‘Bone Orchard: Tenement’ #2 delivers the last moments of normalcy before the plunge into horror

An issue that spurs the hunger for more, however veiled its story may be.

July 26, 2023

With the arrival of the second issue of Tenement, the Bone Orchard Mythos nears its tenth release. One wonders what sort of baseless conjecture can be made by the devout followers of the shared universe presented – if, indeed, there are any explicit connections between the stories to be made (beyond the oppressive atmosphere and repeated imagery). Certainly, the masked creatures from Ten Thousand Black Feathers resemble the one from the FCBD Prelude, and The Passageway’s well mirrors a portal-like hole in a basement wall in Feathers.

Primarily, as seen here, there are other worlds presented (or suggested) in each story, perhaps the same other world. As the tenement crosses over, by some unknown rite, into its inhospitable wasteland, we’re given a familiar motif: massive, crouching or throned statuary, their shapes gruesome and twisted. Is this the same fantastic place as presented elsewhere, blasted with the harsh and unnatural light of Dave Stewart’s overbearing reds and oranges? Are these forms related, looming dark gods of this alien realm?

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There isn’t a lot to go on – only the indecipherable name “Us’uuul” transcribed on a note to our boy Isaac. As in the last issue, it isn’t explicit horror that the book is focusing on, but the continuing real-world struggles of our protagonists: drug use, crushing debt and gambling addiction, the pre-teen estrangement of a boy from his mother. The emotional payoff of this sort of personal exploration is incredible, especially when we realize that it isn’t just our seven protagonists who have been shunted over to this horrible place, but their loved ones as well.

It smacks of a structure repeated in the works of Stephen King, from The Mist to The Regulators: a diverse group of unlikely collaborators is forced, by impossible happenstance, to survive together against uncanny odds. As with these stories, Tenement builds the emotional cores of its protagonists with the anticipation that they will influence actions moving forward. The motivations driven by those loved ones – or addiction, or stress and distrust – might make or break the survivors’ unity.

With the adventure now earnestly (if barely) begun, Tenement #2 skates on the surface of terror, but has not yet plunged the characters (or reader) beneath that surface. It is an issue presenting the last moments of normalcy before disaster, and it suggests further evidence for the conspiracy-board-minded readers eager to pick the Mythos apart. It remains impossibly well illustrated and compellingly told; these things are never in question with each new issue.

As ever, this installment spurs the reader’s hunger for more, however veiled and withholding the story might be.