House of Whispers #2 Review and **SPOILERS**

Me and My Dream Boat

Written By: Nalo Hopkinson 

Illustrated By: Dominike “DOMO” Stanton 

Colors By: John Rauch 

Letters By: Deron Bennett 

Cover By: Sean Andrew Murray 

Edited By: Molly Mahan 

Associate Editor: Amedeo Turturro 

Assistant Editor: Maggie Howell 

Executive Editor: Mark Doyle 

Cover Price: $3.99 

On Sale Date: October 10, 2018

**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**

Madame Ezrulie’s houseboat landed squat in the Dreaming, so what are we gonna do about it? Well, they’re gonna have to work something out. We’re gonna read my review of House of Whispers #2, which is below!

Explain It!

The House of Dahomey didn’t land gently when it cascaded into the Dreaming. Things got pretty rattled up, and Madame Ezrulie and Uncle Monday are assessing the damage. The place is shaken up, but mostly OK…worse is the predicament they’re in! Madame Ezrulie can’t be stuck in the Dreaming, she has followers to appease and party with and stuff. Some gators came through that fissure in the Dreaming and created a mini swamp, so Uncle Monday is happy for the time being. He strikes me as a very “roll with the punches” kind of guy.

Since Ezrulie’s house is on a boat, there’s nothing to it but to get the thing in the water and sail it right up outta the Dreaming…right? While they tackle that concept with Cain and Abel (and Goldie the Gargoyle), Ezrulie’s followers in the real world wake up on the floor of some apartment realizing that something is wrong. They were having a good time in the realm, and then it was like someone hung up the line—and now they’re getting only dial tones. Some of them have to go to work, but those that can stay, including the Houseboi, stay behind to attempt contact again. Instead of Ezrulie, they attract her three husbands: a hammer-wielding native, a guy in a Napoleon costume, and a two-headed snake. She certainly does have a type, doesn’t she? They don’t actually manifest, but instead possess some host bodies, who direct them to find their wife.

She’s trying her best, sailing the Good Ship Spookypop through one of the cracks in the Dreaming, falling into some ghost-filled hole, wending around the most difficult part of the waterslide before returning to the same spot in the Dreaming, landing with a much more damaging crash. In the real world, Latoya has come out of her coma, but believes she’s dead, and when she kisses Maggie, her girlfriend dies! And like, really dies, not “walking around saying she’s dead” dies. Both of their ghosts have shown up in the Dreaming, hovering creepily above one of the big chasms that were recently created and they’re waiting…for something!

The path that Ezrulie’s houseboat takes is a good allegory for this issue: a lot of movement and hollering, but not a lot happens. We do learn quite a bit: about the relationship between Ezrulie’s followers and herself; about who they are in the corporeal world; about more of the strange happenings within the Dreaming. Ultimately, however, the only progress in the story is that Latoya and Maggie are ghosts—if that’s indeed what they are. The houseboat landed in the same place that it began, and that’s what happened in this issue as well.

Bits and Pieces:

The Boat of Whispers sets sail, but comes back to its beginnings with a resounding crash. Is that an allegory or actual spoilers? You'd have to read the issue to know for sure.

6.5/10