Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer: Peter J. Tomasi
Artist: Ian Bertram
Editor: Daniel Chabon
Release Date: 11 May 2016
Price: $3.99

And the crazy, in House of Penance #2, just gets worse and worse. Or better and better, depending on your point of view.

After a blockbuster debut issue, House of Penance #2 takes us deeper into the deranged mind of Sarah Winchester. The rebuilding of Winchester House continues according to Sarah’s insane architectural fancies. Convinced her dead husband and daughter are inhabiting the house with her she continues to configure it as a monumental folly, smashing floorboards to splinters when ectoplasmic worms that only she can see, invade her sanctum. That is when she’s not blowing boulders to smithereens in order to keep malevolent spirits at bay.

In House of Penance #2 outlaw Warren Peck was hoping by joining the workforce at Winchester House he could lie low for a while but his fellow workers turn out to be killers and malcontents, because no sane person would work on a project like this, which eventually drives him to take a job looking after the furnace. And that’s when his problems really begin.

Whatever otherworldly force inhabits Winchester House now seems to have Warren Peck firmly in its grasp. As mesmerising as a cobra before it strikes and just as nerve-jangling, House of Penance continues to mature like a fine wine. Don’t expect to understand it, just enjoy the ride.

 

 

Reviewer: Gary Orchard
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker