Bought/Thought June 4th, 2008

StreetWarrior said:
So...uh... some comics came out the other day...
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Yeah, I read some of them.

Abe Sapien: The Drowning was good, but I have to admit, I wasn't as taken by it as I have been by other BPRD/Hellboy tales lately. I think I prefer Abe in the context of the BPRD more than solo; this kind of felt like a rejected Hellboy story, and while it was nice to see Abe come into his own a bit, his utter lack of confidence through most of the mini made it hard to invest much in him. All of the other Hellboyverse solo leads so far--Hellboy, the Lobster, even Professor Bruttenholm--were more charismatic by far. But I think I'm coming off more negative than I mean to. I did enjoy the series; I just don't think it was quite up to the considerable standard other BPRD and Hellboy stories have set. The art was phenomenal, though. I hope Jason Shawn Alexander gets to do more in the Hellboyverse.

House of Mystery was great. I liked the first issue but I wasn't sure if I would be interested in a whole series like it. #2 cemented my commitment to it for the foreseeable future, largely because of the House's characters. Cress, Fig, and the other main characters are all either outright likeable or enigmatic enough to make me curious about them, and that's really the reason to keep reading. The stories are certainly fun, but I'm more glad the ongoing story that strings them together is looking so strong. Can't wait to see what the hell's going on with Fig and the voice and why she's trapped in the House of Mystery. Good stuff.
 
If you guys are gonna break down to personal attacks, just quit while you're ahead. Bottom line is we're all gonna keep right on reading Secret Invasion anyway.
 
Corp is the deus ex machina of this thread.
 
Okay, so what is House of Mystery about, really? I mean, I know that it's about some people who get stuck in this house and they can't get out so they just sit at the house's bar and drink and tell stories, or something. Is that the basic premise?
 
Darthphere said:
Corp is the deus ex machina of this thread.
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My machine of choice is the Thanoscopter.

thanoscopter.jpg

Hans said:
Okay, so what is House of Mystery about, really? I mean, I know that it's about some people who get stuck in this house and they can't get out so they just sit at the house's bar and drink and tell stories, or something. Is that the basic premise?
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I'm not familiar with the older series, so I don't know about that. But for the current series, yeah, that's basically it. Only a few people are actually trapped, though. The rest are just people who come and go, apparently from throughout time and space. The stories seem to be currency, too--the drinks are all free, but you have to tell a story now and then. I'm not entirely sure of everything that's going on, but that's the basic idea I'm getting right now.

The current series seems to have more going on with the main character, a woman named Fig. She's an architect and actually found herself designing the House of Mystery without realizing it. Then two mysterious people show up in her apartment and tell her to come with them, so she bolts, runs through a door, and finds herself trapped in the House of Mystery. The House apparently makes rooms for everyone who's trapped in it, and her first night trying to sleep there, she hears a voice. That's where #2 ends.
 
Huh. So do you wake up and find yourself in the house, or something, or do you wander into it? And how exactly is it that they can't leave? Like, does the front door not open?
 
Magic doors, I guess. You go in a door, but instead of the door taking you where it should, it takes you to the House of Mystery. I guess there are dedicated House of Mystery doors that always take people there as well, since #2 had a guy who apparently visits the House of Mystery a lot but isn't trapped there.

For those who are trapped, the House's front door opens onto the House of Mystery's front yard. For everyone else, the front door opens back out to wherever they entered the House of Mystery from. It's all wonky magic stuff, since the House of Mystery is in the Dreaming, if I recall correctly. Cain and Abel appear in the first issue.
 
Cain and Abel, like, from the Bible?

I'm intested in trying the book out, but it sort of sounds confusing. If the mystery about why these people are trapped and everything is supposed to revealed over time, I could probably get into it.
 
C'mon Doc, quit being so cranky. These really are examples of DEM's-lite. Superhero comics are filled with them.(I love that you picked up on my anagram, though. Finally, internet immortality!)
 
Wait a second. That's not an anagram. What's the word I'm looking for?
 
Hans said:
Cain and Abel, like, from the Bible?

I'm intested in trying the book out, but it sort of sounds confusing. If the mystery about why these people are trapped and everything is supposed to revealed over time, I could probably get into it.
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Yeah, but also from Gaiman's Sandman and various other Vertigo comics. They live in the Dreaming there, along with other biblical characters. Cain has the House of Mystery and Abel has the House of Secrets, and I think they get together for tea every day, during which Cain kills Abel again. Because the Dreaming is all about fiction and stories, they essentially re-enact variants of their story every day.

Wikipedia's got a pretty comprehensive entry on DC's House of Mystery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_mystery
 
TheCorpulent1 said:
Yeah, but also from Gaiman's Sandman and various other Vertigo comics. They live in the Dreaming there, along with other biblical characters. Cain has the House of Mystery and Abel has the House of Secrets, and I think they get together for tea every day, during which Cain kills Abel again. Because the Dreaming is all about fiction and stories, they essentially re-enact variants of their story every day.

Wikipedia's got a pretty comprehensive entry on DC's House of Mystery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_mystery
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've been reading through it. The book sounds like a really interesting concept. I'm just not sure how well I'll be able to follow along without very much knowledge of Sandman or the Dreaming or even the Fables characters who I see are also in this book.
 
The first two issues have been very much about Fig and the other regulars with about half the issue taken up by a story told by one of the House's patrons. I don't know a whole lot about the House of Mystery myself, but I haven't had a problem following the issues at all.
 
Wikipedia says that Wesley Dodds is in the house. Is he an example of a rotating character like you mentioned before, one that can come and go as he pleases? He's probably the Vertigo character that I'm most familar with. I absolutely loved Sandman Mystery Theatre.
 
He hasn't appeared in the first two issues, but I guess he might appear later.
 
Huh. I might give it a shot after all. I guess if I have any questions, there's always the internet. :)
 
Yeah, it's just a solid read for me. I'm sure it probably enriches the experience if you know all the lore surrounding the House of Mystery, but it's not necessary. And, come to think of it, more knowledge might actually hurt, since Vertigo likes reinventing things and Willingham's not exactly known for keeping things consistent with established portrayals.
 
I was going to get it but I forgot to grab the first issue, so I didn't bother going back to get it. Seems like the sorta thing that would work best in trade anyway.
 
I don't know, actually. The things that work best in trade are the ones that have long-running plot threads. House of Mystery has some, but each issue devotes a lot of pages to a done-in-one story told by one of the House's patrons. The second issue's was about a process server. :)
 
It is indeed "Cain & Abel" from the Bible, but these are also long-time DC characters that have been "owners" of their respective houses... (Cain owns the House of Mystery, while Abel owns the House of Secrets)...

If you remember back in the 60's & 70's, DC had horror books by bothe those names (HoM & HoS) where each comic started out with either Cain or Abel would intice the readers to "enter the house... if they dared" and they would narrate one, two or sometimes three seperate tales of horror... classic stuff.

And while they did appear frequently in Gaimen's Sandman comics, they weren't his creations, and from what I can tell, any and all Sandman stuff won't be in the book all that much, making it much easier for you to get into without any feelings of confusion.

The first issue starts off nicely, and like the title of the book suggests, there is indeed a "mystery" going on surrounding the main character Fig.

:yay:
 
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