Showcase Presents: The House of Secrets, Vol. 2

Showcase Presents: The House of Secrets #2

by E. Nelson Bridwell, Ed Brubaker, Bernie Wrightson

DC's Showcase series collected the 1970s horror series HOUSE OF SECRETS continues with this new, second volume of terror tales! These stories features work by notable comics talents including horror master Bernie Wrightson, Michael Kaluta, animator Alex Niño, MAD Magazine artist Sergio Aragonés and many others.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror, Fiction, Dc Comics

496 pages, Paperback

First published October 27, 2009

About the author

Edward Nelson Bridwell was a writer for Mad magazine (writing the now-famous catchphrase, "What you mean...we?" in a 1958 parody of The Lone Ranger in Mad) and various comic books published by DC Comics. One of the writers for the Batman comic strip and Super Friends, he also wrote The Inferior Five, among other comics. He has been called "DC's self-appointed continuity cop."

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great collection of this classic DC horror anthology comic. Fun read. Recommended

[Shawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this is much the same case as the previous volume, Showcase Presents: House of Secrets Vol. 1. What you get is another huge collection of b&w reprints of mystery/horror comics from DC's weak sister to THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY (that's hosted by Cain, so these are hosted by Abel, natch!) from the summer of 1972 to spring of 1974. These phonebook-type reprint collections are great value for the money, as long as you don't need the color (more on that in a second).

Again, as well, the same lowered expectations apply - what you are reading here are "horror" comics hobbled by the blowback from the 1950's Congressional hearings over juvenile delinquency and EC horror comics like TALES FROM THE CRYPT. Go read about it if you've never heard about it. Anyway, horror comics are perennial sellers, even under self-imposed censorship standards, so DC continued to pump out many of the anthology titles. And they do have a charm, especially if you grew up reading them, but modern readers should know that what they're getting are mostly toothless horror stories with little blood or mayhem and, due to the proscribed limits, similar plots.

So, lots of "last minute twist" stories (especially "deal with the devil" ones - I think there must be 5 or 6 in this volume alone), lots of ghosts and ironic deaths. Lots of vampires ("Spawns of Satan" must have inspired Alan Moore's SWAMP THING story, during the American Gothic arc, about a submerged town full of vampires). And many, many half-baked and straight-up BAD stories. It's interesting to watch some of the younger writers straining mightily to tell something new (check out bizarre failures like "No Bed of Roses", "Coming Together!", "A Watchtower In The Dark" or "An Axe To Grind"), almost always to fail due to the second, much more powerful set of limitations - length, space and static art. You can't really do anything deep or complicated in 6 pages - well, maybe you can, but not on a monthly schedule. So, occasionally, you get rip-offs of famous but obscure stories (Richard Matheson could have sued DC over the similarity between Jack Oleck's "This Will Kill You" and his own "No Such Thing as A Vampire" and won hands down).

Even less occasionally, you get a piece of hilarious absurdity (my favorite little tid-bit, from the story "Hair-I-Kari", is the plot-leading newspaper headline "Cure Baldness Permanently. Satan's own remedy").

So, why read? Well, I can think of two reasons. First - seeing the art (and covers!) reproduced in b&w, without the crappy, muddy coloring and crappy newsprint base of 70's comic books, is a revelation. Some of this art is wonderful, far better than the story content it supports. Michael Wm Kaluta, Bernie Wrightson, Alfredo Alcala, Arthur Suydam, Alex Nino (some absolutely amazing art - delicate, creepy and thoroughly modern - "And In Death There Is No Escape" could have played in an EC comics mag) and even the cartoony looseness of Ramona Fradon - it's top notch stuff.

