Posted in: Comics | Tagged: disney, disney kingdoms, disney world, disneyland, Jean-Francois Beaulieu, Jorge Coelho, Marvel Joshua Williamson, The Haunted Mansion

999 Happy Haunts: Marvel's The Haunted Mansion

Recently Marvel put out it's Haunted Mansion graphic novel, which collects issues 1-5 of the mini series. The story is wonderfully straight forward; A teenage boy named Danny is called to the Haunted Mansion by Madame Leota to come free his recently deceased grandfather's ghost. Danny must overcome his fear–and some nasty ghosts– in the process.

Writer Joshua Williamson is great as giving the long time Disney attraction a unique personality. Each ghost is represented well, and Danny is a likable protagonist who's fear isn't annoying, causing the reader to empathize with him. Artist Jorge Coelho and colorist Jean-Francois Beaulieu steal the show. They have captured the true uniqueness of the Disneyland attraction, creating hauntingly beautiful images and giving the well known ghosts movement beyond what we see on the ride.

All that aside, I love how they paid attention to the uniqueness of the Haunted Mansion.

This story is based on the attraction in California. For those of you unfamiliar, the Disneyland Haunted Mansion opened in 1969 after many years of Walt and his imagineers deciding on what the attraction should really be. At first it was to be a walk through, but that evolved into a buggy ride (or doom buggy). The house is inside New Orleans Square in Magic Kingdom and the exterior of the house is themed after an antebellum house.

The interior of the mansion is in beautiful decay, and the creative team paid close attention to everything, even down to the corpse trying to escape his coffin. Even the haunted paintings are there to terrorize Danny. The villains in this story–A Pirate Captain and Constance Hatchaway–are fantastic. The Captain is a murderous pirate hell bent on finding the treasure inside of the mansion. To anyone who has a limited knowledge of the Haunted Mansion in Disney lore, he's a pretty stock villain. But if you're Disney obsessed like me this isn't the first time you've read about a Captain haunted the halls of the mansion. In an unused story idea for the Disneyland location, Captain Gideon Gorelieu–or Captain Gore–was a wealthy sea captain who was also fond of murder.

The Bride is a staple in every Haunted Mansion ride across the globe. Her story is straightforward–she murders each of her husbands the night of their wedding, presumably but chopping their heads off. The Bride demonstrates her power through the book, and it turns out she's really more of an anti-hero than anything. The Hat Box Ghost also makes an appearance. Legend has it the Hat Box Ghost originally appeared in the Disneyland ride when it opened, but mere days later was taken out. For Disneyland's Diamond Celebration the Hat Box Ghost did come back to the ride, where I was fortunate enough to see him. But much like in the comic, you only see him for a few moments. There's also a clever nod to when the mansion gets a Nightmare Before Christmas makeover for the holidays, and who can forget the hitchhiking ghosts?

My favorite character in the ride and the book is Madame Leota.

Leota is generally thought of as a good spirit. When you see her in the seance room in every mansion, she is calling on the spirits to show themselves by playing various instruments. When we first see Leota in the book she's reciting the same spell as the ride, which is a fantastic detail. In the comic she is kind of Danny, although she too is being manipulated by the Captain.

Overall this graphic novel is wonderful. While I would love to see more Haunted Mansion books focusing on the various mansions, it would probably be a tiring and boring story after a while since most of the mansions mimic each other. If you're a fan of humorous horror, Disney, or just want something good to read, this is your book.

Oh, and if you're wondering why I didn't mention the 2003 movie, it's because the movie is awful.

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