Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Wednesday Comics: Hill House

Hill House is a horror imprint of DC Comics curated by horror writer, Joe Hill. He writes a number of comics himself, as well as presumably selecting the other creators. I have read at least the first issues of three of the four current titles and while it's difficult to draw definitively conclusions in this age of decompression each is off to a promising start.

The Dollhouse Family
Six year-old Alice is left a Victorian dollhouse by a great-aunt or something, and soon finds she can visit the house's inhabitants. and can even escape the domestic violence of her home to live their all the time. There's a price, I'm sure. This one is written by Mike Carey and his art by Peter Gross.

Low, Low Woods
Described as "coming of age body horror" it tells the story of two outsider teenage women in a dying mining town with a cold seam fire beneath it. There's also a mysterious plague that causes people to lose their memory and the girls already have one night they can't remember in a movie theater. Then there are the skinless bodies (undead maybe?) they show up sometimes in the woods. Unlike The Dollhouse Family, it's harder to see where this one is going. It's written by Shirley Jackson Award winner Carmen Maria Machado and features art by Dani, fresh from Coffin Bound.

Daphne Byrne
In Victoria era New York, Daphne Byrne has recently lost her father and her grief-stricken mother is an easy mark for spiritualist hucksters. In dreams, Daphne is contacted by her presence who claims to be her brother and promises help for her situation. It's writer by television writer and playright Laura Marks, and features artwork by the great Kelley Jones.

5 comments:

JB said...


Hmm...I wonder if (perhaps) my disinterest in horror stems from the fact that my home environment, both in childhood and adulthood, was far from the typical setting of the horror genre. What real horror is there that's set in white, liberal suburbia? It's all Victoria this or small town that (hello, Steven King!) or, more recently, the heart of urban decay. It feels like the only type of horror set in my 'hood is the slasher-type (whether you're talking Mike Meyers or home invasion stuff), which isn't really "horror;" just something that preys on the fears of privileged Americans (like myself).

Huh.

Trey said...

Huh. Could be. I grew up in a small town in a rural area, so maybe I was more in the territory for it.

Trey said...

I would say most of King's small towns are not small towns by my reckoning. Derry seems like 20-30k and right off an interstate. My home town had a population under 1500 and was the largest town in the county.

JB said...


Yeah, I probably really have no idea what I'm talking about. It was just one of those random thoughts that sometimes crosses my brain.

Trey said...

Nah, I think you are on to something in that relatability definitely has something to do with horror.