The Cancel Haus: can you cut it?
"Hroge is doing something refreshing, daring and ambitious here, very much on his own terms, and says he considers this "...a spiritual piece of art... albeit with a sense of mischief." Multiple narratives, casts and locations shift from page to page, and there's a hint of Moebius here....I for one am pleasantly baffled, completely intrigued and eager to see where Hroge unfolds and interweaves his casts next."
Paul Gravett
The Product
The Cancel Haus graphic novel series is a darkly comic, British thriller, unlike any other.
It is the sole creation of just one man: Hroge. He says 'I have invested fifteen years of work on this 15 issue, full colour graphic novel, doing every part of the process from story, illustrations, colouring, lettering to design, myself. Issues one to five have had some great reviews and I am excited to launch issue six to raise funds so that I can share it with a wider audience. I am very grateful for any support you can give by backing this project and sharing it to spread the word about The Cancel Haus. It will appeal to comic lovers, open minded free thinkers and those who may enjoy its unique literary style. I am committed to creating a premium product, so issues one to five have been released as high-quality 36 page, full colour, litho print comic books. I now need your help to fund a print run for issue six at this same high quality.'
The comic series is not for the sensitive or the easily offended. It is aimed at a mature, adult readership.
Take a quick look at issue six here:
The Story
This series tells the tale of Adam Warmbath, who in his younger days was in the employ of the British Secret Services, but as maturity beckoned, order following lost its strangled appeal. On leaving the agency, he moved into the world of buying and selling art, where he amassed much currency and crossed swords with many people.
During his life he nursed a growing malice towards a host of wrongdoers and is now meticulously planning retribution against a certain section of this 'Overdog': with the ambitious aim of removing a digit from the hidden hand.
But in life's rich carpet, there are always snags to overcome and Adam and his team are busy tying up loose threads, both personal and professional.
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Previously in Issue One:
Roman in Patagonia, awaits the dog. In Annecy, the plod are alerted to a Brit in the shit. The ramblers stumble across a dream come true in the Highlands of Scotland. A CEO is menaced on the toilet.
Previously in Issue two:
The bastards come together to fall apart. There's trouble at the ranch. A polaroid treasure hunt. An unusual passenger coffin. Shenanigans in the recovery room.
Previously in Issue three:
Christian cleans house. A visit to the Crafty Butcher. The naked ramblers take an unexpected turn. Revelations at the vagina opening night!
Previously in Issue four:
The widow's book launch. It's hotting up in Portofino. Don't leave the gimp out in the rain.
Previously in Issue five:
The Baldies are on the job. A pistol is passed. The Baron isn't budging.
Coming up in Issue six:
The monkey enjoys a smoke. A whole burnt offering is in the offing. A beetle takes the piss.
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Warning:
Reading this series might be a potentially life-changing experience for those who have a naturally questioning mind.
Find out more at thecancelhaus.co.uk
About the Author
Hroge against the machine
I draw pictures, not blood. I get on with others by and large, and am very sociable, but when it comes to creativity, I work best alone, which is why it's taken me so many years to complete this graphic novel series.
I am a humorous cartoonist by nature, but this story required a more realistic approach. Taking inspiration from 'Strangehaven', I decided to have fun photographing family, friends and acquaintances for all the scenes of the book, and using these as reference for my drawings.
I don't like the idea of 'understanding' a comic book story. I agree with Fellini's comment: 'I don't believe that rational understanding is an essential element in the reception of any work of art. Either a piece of art has something to say to you or it hasn't. If you are moved by it, you don't need it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it.'
The idea of any torture is a repellent concept to me. However, a conversation in a pub one evening led me to ponder how to torture someone in a humorous way. This became the seed for a story... and it grew and grew. I was only going to make a 48 page comic book, but the story was having none of it... it kept at me, whispering, nudging, plotting a bigger endeavour. At 360 pages, it had finished with me and allowed me to stop.
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What We Need & What You Get
I need to fund the next print run so that issue six of this 15 part series can be released.
You can choose to receive a digital version and/or a high quality, 36 page, full colour, litho print of issue six, which includes bonus material not available in the digital version. You can also opt to have it signed and stamped with my unique wax seal.
Reviews
Issues one to five have had some excellent reviews and an audience is gradually building. However, this is where I would love your help. Please share this campaign on your socials, so that more people hear about it.
PAUL GRAVETT
British Underground Comix
Hroge is doing something refreshing, daring and ambitious here, very much on his own terms, and says he considers this ...a spiritual piece of art... albeit with a sense of mischief.
