Showcase Presents: The House of Mystery, Vol. 1

Showcase Presents: The House of Mystery #1

by Len Wein

Do you dare to enter.... the House of Mystery? This 552-page black-and-white value-priced trade paperback collects 22 classic issues and a wealth of early art from macabre masters Bernie Wrightson, Neal Adams, Gil Kane and Alex Toth, as well as the grim gags of Sergio Aragons and the storytelling talents of Len Wein, Robert Kanigher and Gerry Conway, among many others!

Genres: Comics, Horror, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Short Stories, Graphic Novels Comics, Anthologies

552 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2006

About the author

Len Wein was an American comic book writer and editor best known for co-creating DC Comics' Swamp Thing and Marvel Comics' Wolverine, and for helping revive the Marvel superhero team the X-Men (including the co-creation of Nightcrawler, Storm, and Colossus). Additionally, he was the editor for writer Alan Moore and illustrator Dave Gibbons' influential DC miniseries Watchmen.

Wein was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2008.

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Man I loved these stories as a kid. Great comics horror collection. Recommended

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

HALLOWEEN SEASON READ 2024

This is great. Some of the best horror comics this side of EC, featuring many stories and covers by my two favorite comic artists of all time, Berni Wrightson and Neal Adams. While some of the stories are a little corny, the majority are good.

If you like horror anthology comics, give this one a read.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some seriously great artists amongst the stories in this book, and I have to say that it's not hard to picture all of them getting together, having a few fingers worth of whiskey, extolling each other's artistic talents, perhaps watching a burlesque show together, and then loading up some revolvers to go out hunting the chumps who wrote these stories.

Damn, these were some godawful stories. Many of them have no point. Many of them have Scooby Doo endings. Many of them have shock endings that I'm shocked I wasn't supposed to see coming. None one of these stories is worth the toilet paper it takes to wipe a gnat's ass. I hereby spit on these stories.

Ptui!

Good art, though.

[Annabelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anything nostalgic almost always brings pleasure, and one of my earliest passions was for my varied collection of comics, as provided by my mother, and these DC horror genres topped the list: The House of Mystery, The House of Secrets, The Witching Hour, The Phantom Stranger, encompassing editions from the late 60s to the mid 70s. This Showcase compilation is labeled #1, so I presume it was one of the first stories from The House of Mystery--which may explain the first few drab, predictable stories, as if the editors were still feeling their way around the genres. It eventually finds its pulse and delivers horror with tongue-in-cheek humor, plus a few splices of "true tales." If this were in color (all my comics were colored--but Showcase compilations are all in black and white), I'd have given it a perfect 5 stars.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories were a bit dodgy- the perils of Joe Orlando trying to do EC-style stories in a Code-Approved book, I suppose - but there were so many amazing artists - Alex Toth, Al Williamson, Bernie Wrightson, Russ Heath, Sergio Aragones, Neal Adams and more - that it was undoubtedly worth the price. And with artists like this, you don't mind the lack of color at all!

By the end, they'd also found a way to make the stories slightly more engaging without offending the Code. Not amazing, but at least engaging.

[Timothy Grubbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you dare to enter the house of mystery?

Showcase presents the house of mystery collects the first 21 issues of House of Mystery after it rebranded itself as a horror anthology.

Oddly, the famous narrator of House of Mystery Cain doesn’t pop up until the second issue of the reboot.

The stories range from short to really short to semi long, in the days when a bunch of strips were packed into each issue.

Most of the stories were horror but a handful were mundane thrills or science fiction. Also, outside of Cain’s narration, they were all self contained and fairly free of super heroics or long term stories.

I miss the days of decent (or even medium quality) anthologies. These were all the rage for a while before superheroes started to come back into vogue…

[Orrin Grey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't think I like these Showcase-style big black-and-white collections. I don't know why, exactly. Maybe I miss the lurid four-color colors. Maybe it's just too much old comic density for me.

There's some great artists represented here (though none of them are working at the top of their games) and there's a lot of fun stuff going on, especially the Sergio Aragones bits. But this didn't do it for me as much as the omnibus editions of, say, Creepy and Eerie, the oversized, Warren-published cousins of this anthology comic.

It seems a shame to give it only two stars but, man, I just didn't enjoy it as much as I would've liked.

[Fizzgig76 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reprints House of Mystery #174-194. Cain takes over the House of Mystery and brings stories of horror and surprise. The House of Mystery (and its companion book The House of Secrets) were part of the relaunch of horror in the 1970s. The use of Cain in the House of Mystery and Abel in the House of Secrets added some dimension to the stories and allowed for some fun introductions and mini-cartoons by Sergio Aragones.

[Daryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading these stories, an issue or so at a time, was a blast! Lots of great art that reproduces well in the black-and-white format from such stellar artists as Neal Adams, Bernie Wrightson, and many others, and the great one-page humor features by Sergio Aragones. Most of the stories have some kind of twist that is obvious from the beginning, but they're still lots of fun to read. This is a great example of the Showcase format.

[Chris Stevens · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the stories, but the printing is very low-quality. You get what you pay for.

[Woody Chandler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read the House of Secrets compendiums, I now turned to HoM, a childhood fave of mine as I transitioned from Disney & before Marvel superheroes. Some of the stories rang bells while others were new to me.

[Helmut · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eigentlich nur 1 Stern...

...würde ich diesem Comic geben, wären da nicht Aragonés' kleine, teilweise bösen, verrückten und so gar nicht in diesen Band passenden Szenchen. Diese werten den ganzen Band gleich ein bisschen auf, und sorgen dafür dass man bei den ganzen anderen so ganz und gar nicht gruseligen "Gruselgeschichten" einschläft - man merkt, dass dies Comics für Kinder aus den 60ern und 70ern waren, die nicht mit Ninja Turtles und Yu-Gi-Oh aufgewachsen sind.

Zeichnerisch stellenweise ganz nett, meist aber doch unterer Durchschnitt, erzählerisch durchweg ziemlich flach und uninteressant und nichtmal ansatzweise irgendwie atmosphärisch, geschweige denn schauerlich.

Für Fans von Aragonés sind aber wohl eher Sammelbände seiner Comics alleinstehend relevant, da sie sich dann nicht mit dem Füllmaterial rumschlagen müssen.

Nur für Nostalgiker.

[Bob Wolniak · Rating 3 out of 5]

For me, it is hard not to compare this to Warren Publishing's Creepy and Eerie magazine from the same time period--there are many of the same artists, most especially Joe Orlando editing. Instead of Uncle Creepy and Cousin Eerie, it's Cain and Abel for House of Secrets, Mystery. I can't see much difference except one is in a magazine format and the other in a four color comic format. However this compendium of 500+ pages is also in B&W. Eventually Warren's material got more adult oriented, but in these early volumes it is almost the same stuff. I agree with many other reviewers that the art was often good to great (especially Al Williamson and Gray Morrow in this volume) but the scripts were mostly subpar. A few older reprints from a previous era as well.

[Kagama-the Literaturevixen]

So far I know I have only read one story from this

"Eyes of the cat" is about a girl who is the ward of her rich uncle.She is also the proud owner of a black cat she calls "Lucifer. (lovely name isnt it? nothing ominious about it at all)

She loves her cat very much and cant understand her older cousins antipathy against it.Well they do say cats have a sixth sense and its reason for disliking the cousin becomes even greater when the wheelchairbound uncle gets pushed over a cliff by said cousin...

Now only one thing stands between the cousin and his inheritance. The girl.

But not if the cat has anything to say about it.

[Andrea Smirle · Rating 3 out of 5]

first reaction: i wish i could be a kid again, and watch old episodes of spiderman and hercules!

later: i liked the pairing of well-formed art with malformed imagination... like being a kid, when your own imagination is limitless yet completely limited at the same time. result? reading this collection was bittersweet and delightful and depressing, simultaneously.

also: this is the kind of cultural artifact that makes you think about yourself and the world you now live in WAY more than is good for you... especially since it's just a good old goofy comic.

conclusion: want to feel nostalgic without having ever exerienced these things in the first place? start here.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some excellent 5 and 6 page comic horror stories here. Nothing as violent and lurid as the old EC stuff that I love, but that's ok.

I wish it didn't bother me that it's printed in black & white, but it does. Those old colors in 70s comic books - never as bright as they should be in the insides, even from the day you bought them, add a lot to the story, and it's missed here.

[Izlinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were some really good stories in this 552 page collection. Very few ones made me grit my teeth or roll my eyes. This sharpens my curiosity for Bill Willingham's own "The House of Mystery" graphic novel coming out next year.

[Harold · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ho-hum storylines, but there's some really fine Alex Toth artwork here, and if you like him (and I do), that crazy,man artist Jerry Grandenetti is here,too.

[Wyntrnoire · Rating 4 out of 5]

However--five stars and more for the artwork of Bernie Wrightson and Sergio Aragonés.

[Rodrigo Marinho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweet little gothic horror stories. Reminds of a time and age when we were young and easily mixed reality with fantasy. Perfect for bedtime reading.

[Phil Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun collection of The House of Mystery horror comics from the 1960's.