The Nice House On The Lake #5

The Nice House On The Lake #5

DC Black Label 2021

Written by James Tynion IV

Illustrated by Álvaro Martínez Bueno

Coloured by Jordie Bellaire

Lettered by Andworld Design

Veronica, the Scientist, has one of the longest-standing connections to Walter among anyone in the House…and through her work with NASA, she may have insight into who he really is. But what she sees in the stars above the House may upend everything she thought she knew!

Each issue seems to really ramp up the storytelling to levels I have never seen before. I mean sure they’ve been at the lake house for at least a month now, if not multiple months, and we’ve seen Reg in the black house earlier in the series. So why was Reg put in that black house all by himself? He and Walter go way back and I mean OG way back so I cannot wait to see what his story is with all this. In the meantime this is Veronica’s story and her connection to Walter and her intellect with the shocking revelations of last issue, that they cannot die, it is time the group stopped playing the blame game and started to take a much more scientific approach to what exactly is going on. It is nice to see someone with some smarts finally standing up and taking charge here.

I am head over heels in love with the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is exquisitely rendered. The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter continues to showcase how their personalities evolve and grow. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story the deeper and deeper we’re pulled into this and by god I wasn’t aware we could fall deeper down the rabbit hole.

How we see this being structured as well as how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen is meticulously rendered. These layers continue to open up new avenues to explore and while some are more important than others they all add this delicious depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow and how it moves the story forward is impeccably achieved.

The interiors here are mindbogglingly brilliant to behold. The linework is exquisite and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this level & quality of detail within the work is absolutely astounding. The creativity and imagination that we see is off the charts and with the way we see their faces and facial expressions furthers the characterisation beautifully. How we see the backgrounds being utilised to expand and enhance the moments as well as how they work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope of the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a phenomenal eye for how colour works.

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This is a smart group of individuals who have been so caught up in the circumstances they’ve forgotten how to think and act to figure a way out of all this. You’d think they’d have been able to work together over a bunch of issues before now, but nay nay I say as it’s taken till now and the last revelation for this to come to pass. This is beyond a shadow of a doubt one of the most intriguing new series to hit stands and thanks to the masterful writing and characterisation alongside these utterly brilliant interiors.