A real-life haunted house is joining the pantheon of horror houses in comics alongside the House of Mystery and the House of Secrets: The Winchester Mystery House.
Scheduled to debut October 27, the three-issue Winchester Mystery House comic book series will delve into the real-life facts, along with the speculation about the famous haunted house from the family that created the Winchester rifle company.
The Winchester Mystery House began as a simple, unfinished farmhouse built in the late 1800s in rural California. But in 1888 it was acquired by Sarah Winchester, the widow of the founder of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company - one of the most successful gun manufacturers of that age. Winchester came to California following the death of both her husband and their infant child - spurred by a medium who said she must continuously expand her home not just for herself, but to harbor the the ghosts of those killed by her family's rifles.
This true story became a 20th-century yarn passed around by people, and went on to inspire non-fiction books as well as fictionalized versions in books, comics, television, and film.
"The Winchester Mystery House is a labyrinth full of secrets, and it is my great pleasure to bring those secrets to the reader and unravel them," says series writer Joshua Werner. "Sarah Winchester was a brilliant person, incredibly ahead of her time, and deliciously complex. And the reader is in for some shocks and surprises."
Working with artist Dustin Irvin, Werner will delve into the behind-the-scenes creation and development of the Winchester Mystery House, and the modern mythology that now surrounds it.
Werner and Irvin are working in full partnership with the current owners of the Winchester Mystery House, along with its general manager Walter Magnuson.
Dustin Irvin has drawn the primary cover to Winchester Mystery House #1, with a variant cover by Ryan Quackenbush. Check them out here:
Winchester Mystery House #1 (of 3) goes on sale on October 27.
If you like horror, make sure you've read all of our recommended best horror comics.
