Writer: James Tynion IV / Penciller: Alvaro Martinez Bueno / Colour Artist: Jordie Bellaire / Letterer: Andworld Design / Collects: The Nice House On The Lake #1 - #6 / SC / DC Comics Black Label
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28th April 2022 ( Release Date: 1st March 2022)
The Pitch: Everyone who was invited to the house knows Walter well, they know him a little, anyway. Some met him in childhood; some met him months ago. And Walters has always been a little off. But after the hardest year of their lives, nobody was going to turn down Walter’s invitation to an astonishingly beautiful house in the woods, overlooking an enormous sylvan lake. It s beautiful, it’s opulent, it’s private so a week of putting up with Walter’s weird little schemes and nicknames in exchange for the vacation of a lifetime? Why not? All of them were at that moment in their lives when they could feel themselves pulling away from their other friends; wouldn’t a chance to reconnect be nice? In The Nice House on the Lake, the overriding anxieties of the 21st century get a terrifying new face and it might just be the face of the person you once trusted most.
On the back of this book, there is a question: “How do you think the world will end?”. It's the question posed by Walter, the friend and hub around which the cast of TNHOTL revolves. One could make an argument that he is in fact the lead of the book since the rest of the cast take the reigns for one issue apiece and he remains the constant presence, even when he's not in the panel. But more on that later. First, I want to posit a couple of ideas to you. First, it's that the end of the world is already happening. It's not going to be some big splashy event, with meteorites crashing into the earth's surface, rendering us as useless and pointless as the dinosaurs. It's going to be slow, with events piling up, society's civility and veneer of understanding and compassion getting worn away, broken down. I think this process has already begun and is what we largely call life now. Oh, it's a bleak view, I know. But I think you better suck it up and gird yourself. I know I am. The second thing goes back to that question of how you think the world will end. I think it's the wrong question. It should be “If the world ends and you survive, who do you want to spend the rest of your days with?”
there are tensions - some minor, some major and old grudges…
TNHOTL starts like a horror movie, with its friends and outsiders gathered at the titular luxury lakeside modern-manse. It's a gorgeous palace of desire and supplication. Let me put it this way: you don't get this on Right Move. There are tensions, some minor, some major. Old grudges. Relationships that look odd from the outside but whose participants seem to make work. And everyone seems to be there to serve a function, not just to plot of the story but to the wider plot of existence. And then...
And Then...
And then bad things happen and they happen very quickly. The house effectively becomes a safe haven and a pampered prison. From the shopping lists the group compile and have fulfilled the next day, to the screening room with like, every movie ever on hand... their needs- their specific needs - are met and catered to. But what is the cost of their newly serviced lives? Everyone else's life. The outside world? Well, that world is no more. Bad things happening. And happening very quickly.
As set-ups and genre-mashes go, it's pretty damn good. Cueing you up for a slash and surviving, most dangerous game on earth and instead delivering an anti-rapture is a wonderful sleight of hand from Tynion Mark IV and Martinez Bueno. They don't really offer clues and hints as much as let you discover the secrets at the same speed as the characters. This is a form that increasingly is becoming unique to books and comics, since as great as film language is, it's not really advancing and in fact, I would argue that modern, large-scale entertainment is moving backwards in story-telling. I can't tell you how enthralling this makes the book. The switching viewpoints on each issue keep you immersed, one of the group, stuck in the house, listening to their stories as they piece together how they met Walter and why they have been chosen. But of course, there is also the inherent conflict with others that is present in our daily lives. Here, it is given sharp focus, given an edge that may not only define the humanity of the characters in the house, but of humanity as a whole.
the message may be this: don’t keep your communities so small, so insular. look outward
Effectively, the house becomes a living discord server, a Twitter thread of arguments, discussion, oral combat and perhaps even actual combat. One feels that Tynion IV is trying to give us a metaphor for the insular, echo-chamber communities we've allowed ourselves to become. Unlike here though, the arguments we have online are detached. They don't actualise tangible results. The violence we may feel brewing up in ourselves on Twitter and Facebook becomes other things, most often turning inward, morphing into depression. You get the sense that the message is this: Don't keep your communities so small, so insular. Look outward. It's an odd one for me as ultimately, I'm not a people person. Also, I'm assuming it's perfectly reasonable to suggest that the house is a metaphor for our interior, psychological houses and the people we let into them. The more we allow people in, letting them tour through the rooms, the more open we are to new ideas. But those ideas have to come from input and without the world around us, that input is stymied. What then do our ideas become? They don't grow and neither do we. In that sense, we could be looking at the first great piece of pandemic graphic novel fiction. A book that talks about what it is like to stay hidden whilst the world burns around you.
bueno frames the characters against the wide spaces of the titular house
Alvaro Martinez Bueno's art is glorious, with the painterly appeal of memories. He frames the characters against the wide spaces of the titular house, showing its opulence and its isolation all at once. It threatens to engulf them, eat them alive. His physical 'acting' is great, natural, real. He creates an objective view of the house's occupants and a real expanse for the action and movement to grow. His sense of design – an element that is perhaps more crucial here than in other works – is clean, strong and interesting, especially when handling the many multi-panel spreads in the book. And he really helps the creeping doom move through the story. There's darkness on the edge of town or in this case, on the edge of his panels. Speaking of darkness, one has to be in awe of Jordie Bellaire's colours, heightening the emotional stakes of the book and the mental states of the characters. Andworld Design's letters are tidy, yet allow the voices to come through clearly, getting you further into the headspace of the last people on earth. The Nice House By The Lake is a place you might find yourself driving up to, asking for directions because you’re lost. Its occupants might ask you to come inside, take a seat. They'll offer you dinner, one of your favourites. Maybe you'll stay awhile. Your new friends have a question for you. So... How do you think the world will end?
The Nice House By The Lake Vol. 1 TP is available from Gosh Comics in-store or via mail order. You can also buy it online at Bookshop.org