Hroge’s captions are playful with language and allusions, running away with his wry, witty sentences, flowing with ellipses from caption to caption (not sure I’ve seen this done quite like this), playing with the gaps between what is written and what is drawn.
I for one am pleasantly baffled, completely intrigued and eager to see where Hroge unfolds and interweaves his cast next.
I admire fierce independence. Recommend checking this out - something special going on here.
GARY SPENCER MILLIDGE
Creator of the Strangehaven comic book series
Really beautiful stunning work. Hard to tell where the story’s going at this point, but I’m along for the ride anyway. I love the delicate line work, slow page, muted colours, hand lettering and loose panel borders… all of it. Very European in flavour. I admire your dedication in completing such a mammoth undertaking in secrecy. I feel like I’ve been granted a sneak peek at a major work.
FRAZER BROWN
Award winning editor of ‘Tales from the Quarantine’ Red Cabin Comics
It looks bloody gorgeous, the palette, the style etc. I can see it sitting on a shelf as one large impressive tome. A seminal moment in graphic novels.
Having devoured the first four issues, I can confidently declare CANCEL HAUS @cancelhaus to be one of my all-time favourites. This is not a work for the squeamish, as HROGE masterfully blends elements of noir, crime, and murder into a captivating concoction. The series evokes the unsettling atmosphere of Lynchian narratives, while simultaneously channeling the visceral energy of Tarantino’s films. An undercurrent of morose mystery further heightens the intrigue.
CANCEL HAUS is a tour de force, demonstrably the product of a creator at the zenith of their craft. It is evidently a passion project, and HROGE’s dedication permeates every page. The illustrative style is a visual feast, reminiscent of the finest European bandes dessinées and romans graphiques masters. Don’t miss out on this exceptional work.
DON MOORE
bunchofdorks.com
When you finish with the 15 issues I think this is going to be something to behold. There’s a rhythm to the story telling that is unique and I haven’t seen anything like that in a long time. It’s a beautiful book. I really enjoyed the whole package.
MARK TONDERAI-HODGES
Screen writer and film director
It has character for one. In this… bland word we live in, where stories are ‘product’ your story takes you by the hand and starts to lead you into a maze. I have no idea where that maze is going to take me, Christ I have no idea that it is a maze but man is it exciting. The person behind your story has a point of view. A voice and a swagger.
Our grandfathers were exposed to only 2500 hours of fiction by the time they hit 25. An average 25 year old is now exposed to over million hours of it. It’s so hard to get ahead of audience story expectation. Serial killer with a heart of gold? Seen it. Serial killer as superhero? Seen it. But your story obliterates that. Obliterates story expectation. I truly had no idea where we were going but I didn’t care. It is… and I use this word very, very… carefully - operatic genius. I genuinely mean it.
For me a great story does one thing simply. Makes me want to know what happens next. I have read it twice and the 2nd read is better than the the first because you see more. The story reminds me of early Morrison. But better. The artwork feels like its been scratched with a fountain pen from your heart. Such expressive lines... This is excellent.
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PAUL ASHLEY BROWN
Creator of Browner-Knowle Zine
It's been a long time since I've felt the urge to review anything comic-book wise There's very little these days in Comic Book land that makes me feel even the vaguest hint of genuine drooling excitement, whether it's sat on the shelves of your local comic book store or the rear corner of your trendy Bookshop's Graphic Novel selection. Oh sure, I'll occasionally pick up some overhyped title or latest lauded GN I'm meant to care about, to see what the fuss is, and yet a split second later put it back on the shelf - I couldn't tell you if it's written well because usually the artwork is so appallingly awful and visually uninspiring I can't get past the first page.
Every now and then though, even a jaded old curmudgeon like me can be suddenly lulled out of their all-too-snug cynicism by something that suddenly drops into view. So it was a week before Christmas, aptly enough, when a parcel arrived that made this tired old Ebeneezer Scrunge suddenly be reminded that there may well be hope and redemption, even when all seems lost. That was when I opened the package containing the first two issues of The Cancel Haus by Hroge.
What? What's a Cancel Haus? And what's a Hroge? I hear you ask. (And if you aren't then you really should!!)
It's a very good couple of questions to which I still don't know the whole answer. What I do know is that Hroge is the writer/artist of The Cancel Haus, which is a planned 15 issue comic book series that he's been working on in splendid isolation for the last 12 years (!!!), separate from the somewhat hysterical and overhyped Emperor's New Clothes of the current comic book landscape, which he's got off the ground via a Kickstarter, like a lot of people whose work otherwise might never see the light of day. I've always had somewhat conflicting views on the value of Kickstarters, so it's rare for me to go and back one, but when I saw the artwork teases posted on the site, I felt it was my artistic duty to show support for what appeared to be a genuinely promising-looking project. I'm happy to report that on the receipt of the physical first two issues, I'm really glad I did.