My second reason is this - I believe we do children a disservice by feeding them reading material calculated to appeal to their tender young minds filled only with content they can recognize. I believe that a lot of the reason I read, and read so widely, is because as a child I read comic books like these that, while not written for adults, did not worry about the range of material they would touch on in pursuit of a story. Take for example, a story like "Rest in Peace" by Jack Oleck and Alfredo Alcala. The actual plot is simplicity itself, a watered down EC pastiche. Fat rich man in 19th Century Caribbean island-state enslaves natives using tricks based in science but which resemble magic. His personal servant/slave loathes him, but the fat man dominates him with tricks. The fat man hates to move unless he has to, and his slothful ways finally kill him. The servant/slave gets the last laugh as master is cremated and he puts the ashes in an hourglass, to move perpetually back and forth. Not very good, right? But think of all the details of the real world a kid reader can glean from a story like this - people can be enslaved, and enslaved through superstition no less. There are cruel men in the world. And rich men so lazy that they want to be carried around by people. People are cremated, which means their bodies are burned after death. Revenge can be satisfying after the object of your hatred is dead. And all of this is gleaned because the story doesn't talk down to the potential kid reader. It doesn't HAVE to be set in high-school (because that's supposedly the only thing a kid knows), it doesn't have to involve peer dynamics.

So, I'd say if you have a kid that like spooky things, buy him either of the HOUSE OF SECRETS collections, or HOUSE OF MYSTERY, and let him loose. There's nothing too extreme and your kid will be smarter by dint of exercising his brain, I guarantee it.

Now, where are THE WITCHING HOUR and UNEXPECTED collections, DC?

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

I have to admit I don't always give unbiased reviews of horror anthology comics because I'm such a fan of the genre. This volume is a huge collection of horror stories from the early 1970s with stories that are decent for the most part and art that in most cases outshines the stories themselves.

I consider EC Comics the gold standard of horror comics, and while these aren't on that level, they are still a lot of fun.

[Jamie Jonas · Rating 3 out of 5]

An amazing little journey for both an artist and a writer. No, I won't say this collection of macabre tales from the early seventies is absolutely stellar, but in its way it certainly is a "trip." Its art and the quality of its story-lines can't compare to its "older sister" series, The House of Mystery, but if you're a self-assigned student of the graphic novel, as I've become, it's worth exploring. Most of the stories here have one simple thread: Revenge. Ghosts and vampires are frequent tropes. Interestingly, I learned fairly recently that on both this title and House of Mystery many of the artists were recruits from the Philippines, and these islanders certainly make for an interesting spectrum. Their artwork ranges from the great (Nestor Redondo) to the lame (Ramona Fradon), then from the overly cartoonish (Alfredo Alcala) to the mind-bendingly psychedelic/downright awful (Arthur Suydam). The morbid and violent nature of the tales as a whole seems amazing for the times, but then this was the decade in which a LOT of bars were being dropped. All in all, I'm glad I picked this up for a read-through, but I certainly won't be adding it my collection.

[Woody Chandler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having just finished Vol. 1, I picked right back up with Vol. 2. More light bedside reading to fall asleep by!

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you like kid-friendly, bloodless horror stories where 90% of the time the final victim is getting what he or she deserves, this sort of thing is for you. As an added plus, the artwork looks a lot better in black and white then it probably ever did when it was in color. The stories tend to be short and so-so on character and plot development past the basics, but the tales do tend to have some individual charm.

[tara bomp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compared to Vol 1 all the interstitial stuff about the house itself has completely gone, with just very short abel introductions. Similar stuff, horror stories that always end with evil being punished because of CCA rules, some are spooky, a lot of silly ~twist endings~, sometimes the art is really cool. If you like kind of silly and not particularly scary but fun horror comics this is decent. Goosebumps type appeal

[Kris Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fine collection of old school Gothic Horror stories with solid writing and artwork. Alfredo Alcala's artwork is genuinely creepy and I can't get enough of it. Nestor Redondo is also very good, as are most of the other contributing artists. You can't go wrong with these black and white phone books in terms of sheer dollar per dollar entertainment value...nearly 500 pages for $17.99 MSRP.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first read one of thee collections of Comics Code approved horror stories (Showcase Presents House of Mystery, vol. 1) I didn't much care for it. But since then, I've come to appreciate these comics on their own terms. They may not actually be scary, but they are entertaining.