House of Ssssshhhhh!
Bill Willingham, of Fables fame, and Matt Sturges are being tapped to co-write a new House of Mystery series for Vertigo. Here's some of the skinny, Bill Willingham in an interview with Newsarama: BW: The premise of the House of Mystery is that there are five people who seem to be trapped in the house -- they cannot leave at all -- and they don't know why. As they arrive to it, they arrive like many people do to this place, and when they attempt to leave, they find out that their ability to leave the house is gone. To make up for this, the house provides them with the things they need, like food and of course liquor -- because everyone has to have liquor. BW: But five cannot leave, however other folks can come and go as they will, which only adds to the consternation of the five characters. It's like, how come these guys get to go and we can't? Being clever people, they think, well, we're going to use what we have to make some kind of life for ourselves. And since the house provides all the free food and drink they need, they open a bar and restaurant for all those folks who come and go. What the house won't provide or allow for is any type of outside news or entertainment. No TV, no books, no journals -- nothing like that. And so they decide, well, since money's no good to us, we're going to charge stories from the people who come and go for our hospitality so that we don't go bat-____ crazy living here all alone in this house for an eternity.
Interesting. The premise is very Sandman: World's End and the House of Mystery exists in the Dreaming and is owned by Cain, one of Sandman's main characters... Some more about the characters from Matt and Bill: The main character of the first arc is a young lady by the name of Fig Keele who is an architecture student at the University of Texas at Austin, which is a complete coincidence of the fact that I went to the University of Texas at Austin. And she is the latest person to find herself drawn to this house, and the first story tells us about her experiences finding that house and discovering that she herself is one of those who is unable to leave. But she is unique among the people who have become trapped in the house for reasons that I can't tell you because they're mysteries. We have a bartender named Harry Bailey. What can I say about Harry? BW: There are mysteries about each of the characters in the main cast, and he's the most mysterious of the bunch. He's certainly got a past, and it's a past he's either unwilling to talk about or he doesn't quite remember. NRAMA: He's got a familiar name. MS: Yes. People can Google that one. Harry Bailey was a controversial Australian psychiatrist. He bore the primary responsibility for treatment of mental patients via Deep Sleep Therapy, and other methods, at a Sydney mental hospital. but perhaps more apropos, Harry Bailey was a character in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales So we've got Harry. And we've a character named The Poet, who's also a little bit of a mysterious figure. He comes from an alternate 19th century France who was a celebrated poet among other things. We find out much later that he's also handy with a rapier, but that's a whole other story. BW: He's also handy in the kitchen, which turned out well for our folks. He is the cook. MS: We also have the bouncer of the bar, who is there in case anything gets out of hand. And she's a lady pirate by the name of Ann Preston, who is one of the most renowned and feared pirate captains from her home world, about which we will learn quite a bit when we get her backstory. BW: We could probably reveal that her homeworld is chock full o' pirates. MS: It is. NRAMA: Aargh. MS: [laughs] Yeah, the ratio of pirates to non-pirates in her home world is significantly higher than in ours. NRAMA: OK, that's four. Who's the fifth one? MS: The fifth one is the waitress, Cress, who is one of the best waitresses who ever lived. We learn pretty quickly that she and Harry have a history together, and this history is not a particularly good one.
Definitely worth a read...
-Justin
House of Mystery, Bill Willingham, Fable
