Take a look at these hands.
Creative Staff:
Story: Peter Tomasi
Art: Ian Bertram
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letters: Nate Piekos of Blambot
What They Say:
A visitor from Winchester’s past stirs up old demons, and she must find new ways to keep them out of her unearthly mansion. Meanwhile, Warren Peck comes face to face with specters from his own past and learns that he has more in common with her than he’d thought . . .
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The hammering goes on day and night, 24-7. The workers don’t know why they’re asked to work around the clock, and they don’t know what will happen if the hammering stops. All they know is that their employer, Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune, dreads the silence. And so they go, ham-ham-hammering, chasing away evil spirits they don’t know exist, building a home for good spirits unlucky enough to be on the wrong end of a gun.
Based on the actual Sarah Winchester and her amazing, confusing house, House of Penance takes us right into a nightmare—a fever dream of red tentacles, guilt, shame, and fear. The house serves as a beacon to all those affected by the gun: the shooter and the shot, the quick and the dead, and Warren Peck succumbs to its spell just as so many others. A gunman, a killer, Peck comes to the Winchester house near death. He survives, but whether that’s his good fortune or bad is yet to be determined.
What is clear is that Peck brought something with him. Demons of his own invade the already spirit-infested house, taking the form of red tentacles that constantly threaten to overwhelm him, Mrs. Winchester, and everyone in the estate. And it seems like Mrs. Winchester is feeding off his demons, just as he feeds off hers. The two form an unlikely pair, and the tone of this work suggests that neither of them will live happily ever after.
The source of that end may come in the form of Sarah’s sister, Mary. In the first issue, Sarah had workers exhume and transport the body of her husband and daughters to be buried at the home. Mary, worried about her sister, hopes to find some semblance of sanity, but Sarah’s sudden mirror-breaking spree puts an end to that hope. It’s possible that Mary traveled with a secret agenda: to ascertain Sarah’s mental state on behalf of the Winchester family, or it may be that she will try and commit her sister out of a genuine desire to help. Right now, her role in this work remains to be seen, but I doubt she’s just a bit character who will show up and disappear later.
House of Penance is a work that defies summary and description. I can do linguistic cartwheels all night long here and still not encapsulate the feverish delirium that infects each panel. This is a comic to be experienced. All the working parts move together in harmony, creating an engine of disquietude and despair. Once again, the art of Ian Bertram and the colors of Dave Stewart create a unique experience—oddly beautiful in its ugly exaggerations, but also disturbing and frantic, especially with the characters’ hands.
As I said in my review of issue one, Bertram seems to do much of his character work through the hands of his characters. We see it in the scarred hands of Warren Peck and the pristine hands of Sarah Winchester. Twice Bertram gives us closeups of Peck’s hands. They’re scarred and lumpy, twisted and bloated like rotting tree branches, as if the evil he’s done with them has rebounded, imparting a piece of the pain he visited on others in the very appendages that did them.
In the second closeup, Peck washes his hands and Sarah places her over his. Her hand is small and unmarred compared to him, and if not for the red tentacles and the pervading sense of menace, it might have made for a sweet moment. It certainly indicates that events are progressing, hammering their way to what will undoubtedly be a bloody climax.
In Summary:
House of Penance #3 is another superb issue in one of the best horror miniseries I’ve read in quite some time. Peter Tomasi, Ian Bertram, and Dave Stewart have managed to capture a fever dream in a comic. Highly expressionistic and dripping with atmosphere, House of Penance will haunt you long after you close the issue. Dr. Josh gives this an….
Grade: A+
Age Rating: N/A
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: June 8th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
