When the crypt doors creak and tombstones quake, nerds come out for the pick of the week. I… actually can’t keep that up for more that one line. I don’t know how to rhyme. Anyway, my point is… this is our pick of the week review for “Haunted Mansion” #1 by Joshua Williamson and Jorge Coelho!
Read on for our full spoiler free review of the issue below! Check it out!
Written by Joshua Williamson
Illustrated by Jorge Coelho
Welcome, foolish mortals, to the Haunted Mansion! It seems that no one lives in the elegant mansion on the hill…but then where’s that creepy organ music coming from? Are the iron gates meant to keep people out…or some things in? Get ready to meet the 999 ghosts of the Haunted Mansion…but be warned, they’re looking for the 1000th! The delightfully chilling Disney attraction comes to (after)life in an all-new story, penned by Joshua Williamson with art by Jorge Coelho! Don’t miss the next great Disney Kingdoms adventure, and the most spine-tingling experience you’ll find this side of a Doom Buggy!
Remember that time, in the early 2000s, before Disney was really invested in remaking their early animated films in live action and were instead invested in making live action films out of their theme park attractions? Y’know, that sweet spot right between the first and second Pirates Of The Caribbean movies where people thought that was a good idea? Well, the low point of that was, most definitely, 2003’s Haunted Mansion. Seeing this series announced, I remember having flashbacks to that film. “Oh god, they’re not making a comic about the Eddie Murphy film, are they?” I thought. Thankfully, with the combined talents of Joshua Williamson and Jorge Coelho have brought us this first issue, a promising start in a story that proves just how rich the mythology of the Haunted Mansion is.
Joshua Williamson knows horror. You only have to look at something like “Nailbiter” to really understand that, but, as a writer, he knows how to set a chill in your bones. What’s interesting about his writing in “Haunted Mansion” #1 is, it being a Disney property and all, it has to appeal to readers of all ages and Williamson nails that feeling while also remaining scary. Taking the first page to set up the mystery surrounding the mansion itself, Williamson switches tracks to establish the core emotional connection in the issue between Danny and his grandfather. Williamson does a great job here of capturing a writing style that is genuinely emotional and,
at times, genuinely scary while appealing to all readers. Characters tend to wear their emotions on their sleeves and Danny has a habit of outright talking to himself, but there’s a charm to it that can’t be helped.
There’s also a charm, too, in how Williamson and artist Jorge Coelho essentially take you on a ride through the Haunted Mansion itself. While the first half of the issue certainly sets up the emotional engagement with the characters, anyone who has any experience with the Haunted Mansion ride in the real world will get a kick out of seeing the tricks of the ride played out in the comic and seeing Danny react to them. There’s a lot of fun to be had here in seeing the meticulous engineering of the attraction played out as a genuine haunting with elongating paintings that come to life and skeletal knight rising from a coffin. Okay, so maybe the skeletal knight thing doesn’t actually happen in the ride, but you get the point. This comic is a great mix of telling a new, engaging and scary story while playing to the nostalgia people have for the attraction itself.
This is all brought to the life by the ever excellent Jorge Coelho and colourist Jean-Francois Beaulieu. The artwork here is simply phenomenal. Coelho has a somewhat blocky, line-heavy style style that creates this timeless, almost whimsical feeling to the art. It’s a hard feeling to describe, but it feels like the comic book equivalent of an 80s kids movie (think E.T. of The Goonies) which is a perfect fit for the style of writing Williamson employed here. Coelho also nails the all-ages horror feeling once Danny enters the mansion. The art captures that feeling of an impossible space conjuring by the real world attraction, where trying to figure out a sense of location is disorienting and it gives an overtly creepy vibe to the mansion itself. Not to mention the aforementioned skeleton knight who is less creepy and more downright terrifying.
Continued belowThis is all brought to whole other levels by the colour work by Beaulieu. Through a beautiful use of dark blues juxtaposed with harsh reds, unsettling purples and eerie greens, Beaulieu’s colours infuse Coelho’s artwork with an otherworldly sense of horror. It brings an even more unsettling feeling to the linework and just nails that creepy vibe that sets the hair on the back of your neck on end. It’s not just in the mansion that Beaulieu’s colourwork is astounding, though, as he sets a beautiful tone in the opening pages, juxtaposing the autumnal colours of Danny’s home with the stark white and cyans of the Matterhorn, helping to create a page that has one of the sharpest juxtapositions in tone (both artistically and emotionally) between two panels I have ever seen that set up a powerful emotional moment early on in the issue. Seriously, this book is as gorgeous as it is unsettling and that’s saying something.
Overall, I want to call “Haunted Mansion” #1 a pleasant surprise of a comic. Not because I wasn’t expecting much, but because Williamson, Coelho and Beaulieu really pulled out all the stops to create a horror comic that could appeal to all ages while capturing the wonder and awe of the attraction itself. Centring the emotional connection to the story around a young boy who is way more interesting than Eddie Murphy was, we see a story that proves just what can be done with the Haunted Mansion concept. With an ending that tease many more scares to come, I’d say this is definitely a comic to keep an eye on if you have the guts to do so.
Final Verdict: 8.2 – A really fun debut that proves horror doesn’t have to be all blood and guts to be effective.
