Review: House of Gold and Bones #1

This is actually the worst kind of review to write. I love writing gushing reviews of the comics I love most and going into just what makes them special to me. I even enjoy tearing apart comics that lack the time and effort necessary to make them work, as those artists deserve to be called out for such behaviour. Sadly, this review isn’t either of those. This is a guy putting all he has into a script that, sadly, just doesn’t come together well. Corey Taylor’s comics debut House of Gold and Bones #1 has all the passion and creativity in the world, but sadly, it doesn’t work.
For those of you who don’t know, Corey Taylor was the lead singer of Slipknot, and is currently the lead singer of Stone Sour, an awesome hard radio rock band that you should totally be listening to. In fact, you may have noticed this comic series shares the same name as their latest album, a two part album released that is legitimately great stuff and you should totally go buy right now. Both parts. I’m on my fourth listen through at the moment of writing, and I’m not even a guy that does that.

But enough delaying the inevitable: this comic is supposed to be a “visual representation” of the album, and at first, it succeeds quite well. Our protagonist, just known as “Zero” for the moment (he has amnesia, so he doesn’t remember his real name) is dropped into a strange world of which he has no memory or understanding, and is being chased by some dark, sinister forces that are truly menacing in the way they are presented: a dark blur with a creepy hand reaching out to grab him. He escapes into a nondescript block of a house…and the whole comic falls apart.

There are three major problems with this comic. The first is the art done by Richard Clark. It’s not that everything he does is bad; I’ve already praised the dark forces with the creepy hand, after all. And the environments are all equally well done, if a little more subdued than they probably should be given the atmosphere of the writing. The problem is in his depiction of the actual characters. “Zero” just looks…off. I can’t really describe it, but I get a very ‘uncanny valley’ feeling whenever I look at his face. Not to mention the facial expressions rarely match the emotion the character is portraying at the time to a point that it stands out and detracts from the scene. This is especially true of the anti-hero presented, who goes from looking sinister and menacing to looking downright silly at times. It’s a true shame, as a brilliant artist may have been able to save the other problems.

The second issue is the constant narration the main character gives us. We get every single thought that passes through the guy’s head, and not for the better. Remember my review of B.P.R.D. Vampire #1? That comic had eight pages of no words whatsoever to set a rather creepy ambience that sucked you immediately into the comic. At the time, I wondered if it was perhaps a bit slow, but I take it back. It keeps things running at a solid pace. The constant narration slows down the pace in a painful way, and often, it tells us things that should already be clear through the art itself. By having to read the narration (which can feel amateurish at times), you lose all sense of tension in the creepier moments, as you’re constantly being slowed down and pulled out of the moment. In a perfect world, there should be about 1/3 of the narration present in this comic. Sadly, this is not a perfect world.

I get why Taylor chose to write it this way, however. This comic throws a lot of weird concepts out there to set the stage, probably too much. I had to reread the comic thrice before I could figure out exactly what was going on, and that’s accepting that a lot of the book is purposefully shrouded in mystery. It’s a lot easier to understand if you listen to the album, actually, as the story plays out quite well if you listen to the story of the music and combine the two to figure out what’s going on (which I guess makes it a success as visual representation of the album, so yay?). But this is a comic, and it should be able to stand on its own as one. And this sadly just doesn’t work.

I hate writing reviews for this, as I really respect Corey Taylor’s passion behind the piece. The effort and passion he brought to this project is clear. Sadly, so is the fact that he’s new to this. The narration, clunky dialogue, and subpar art bring what could have been a great comic down to one I can’t recommend for the $3.99 cover price. I’ll keep an eye on this, and if the passion turns into progress, I’ll let you all know. But for now, just buy the albums instead. Those are both great, at least.

Chase Wassenar, aka MaristPlayBoy, is the Lead Editor and Founder of the Red Shirt Crew. He really wanted to enjoy this comic, and he’s genuinely sad he didn’t. He’s holding out hope for #2 though. You can read his other articles at ToyTMA,  follow him on Twitter at @RedShirtCrew or email him at theredshirtcrew@gmail.com.