by Clyde Hall. It’s famously held as a desirable goal: Teach the children well and let them lead the way. It requires young ones with vision, purpose, and assertiveness. Horror stories often slither forth from a mealworm sac of children granted power. Young, innocent humans wielding true supernatural might is a frightening concept, for their well-being and for the world of adult authority. If power corrupts, how will the child’s psyche change? If the juvenile applies arcane forces using the stark guide of a child’s sense of fairness and justice, adults should be terrified.
Such a child is Alice in The Dollhouse Family #1, debuting November 13th as part of DC’s Hill House Comics label. Bequeathed a hand-made 19th Century dollhouse by her ailing great aunt, little Alice bonds with the family figures within. Their Victorian seeming and setting is picturesque, stable. Quite unlike Alice’s own family situation, a life in 1979 that is messy, convoluted, and borderline abusive.
As she becomes invested in the imagined lives of her playthings, the dollhouse becomes a whisperer of promises. The Black Room awaits within its minuscule walls. Alice need only say the words, open its confines, and unleash a force to change her own home life. The Dollhouse has a few frightening suggestions.
Writer Mike Carey with artists Peter Gross and Vince Locke join colorist Cris Peter and letterer Todd Klein for a trick ‘r treat sampling. And for the Hill House completist, The Dollhouse Family #1 will feature Chapter Two of the “Sea Dogs” backup story by Joe Hill and Dan McDaid, continued from Basketful of Heads #1.
$3.99 | M | NOVEMBER 13 (FOC: OCTOBER 21)
THE DOLLHOUSE FAMILY #1
Written by M.R. Carey.
Art by Peter Gross and Vince Locke.
Colors by Cris Peter.
Lettering by Todd Klein.
Cover by Jessica Dalva.
Variant Cover by Jay Anacleto.
From Hill House Comics and DC’s Black Label: Playtime Never Ends.
Hill House Comics welcomes its deeply disturbing second series, ‘The Dollhouse Family’! On Alice’s sixth birthday, her dying great-aunt sent her the birthday gift she didn’t know she always wanted: a big, beautiful 19th-century dollhouse, complete with a family of antique dolls. In no time at all, the dollhouse isn’t just Alice’s favorite toy…it’s her whole world. And soon, young Alice learns she can enter the house to visit a new group of friends, straight out of a heartwarming children’s novel: the Dollhouse family. But while the Dollhouse family welcome her with open arms, in the real world, her family life is becoming much more complicated… and deep within the Dollhouse’s twisting halls, the black room waits, with an offer to Alice. The house can fix all this, the black room says. All she has to do is say the words…
Longtime collaborators Mike Carey and Peter Gross (‘Lucifer’, ‘The Unwritten’) are joined by Vince Locke (‘The Sandman’), to bring their most horrifying vision yet to the Joe Hill-curated Hill House Comics pop-up—a story that echoes into centuries past, into Alice’s tormented future, and into the beating heart of the madness that makes up our world…literally.
Plus, in chapter two of the “Sea Dogs” backup story (continued from ‘Basketful of Heads’ #1) written by Joe Hill and illustrated by Dan McDaid, spymaster Benjamin Tallmadge’s monstrous scheme is underway as his coerced crew of bloodthirsty colonial lycanthropes prepare to gut the Royal Navy from within!
