feel like more of the same from these two writers but they do say write what you know. Although there is enough of a hook to keep you going till volume two.

Thumbs Up!