This graphic novel features a house with a grudge, a treasure, and several loony characters.
This European-style adventure novel has many, many elements: from pirates and rogues to soldiers and monsters… you name it.
The story begins with a 15-year-old heroine, Henrietta Achilles, who has been tracked down to an orphanage in order to inherit a mysterious place in the town known as Malrenard.
Her uncle was a magician, and the huge and roomy house seems to know her, moving her from one multiple-dimensional maze—or floor—to another with ease. However, she is not the only one inhabiting the place: a hoard of characters is fighting its way to the top, seeking a hidden treasure from the deceased mage.
The creators reminded me of a Spanish author named Pau that I reviewed a while back.
Drawn in a very dynamic style, this adventure is a tribute to all the role-playing games the creators played as kids. Haiko Hörnig and Marius Pawlitza are two young authors based in Germany, and this is their debut in English. The style is pretty cartoony, and we can only hope that the following parts can make a bit more sense. I felt they were laying the foundation of the narrative here, as it were, and that many more mysteries will resolve themselves later on.
Haiko Hörnig spent his childhood in his parents’ comic book store, where he developed a love for sequential art at an early age. In middle school, he quickly became friends with Marius Pawlitza. The two of them first enjoyed role-playing games together and later started to make comics.
Since 2013, Haiko has worked as a screenwriter for animated shows and feature films. He is based in Frankfurt, Germany. He’s also active on Twitter (@DerGrafX) and Instagram (@ahousedividedcomic).
You can find Haiko Hörnig on Instagram (as @pengboom).
A House Divided: The Accursed Inheritance of Henrietta Achilles hit shelves on April 7, 2020.
Featured image by Marius Pawlitza, all images belong to Lerner Publishing Group
