Writers: Gene Simmons, Leah Moore, John Reppion, Tom Waltz, Chris Ryall, Sean Taylor, Dwight L. MacPherson, and Nick Simmons
Artists: Matt Busch, Jeffrey Zornow, Esteve Polls, Steph Stamb, Jon Alderink, and Grant Bond
Company: IDW Publishing

Anthology comics are a tough package to sell. There’s no hook to grab the reader on every story besides the overall theme (if there even is one), so the quality of the writing and art is more important than ever, and with the variety of stories involved, there’s a good chance that only about half are going to connect with each reader on average- and that’s if you have a good book.

This one has several things going for it. Gene Simmons is a name people know, even if it isn’t for comics. Horror anthologies have a long, successful pedigree, going back decades and including greats like Tales From the Crypt, Creepy, The House of Mystery, and plenty of others. If there’s any modern anthology format that people are used to, it’s probably horror. Add to that IDW’s well-earned reputation for quality, with glossy, heavy paper stock and no ad interruption, and you have a recipe for a possible success.

This first issue should go a long way toward delivering that success. While not every story delivered for me, I thought they were all at least solid, and some stood out as great. Keeping with the traditions of horror anthologies, the issue is bookended by short bits by Gene Simmons as the ‘face’ of the book, a la the Crypt Keeper or Cain. From there it goes into a story by Leah Moore and John Reppion that shows that not all superstitions are wrong. I loved the art in this story, by Jeffrey Zornow, but the actual writing left me a little flat. Still, a cool read.

The next tale, by Tom Waltz (of Children of the Grave and now an editor at IDW), points out that there are more dangers in the burning oil fields of the Gulf than we expect. Tom’s a talented writer, especially when dealing with the military, and I enjoyed the environmental aspect of this one. Artist Esteve Polls delivers handily on the storytelling and his realistic style is top-notch. Following that is my favorite of the issue, a Chris Ryall bit about a discovered passage to Hell and the reluctant investigator that heads in. Ryall’s use of Dante was cool, and his captioned writing style here just worked, helping make it feel that much more isolated and inside the main character’s mind. The real sell for me was Steph Stamb’s art, though, delivering in spades on the mood Ryall created. Excellent.

Sean Taylor’s story, “Nymph”, was a classic horror story with a twist, in which an environmentalist comes face to face with a spirit of the Earth while searching for her missing husband. Creative and fun, it delivers. The final bit of fantasy doesn’t, so much. The artwork is cool, Grant Bond doing work that reminds me somewhat of Ted Naifeh on Death Jr., but the plot just didn’t really work for me. I had a hard time buying a connection between Crowley and what was in the girl’s basement, so it just failed. Finally, there’s a prose story by Nick Simmons, which I found to be perhaps a bit over-written but an interesting idea and one of the best parts of the issue.

Overall, though, I found this first issue to be well worth my time. There’s some imaginative, creative work being done here, by both artists and writers, and IDW has a good place for very non-standard horror here if they mine the right creators and stay away from standard tropes. The ten-dollar price tag will doubtless scare many away, but for 64 pages of solid comics with no ads, I think it’s worth it if you’re a horror fan.

Gene Simmons House of Horrors #1 hits shelves 7/18/07. This is an advanced review.