97.11: Safe as Houses, House of Mystery 6, by Matthew Sturges, Luca Rossi, Werther Dell-Edera, and Jose Marzan, Jr. (tade paperback, issues 26-30, 2010)

I almost gave up on HoM after trade five, I must admit. It just got a bit too crazy for me, and that's saying a lot for a series that requires you to accept a LOT of craziness. It wasn't the appearance of sort-of-dead relatives, suicidal (or killed) poets, the fictional becoming real, or a house that is no longer a house that got to me, however: it was the chaos. I felt that I was losing my grip on the story line in the last arc; too many things were happening too quickly for me to follow. I just looked back at my review of trade five (Here's the link if your interested.) and am amused to note that I didn't comment on my befuddlement. Instead, I essentially summarized the basic premise of the series and left it at that. In retrospect, I recognize this as a classic strategy my students used when faced with a challenging task: deflect or backtrack to discuss something with which you are comfortable.

Fortunately, trade six slows down a bit and mainly follows a single story arc, with only a couple of tangents. Sure, that single plot might involve Fig (the main character, whose vivid imagination is responsible for the existence of the mystery house and multiple worlds) and the goblins being called upon by witches in order to defeat the Thinking Man, flying robots, huge carnivorous earthworms (think Dune), and an immense monster dampening the torch needed to keep the Summerlands alive.  And, yes, the victory comes when Turgis, a gay goblin, takes over leadership to lead the goblin army (explaining to the former leader as he kills him, "It takes great strength to be gay in this world.") and Fig invents a "big, swirly, cutty thing" (looking like an immense length of toilet paper with a smiley face on it, no less) to kill the monster. Still, this is imagination and mystery I can wrap my head around and follow, and even the few tangents clarified some loose strands from trade five. I'm glad to have things sorted out now, as the concepts of imagination, creation, and reality that originally attracted me to the series are so compelling.

One thing this experience underscores for me is a major difference between classic and modern comics. While characters in early comics did evolve and plots built, you could pretty much pick up any single issue and have a coherent story to read. This is not the case of most current adult series, which depend on readers having enough back story to muddle through some fuzzy parts, often reaching very-limited conclusions within story arcs. If I had picked up trade five without having read the earlier HoM issues, I would have put it aside within a few pages--convinced it was complete rubbish. And, I would have missed out on some thought-provoking ideas as a result. The bottom line: if a comic series appeals to you for some reason, start from issue one.