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A review by juliemhowe
House by Josh Simmons
4.0
I'll be honest; I picked this up because it was published by Fantagraphics. I do judge on things like that.
However, I was pretty pleasantly surprised that I liked it so much. A beautiful graphic novel with zero written words, it depicts the story of a guy who meets two girls at an old abandoned house and they explore it. I applaud Simmons for his subtle depiction of facial features and expressions, because this effort would have failed completely without it. Through these features and expressions we pick up on emotions felt by the characters, such as fear, dread, and even lust, as they go through the house and find explore with great curiosity. Things go awry, and they are faced with their own decisions that lead to one final dark moment.
The last few pages grow more and more claustrophobic with more black space, smaller characters, as they fade away. It's beautiful work, and if you have 15 minutes to a half hour, this is work looking at.
However, I was pretty pleasantly surprised that I liked it so much. A beautiful graphic novel with zero written words, it depicts the story of a guy who meets two girls at an old abandoned house and they explore it. I applaud Simmons for his subtle depiction of facial features and expressions, because this effort would have failed completely without it. Through these features and expressions we pick up on emotions felt by the characters, such as fear, dread, and even lust, as they go through the house and find explore with great curiosity. Things go awry, and they are faced with their own decisions that lead to one final dark moment.
The last few pages grow more and more claustrophobic with more black space, smaller characters, as they fade away. It's beautiful work, and if you have 15 minutes to a half hour, this is work looking at.