Review — ‘Our Brilliant Ruin: Horror At Crane Mansion’ #1 Fills Me With Existential Dread

Welcome to the table,

Our Brilliant Ruin : Horror At Crane Mansion #1 hit my desk and immediately had it’s hooks in me. The cover has a woman with a bloody fan and a champaign flute, dressed in deco era aristocrat clothing. It’s all captured with a composition that looks like I would have had it hung on my wall in art school.

I normally don’t look at the names on the cover so I can go into an issue knowing nothing about who worked on it until I have finished up. This has served me well in most cases outside of Hellboy books and Battle Chasers but I caught a glimpse at a name that is on my emergency contact list. So, I’m letting you know out of the gate that my friend Cullen Bunn wrote this book. He’s talented as the day is long, but our friendship does not color my review on things he works on.

Our Brilliant Ruin was not even something I knew he was working on. I knew there was a TTRPG that spanned audio drama, the table, and video games out there. The vibe of the project is that what is left of society lives in a very aristocratic society. That society is quickly being taken over by the darkness of a dying world.

The darkness is known as “the Ruin.” It is this corrupting force that warps everything it touches, from living creatures to the very Earth itself. The Ruin also set loose strange monsters that feed upon anything they can get their teeth and claws into. It’s all very stylized and loaded with existential dread. It’s like a massacred party in a lavished home that is slowly being surrounded by unspeakable Lovecraftian horrors who want to break the mind and feed on the body.

The mood of the comic is made even more lavish and strange by the artistic stylings of Christopher Mitten and the colors of Piky Hamilton. The combination of the two creates something that lands between stained glass and sequentials, making it feel like you’ve been pulled into the gas lamp lit gala event.

The story takes us along the social interactions of Miss Elizabeth Ranseur and Miss Arielle Wren as they mingle and mix with other party attendees. The narrative voice does a delightful job of providing insight to the strange motivations and oblivious antics of a ruling class in a society that is not long for the world.

As someone who does not like garishly over-the-top events involving people pretending to be more than they are, the whole thing felt uncomfortable in the way it was intended to feel. It really nailed home the nightmarish nature of people who are “putting on airs.”

The story takes some societal twists and turns but lands in a very interesting direction with the introduction of a bearded artisan named Orwell Denton. An absolutely dazzling comic panel showing Orwell drawing a massive centipede like beast winding through the tress will stick with me for a long while. It was horrific and beautiful in both its composition and subject matter.

That is where this book really shines. It’s a layered mystery that is less of a slow burn and more of slow boil. It reminds me of the stories of frogs who are placed in a pot of water that is slowly warmed until they die from being cooked alive. Everyone in this story feels doomed. The gilts and the glamour and the trappings of society are like paper dolls and the sounds of a hurricane are on the horizon.

Where so many tales of terror take you to extremes with blood and gore, and there is for sure some of that in this story, what Our Brilliant Ruin : Horror At Crane Mansion really does well is create a sense of horror that is not so much “looming” as it is “lived in” and that is something truly thrilling to experience on the comic page.

Until next time, reading this title has me looking into all the other aspects of the IP so expect more from me on this soon!