Enter if you dare into the second entry of House of Horror. Last week we read and discussed the House of Mystery. This week we are going to mix things up a bit and enter the DC House of Horror. This is a one-shot from 2017 and only seemed fitting for us to read.
Then we will take a stroll to the last house on the left for The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love. This first appeared in 1971 and is an anthology series in the same vein as House of Mystery, but with a bit more romance and a different format. I absolutely love the cover for the first issue, the book we will be reading and I can’t wait to discuss this book with everyone.
Then we will take a second helping of House of Mystery from 2008 to continue the story of Fig Keele and the gang. I left the third title up for the group to decide and House of Mystery won!!
Later in the week, we will take a closer look at The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love.
As we are in October, House of Horror will have a new event posted weekly. Once we are in November we will transition to new events posted bi-weekly.
If you haven’t joined the House of Horror all you need to do is click the “join button” here!
In the very near future, we will be joining Renegade Robins to discuss some spooky seasonal titles!!!
If you are new to House of Horror, be sure to check out this post for every book we have read. Also if you have questions, ideas or concerns feel free to message me!
Though it’s giogantic I’ll give that House of Horror a spin. Someone needs to report Forbidden LOVE I have no idea what’s going on there. Went to the LCS today and grabbed this years SwampThing special so I’ll see about that too.
I have chuckled multiple times at that title. By multiple times, that might have been every time I have seen that title as I was getting this week’s selection together.
And if that isn’t enough to scare you, there’s Keith Giffen, too.
I love how in every project he’s involved in, he seems to always make himself the butt fo the joke. Love that old geezer.
And Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love, neat! For a second I thought you were going to go with the more recent Deadman prestige mini, which I read a while back for the DC Pride book club. Really good series, I might add.
I don’t get what you guys are saying, what am I missing?
I really like how atmospheric that cover is. It really sets the mood.
Hello members of House of Horror! I’m one of the Club Leaders over at Renegade Robins and I head up the Damian Wayne Book Club portion of our combined club. As @D4RK5TARZ mentioned we will be combining forces later this month to discuss some truly scary tales and in my club’s case the stories will feature Damian Wayne. Renegade Robins part of the overall discussion will be posted on October 19th if anyone would like to join in. I’ll send @D4RK5TARZ a link when the topic goes live.
He does seem to be the butt of many jokes but he is also a name I have come to trust when I see in the credits.
I thought about doing the Deadman story but I wanted something a little older to help keep everything rounded. I won’t always be able to do that, upcoming weeks come to mind but I do like the contrast of classic titles with newer titles.
I thought it would be a good idea to post the new horror releases from DC. We might not be reading the books right away and some of them might even be discussed in other clubs upon release. Think of this as a preview of what might be lurking in the dark corners of House of Horror.
Digital Firsts Releases
I am not sure if the DC History Club is going to cover Legend of the Swamp Thing: Halloween Spectacular this month. I do know that @msgtv and @TurokSonOfStone1950 have been dissecting the history of Swamp Thing ranging from the history of the character, comparing him to other comic characters, the writers of Swamp Thing, and everything in between!
I have just read The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love 1 as this title seemed to be the most mysterious this week. This is definitely an anthology but not in the same sense as House of Mystery. Foregoing multiple short stories with a host, The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love instead aims to be a “A full-length of love and danger complete in this issue!” The book definitely delivered on love and danger. Danger seemed to lurk on every page, whether it was an accident or push into quicksand. This book also delivered on the love story angle. Romance comics are barely present on DCU, which is a shame because I would personally love to read Young Romance. It often felt that this title was aimed at the same audience of Young Romance but added a horror twist to broaden that audience. I will admit, some of the romantic angles felt like a stretch and could certainly be seen as unconventional or even cringe worthy in 2020.
One thing that I really enjoyed about this book was that it set the tone early and delivered. There was a haunted house element used to tease the reader while the true danger was right in front of you. I will be reading the other two books very soon but I wanted to get my thoughts on this title as soon as possible.
I really can’t wait to see what others think about The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love.
I really felt it delivered on the creepy, suspense-filled mystery angle. The setting and characters were suitably mysterious and suspicious. I really enjoyed that aspect of the story and it offered a few twists that I wasn’t expecting.
While I would agree that the story delivered on the love aspect I found it to be very cliche and rushed. Michael has literally just buried his wife and now he’s making moves on Laura. Not only that he asks her to marry him at the end. Seriously? That was a bit sudden don’t ya think?
In all honestly I was expecting to find out that both Michael and Laura were drugged or otherwise manipulated into being attracted to each other and that maybe Emily was luring young woman there to murder them.
This was the cringe part that I was referring to. Like the entire book, I was expecting it to happen but then the sudden proposal made me laugh. That part made no sense, however, I am not sure if it is supposed to make too much sense. Maybe that is how things worked in 1971?
Maybe some time passes between Bettina’s funeral and that proposal but even so it’s still rather sudden. It might also have been a “love at first sight” type of scenario.
Two or three days at most would be my guess as well and that was supposed to have said “Maybe if some time had passed…” That’s what I thought I typed.
At the very least Michael’s proposal and Laura"s acceptance of it were both extremely abrupt given the circumstances.
Said I was going to read the House of Horror book, by I went with Forbidden Love too. First, this is just a cool bit of history combining horror and romance comics. I have to believe this was aimed directly at DC’s young female readers. The entire thing reads like the world’s most over-the-top soap opera. Not only do Micheal and Laura start mashing faces together as fast as the can, the story continues to throw make “drama” into the fire. Murder, blackmail, escaped lunatic, crazy girl and crazy old old both stashed away in the house. The entire thing is bonkers, but fun in it’s weird way. Unfortunately, this angle doesn’t stick as they change the title to Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion.
LOVE 
I have no idea what’s going on there. Went to the LCS today and grabbed this years SwampThing special so I’ll see about that too.
