House of Mystery (Vertigo)


House of Mystery is an American occult and horror-themed comic book anthology series, based on the House of Mystery series that ran from 1951 to 1983. The writers, Bill Willingham and Lilah Sturges, debuted the series in July 2008 under the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics.

Plot

Cain attempts to return to the House of Mystery, his home in the Dreaming, and finds that it has disappeared. Seven years later, in Texas, a former architecture student named Bethany "Fig" Keele flees her burning house, saving only a handful of sketches she once made of a house from her dreams. Keele is pursued by a "Pair of the Conception", agents of an entity known as the "Omneity"; they are two people, a male and a female, always holding hands. If they let go of one another, they will disappear. The pair chases her through a door and unwittingly into the House of Mystery, where she meets the inhabitants of the house bar and discovers the terms of what is apparently her imprisonment. Everyone must pay for their drinks with stories, and no one can leave without being picked up by the house's mysterious coachman. None of the house's occupants are sure why some people might get to leave and others not, so each person's stay is at least ostensibly eternal until the coachman inexplicably turns up to take them away. This doesn't stop some of the inhabitants from trying to get out, nor does it stop Cain from attempting to get back in.

Collected editions

The series is being collected into trade paperback: