The Bone Orchard Mythos: Tenement Review (Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino)

7. Weird stuff starts happening to 7 people in an apartment building. 7 is a number you will see often in this book because 7 is important (not really). One of the 7 dies, leaving behind a key - but to a door to where? One thing’s for sure: 7 will be involved! Or will it…? 7.

That’s right, it’s Boner Orchard time agin and it’s still a long way from a 7 star comic. It’s also way too long for what it is: a generic, rambling and unimaginative horror story featuring a cast of dull characters.

Ten issues really is pushing it. And it’s only this long because Lemire chooses to focus on the characters’ uninteresting lives, most of whose problems are money-related and irrelevant to the larger story.

If you’ve been reading the series, you’ll recognise some of the iconography from the previous two books, The Passageway and Ten Thousand Black Feathers. Besides these tenuous links though, you could easily pick up Tenement without having read the other two books and still follow what’s happening - that’s how pointless the additions in the series have been to date.

We find out about the overarching Mythos and who (almost all of) the 7 are, so Tenement is the only important book in the series so far as it actually has information in it. Unfortunately most of the revelations are derivative of the Old Testament so it feels underwhelming and uncreative.

The story itself is very meandering with characters running from one place to another against a surreal backdrop without ever accomplishing anything or even being all that entertaining. It all builds to quite a flat and weak ending that only adds to the bland and generic flavour of the book.

Andrea Sorrentino’s near-photorealistic art is consistently high quality throughout, helped along by Dave Stewart’s dependable colours, but Sorrentino reaches new heights in the penultimate issue. This is the big revelatory chapter full of Biblical references and Sorrentino’s art is nothing short of incredible in that one.

I’m a sucker for horror stories, even though most tend to be let-downs, which is the only real reason why I’m keeping up with this otherwise forgettable title. Tenement will appeal to horror fans but don’t expect quality writing to match the quality art.