House of Secrets (Vertigo)
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''House of Secrets'' is an occult and horror-themed
comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
series Series may refer to: People with the name * Caroline Series (born 1951), English mathematician, daughter of George Series * George Series (1920–1995), English physicist Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Series, the ordered sets used i ...
written by
Steven T. Seagle Steven T. Seagle (born March 31, 1965) is an American writer who works in the comic book, television, film, live theater, video game and animation industries. He is best known for his graphic novel memoir '' It's a Bird...'' (Vertigo, May 2004 ...
. The art is by
Teddy Kristiansen Teddy Kristiansen (born 29 July 1964) is a Danish comic book artist, known for his work in mystery, horror, and dark, suspense-filled comics. He drew one chapter of " The Kindly Ones" story arc in Neil Gaiman's ''The Sandman'' series. In 2005, Kri ...
, with occasional assistance by Christian Højgaard, Guy Davis,
Duncan Fegredo Duncan Fegredo (; born 1964) is a People of the United Kingdom, British comic book artist. Career Born in Leicester, Fegredo first managed to get into comics after showing his portfolio around UKCAC in 1987 and meeting Dave Thorpe. Together th ...
and the
Pander Brothers Jacob Pander (born January 26, 1965) and Arnold Pander (born June 16, 1967), known commercially as The Pander Brothers, are American comic book creators, artists, and filmmakers. They are best known for their work on the comics titles Grendel: Devi ...
. It debuted in October 1996, published by the
Vertigo Vertigo is a condition where a person has the sensation of movement or of surrounding objects moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. This may be associated with nausea, vomiting, sweating, or difficulties w ...
imprint Imprint or imprinting may refer to: Entertainment * ''Imprint'' (TV series), Canadian television series * "Imprint" (''Masters of Horror''), episode of TV show ''Masters of Horror'' * ''Imprint'' (film), a 2007 independent drama/thriller film ...
of American company
DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...
and ran for 25 issues, followed by a two-issue miniseries called ''House of Secrets: Facade'' by the same creative team in 2001. Although its title is based on the '' House of Secrets'' series that ran from 1956 to 1976, it is an otherwise unrelated series.


Plot

Inveterate liar Rain Harper comes to Seattle and meets a young girl named Traci, who offers to let Rain stay in a derelict house with her. The house turns out to be the surprisingly expansive and lavishly decorated Reichuss Mansion, a renowned haunted house in Seattle. When she steps into the pantry, Rain encounters an otherworldly entity called the "Juris", which acts as judge, jury and executioner in a courtroom in the hereafter. After defendant souls present their secrets to be judged by a tribunal of spirits, sentence is pronounced upon them and they are sent to either the attic, the world, or the basement, which are stand-ins for Heaven, Purgatory and Hell. The Juris calls Rain as a witness in one of its trials. The Juris is composed of the Plyck, a flaming hand; Pfaultz, a sexual predator who masqueraded as a health inspector using someone else's edict from
Emperor Charles IV Charles IV ( cs, Karel IV.; german: Karl IV.; la, Carolus IV; 14 May 1316 – 29 November 1378''Karl IV''. In: (1960): ''Geschichte in Gestalten'' (''History in figures''), vol. 2: ''F–K''. 38, Frankfurt 1963, p. 294), also known as Charle ...
; Ni An, a Japanese woman who accepted blame for her older sister's murder of their mutual husband; Clius, a Roman bust who was once a scribe and playwright who had offended
Hadrian Hadrian (; la, Caesar Trâiānus Hadriānus ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica (close to modern Santiponce in Spain), a Roman ''municipium'' founded by Italic settlers in Hispania B ...
; and Digol, an ancient Greek who wrote down the law to remember it. The newest member of the Juris is Ruby, who replaced an Ancient Egyptian woman. She was buried alive by whites who were appalled at her relationship with a white man in early 1960s Alabama and represents blind Lady Justice — she is the only one Rain likes. Aside from the mysterious Plyck, whose origin remains unknown (an essay on hands and the number 5 was told instead), all of the members of the Juris died from being intentionally buried alive — or in the case of Clius, buried after his limbs were torn off on a rack. Rain later strikes up a friendship with a musician named Ben Volk, who plays in a band called the Nightmare of Reason. The narcissistic lead singer of the band, Erik, starts a relationship with Rain, but later rapes Traci, a crime for which he is duly convicted by the Juris. Rain decides to leave Seattle, but returns not long afterwards to find her dead mother condemned to the basement for keeping the secret of her diagnosis with ovarian cancer during her lifetime. Rain herself is made a defendant in her own trial for keeping secret her grief at her mother's death. She is sentenced to hanging, but is saved by Ben and Traci. The derelict mansion is eventually demolished, and Rain, Ben and Traci move on with their lives. Somewhere on the East Coast, Rain discovers the Reichuss Mansion again, exact in every detail. Rain has to protect Ben, Traci and herself from judgment at the hands of the Juris, or else the mansion might follow them all for the rest of their lives.


Collected editions

The first five issues of the series were collected in a
trade paperback Trade paperback may refer to: * Trade paperback, a higher-quality softcover version of a book * Trade paperback (comics) In comics in the United States, a trade paperback (shortened: TPB or trade) is a collection of stories originally published ...
. No subsequent collections were published until the release of an ''
DC Omnibus ''DC Omnibus'' is a line of large format, high quality, full color, hardcover editions published by DC Comics since 2007, reprinting comics previously printed in single issue format. Individual volumes tend to focus on collecting either the works ...
'' volume in April 2013: *''Foundation'' (collects ''House of Secrets'' (vol. 2) #1-5, 128 pages, May 1997, ) *''House of Secrets Omnibus'' (collects ''House of Secrets'' (vol. 2) #1-25, ''House of Secrets: Facade'' #1-2 and a story from ''Vertigo: Winter's Edge'' #1, 752 pages, April 2013, )


Notes


References


''House of Secrets''
at the
Big Comic Book DataBase The Big Cartoon DataBase (or BCDB for short) is an online database of information about animated cartoons, animated feature films, animated television shows, and cartoon shorts. The BCDB project began in 1997 as a list of Disney animated featu ...
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:House Of Secrets (Vertigo) Fantasy comics 1996 comics debuts Fiction about purgatory