The Nice House On The Lake #1

The Nice House On The Lake #1

DC Black Label 2021

Written by James Tynion IV

Illustrated by Álvaro Martínez Bueno

Coloured by Jordie Bellaire

Lettered by Andworld Design

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 Walter’s 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?

I will say this, this first issue turns out to be quite the mindfuck if you will. I mean I had no idea what this was going to be about but I had some ideas in my head and yet there was nothing in my ideas that came even close to what the reality of what is within these pages. Bravissimo James on taking me to Church and leaving me there shell-shocked and all.

I am in love with the way that this is being told. How we see the story & plot development through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented perfectly. The character development that we see is interesting and we’ve yet to meet everyone but through the dialogue, character interaction and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter flesh out those we’ve met thus far nicely. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story and this world we’re drawn into this in a decidedly weird and wonderful way.

I am enjoying how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story emerge and grow. It is in these layers where characterisation really begins to take shape and where the larger picture begins to garner steam, if one knows how and where to look. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is rather well achieved.

I am rather fond of the interiors here as well. The linework that we see is extremely well laid down and how the varying weights and techniques are being utilised to create the quality of detail work that we see is astonishingly well rendered. How we see the backgrounds really is brilliant and there is something about the lines we see that really adds its own unique depth and texture to the story. How we see these work within the composition within the panels to showcase depth perception, sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a marvellously talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is mind numbing. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is bloody gorgeous.

As Walter’s plans begin to take shape and all his friends that said they’d come are there all hell breaks loose. The outside world and what we learn about Walter is how we close this issue out and it doesn’t even come close to where we see the opening here. James doesn’t waste any time though because he really does start things off with a bang in this cliffhanger ending. We’re off to the races and as of right now i’m more invested than I’d dared hope to be and cannot wait to see what is going to happen next.

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This is some absolutely brilliant storytelling with this great diverse cast of characters brought into a scenario they’ve no hope in controlling. The characterisation along with the interiors here are what is going to drive you simply mad with the impression they make.