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Robert Greenberger
by Robert Greenberger
The house of secrets always felt as a lesser title to house of mystery despite nearly identical contents and creators. Both titles were from the 1950s, switching from not-terribly-terrifying stories to super heroes or super villains and seemed destined for oblivion until a new generation of editors arrived.
Dick Giordano was lured away from Charlton Comics and Joe Orlando was enticed by an editorial gig, both bringing years of experience with them to reinvigorate an aging editorial staff, filling the titles with new creators and energy. Orlando poured his EC Comics knowledge into revamping HOM, adding Cain as its host, and mixing reprints with new content. Similarly, Giordano revived the canceled HOS in 1969 and gave it a gothic horror feel from cover to interior. He added Cain’s brother Abel as host, allowing for some good natured ribbing between the titles. After Giordano left staff, Orlando inherited his book and set the stage for a new generation of suspenseful storytelling.
DC Horror: house of secrets Vol. 1
DC Comics is honoring that era with DC Horror: house of secrets Vol. 1, picking up with Orlando’s second issue, #92, through #97. It makes some sense as Orlando burned through some of Giordano’s inventory and began buying additional stories from a wide array of veteran and new talent.
Issue #92, is of course, immortalized as the first appearance of Swamp Thing, courtesy of Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson. The shambling mockery of man was the latest in a long line of such characters dating back to the golden Age’s Heap and its current day marvel counterpart, Man-Thing.
Wein and Wrightson may have been the early success stories under Orlando’s tutelage, but they were far from alone. Giordano and Orlando were both welcoming and encouraging to the fans turned would-be professionals, buying stories and art from people, like Gerry Conway, still in their teens. As a result, they became the teachers for a new generation, encouraging individuality in style and approach in storytelling. While fellow editor Murray Boltinoff’s inherited Witching hour was more commercial, Orlando’s titles were far more influential to the industry.
House of secrets #95 cover by Nick Cardy
This collection shows you the wide variety of talent on display as veterans from the end of the golden Age were mixed with the first talents of the Bronze Age, combining for entertaining and exciting stories. as of issue #93, the entire DC line expanded from 32 to 48 pages so assistant editor mark Hanerfeld carefully curated the reprints to support the original material, exposing us to rare John Prentice comic book work along with a healthy dose of Alex Toth.
There were also twisted humor one-pagers from Sergio Aragones and Lore Shoberg. The list of talent includes Virgil North, Alan Weiss, Tony DeZuniga, John Albano, Jack Sparling, Don Heck, Jack Oleck, bill Draut, Dick Dillin, Jack Abel, Wally Wood, and Jose Delbo. The Aquaman team of Steve Skeates and Jim Aparo have two stories here as well.
In addition to DeZuniga, the first hints of the coming wave of Pilipino talent can be seen with a lovely story by the underrated Nestor Redondo.
“The Day After Doomsday” was a one or two page “what if” look at earth after disaster, introduced in HOS #86. The feature popped up in various anthology titles over the next decade and two entries can be found here, both from Len Wein and Jack Sparling, with two survivors, Adam and Gertrude.
House of secrets #97 cover by Jack Sparling
The ongoing title had some atmospheric covers with art here including several from Wrightson and single pieces from Sparling and Nick Cardy. some of these, like Sparling’s, are paintings while DC’s production wizard Jack Adler added washes and color effects to help these titles stand out on the increasingly crowded newsstand.
This collection gives you a nice mix of what was and what was to come. Together, they make for a satisfying glimpse into a transitional period for DC.
Purchase
DC Horror: house of secrets Vol. 1
Classic covers from the Grand Comics Database.