A comiXologist recommends

House of Penance #1 (Dark Horse)

Written by Peter J. Tomasi

Art by Ian Bertram

The Winchester House has long been a source of fascination for acolytes of the arcane.  Construction of the house commenced in 1884 at the behest of Sarah Winchester, widow of gun-maker William Winchester, and from early on Sarah felt the house to be haunted by the ghosts of the victims of the Winchester repeater rifle with which William secured his fortune.  The house was built without an architect or specific design in mind, and was constructed with a kind of madness, with additions of various sizes, unopenable doors and staircases leading nowhere.

In the 80’s, a version of Winchester house appeared in Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing #45, haunted by human and animal victims of the rifle.  The issue suggested that the house was borne out of Sarah’s guilt for the fortune she secured from a legacy of violence and bloodshed.  This idea forms the groundwork for Peter J. Tomasi and Ian Bertram’s new comic, House of Penance, from Dark Horse.  The first issue starts off as a fairly straightforward examination of the construction of the house, along with its owner’s precarious mental state, intercut with scenes of the devastation of gun violence, gradually bringing a cryptic, possibly supernatural element into the mix.

House of Penance is an exquisite comic, with Tomasi- always a great writer- really getting a chance to flex his literary muscles.  Bertram’s artwork evokes an atmosphere steeped in the language of 70’s horror comics, with a bit of a Euro art comic influence thrown in- think Creepy and Eerie by way of Moebius.  I can’t help but feel there’s also a bit of an allegory to be found in this comic about the gun violence that afflicts our society today, and the fortunes that have been made on the backs of others’ tragedies, but this is played very subtly, layered among the myriad of mysteries established in this first issue, befitting the mysterious nature of the Winchester House itself.  

I can’t wait to see how this story evolves over time…

Harris Smith is a senior production coordinator and social media editor at comiXology.  He also hosts the weekly radio show Negative Pleasure on Newtown Radio and curates film screenings for the Spectacle Theater in Brooklyn.