Overall, this volume was one of the weaker ones and a little confusing to me. I could be the fact it took me a while to read since the last volume. The story is 3 stars, but I liked some of the artwork and the Halloween story was fun, so it gets a 4 star review. ( )

This series has gotten increasingly non-sensical as it has gone on, to the point of not wanting to continue reading... But I will, because I'm too close to the end not to just finish it off! ( )

I want to like this weird series more, but it's either less weird than I want, less coherent in story, or it's just not digging into my psyche.

That's not to say it isn't pretty damn creative, because it is. But it seems to be strange without the coherency that I've grown to love in, say, Sandman, with deep themes that can be dug up with a bit of effort on the part of the reader.

Just having a main character that calls not only the superego and id into being just by believing it or having wars in the Summer land or having living and walking stories build subplots that are kinda blah is not a substitute for a missing thread to tie them all together.

Conception, indeed. I hate to say this, but this one *might* be too abstract. So abstract that I don't care. That's a big ouch in my book, because I *love* abstractions, damnit!

( )

The title of this volume implies answers, but they're in short supply. Or rather, meaningful answers are. Or rather, I think I'd care if anything had ever made any sense-- finding out what the Conception are up to only really matters if previously we'd ever been given anything to grab onto beyond "They're so mysterious!" There is half-hearted attempt at a cast page this time, but it's too little, too late. Fig and Cain spend most of this volume getting from one side of a house to another. And for some reason, the House of Secrets is in the Goblin Market now, and Abel is trying to run a bar out of it. Why? Who knows. Allegedly these characters ran a bar together in the House of Mystery because they couldn't leave, but now they're out and giving it a try regardless.

Still: there's some good short stories here. "The Mystery of the Missing Ghost" is a pretty uninventive Encyclopedia Brown pastiche and "Murder Most Foul"'s joke is ruined by the fact that Enrique Breccia's renditions of the characters are unrecognizable, but "Great Artists Steal" is creepy in the way that an old-time House of Mystery story would be (making it quite appropriate that Cain tells this one himself), while "Bloodsucker" is yet another awesomely terrible film script, and "Necessary Evil" is a delightful piece of metafiction.

The best part of this volume, as in The Beauty of Decay, is the special Halloween issue in the back, which sees a group of strange trick-or-treaters visiting not just the House of Mystery (where Fig is dressed as Supergirl!), but also Madame Xanadu, John Constantine, the girl from iZombie, and (best of all) Lucifer and Gaudium! Whoo! Now there's a real treat. Bring back Gaudium.

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Inmiddels alweer het zevende deel en nog niets aan kwaliteit ingeboet. Wel is het grote omlijstende avontuur onbegrijpelijk voor nieuwe lezers. Daarentegen kan iedereen van alle losse verhalen genieten.

Het concept van verhalen in verhalen blijft het geheel interessant houden. Een keer een wat zwakker verhaal is dan goed te dragen en stoort niet zo. Als lezer kun je de kwaliteit nog altijd toeschrijven aan het personage dat het gebeuren beschrijft. ;-)

Met de vele verschillende verhalen zijn er ook de verschillende tekenaars. Een wil ik daarvan specifiek noemen namelijk David Lloyd. Zijn stijl drukt de sfeer uit van het lezen van een oude krant. In plaats van gepolijste ingevulde vlakken maakt hij gebruik van een korrelige potlood- of krijttextuur. De vijftiger jaren look laat de nicotinegeur van het papier afslaan zonder dat er een sigaret in beeld is. Ik vind het prachtig. ( )