Firstly, it's a rather beautifully printed book on some quality paper stock that has the added bonus of also smelling really nice. (yes I am the kind of person that sniffs paper stocks in art shops and strokes the textures of drawing papers and art boards if you must know!!!) As well as the 24 pages of full colour artwork per issue, there are additional pages featuring quotations, lists of films and music playlists compiled by Hroge and mysterious design collaborator Esther, that act as almost supplementary indicators of influences and mood, and pull the whole thing into a very simple yet sophisticated overall design package, which suggest some serious proper thought has gone into creating a whole world for the reader to enter. It's the small details like this that impress me; in its modest way it's similar thinking to how each issue of the original Watchmen was a conceptual piece in its own right while being part of a bigger whole. Or the way Vaughn Oliver might design an album for 4AD say. Congrats to whoever Esther is, but she deserves kudos for her collaboration here.
Anyway, what about the actual comic-strip content?
The first two issues introduce a lot of characters and locations. There's a man in a stetson sat waiting for a motorbike courier to arrive in an exotic location who may or may not be our reliable narrator or veteran covert spook operative. There are a group of French detectives/police/covert undercover operatives in the Palais de Justice, a bunch of twatty twenty-somethings hiking in the middle of Scotland that come across a remote pub called The Broken Cormorant, some young women beach combing and a couple of dodgy geezers robbing some reasonably well-off yuppie thirty-something. Then there are some dodgy blokes in a curry house plotting something and talking bollocks that may be in for a surprise when their taxi turns up and a young woman pouring through a bookshop for hidden messages. And who is taking dubious snaps of a young woman on the hospital bed at the end of issue 2? Don't ask me, but I'm definitely intrigued already.
While I'm getting my head around just who everyone is and who fits where with what, I love the writing in this, alluding to the current climate of hysterical insanity and underhand conspiracy spook hauntology we find ourselves in, while referencing historical narrative leylines if you like, but having its own poetic tone and vocabulary that seemingly stream of consciousness crosscuts and cuts-up the parallel visual narrative. As with all genuinely great work, what you have is a fully realised vision of a world which, as a viewer and reader you want to fully inhabit, are pulled into and want to know. Both the writing and art are creating a tension, threat and mystery, causing us to wonder at where these seemingly disparate characters are headed, and how they are linked if at all, and by what. On occasion it felt to me like it had an echo of the opening of the brilliant Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective - you're aware of a sense of uncertainty and unease, an undercurrent of darkness you feel drawn into.
These moods and tensions are ably aided and abetted by the art in the book, a significant part of that due to the thoughtful and considered colour palette that complement these narrative tonal shifts. As to the actual comic-strip technicalities on display here, let me firstly state this. I'm someone who rarely has time for a lot of the reductive, poorly observed and badly-drawn visually empty nonsense that passes for comic strip artwork these days. There are still a few out there whose work suggests all is not lost. I can assure you Hroge's drawing here can be more than added to those quality few. It was a pleasure to find a whole comic resplendent with beautifully rendered, observed and considered drawing, perfectly realised and imagined consistently throughout, and having an understanding of how to move a story graphically along in comic-strip narrative language and form, utilising well paced and, pleasingly constructed layouts and neatly visualised panel compositions.Initially Hroge's work reminded me of classic British artists like Arthur Ranson and John Ridgeway, beautiful drawers and immaculate renderers, yet he's definitely his own man, who's certainly made his own mark with the content here. It's rare for me these days to find a comic I'm drawn to by the sheer quality of the drawing alone, but this one's got it.
The Cancel Haus is both an aspiring and auspicious debut which, in an intelligent, reasoned and nuanced cultural and critical landscape would be being rightfully lauded as a major new work by a major new artist. Personally, I'm not entirely sure that's where we are right now, but I really hope people out there recognise just what's being done here. It's an incredibly striking and commendable achievement thus far. I look forward to what comes next.
Other Ways You Can Help
If you can't contribute, please go to thecancelhaus.co.uk, where you can sign up to read the whole of issue one for free. If you like my work please tell your friends and help me to get the word out about this funding campaign.
Risks and challenges
There are no risks involved to backers. The whole project is completely finished and ready to go. As soon as the funding goal is reached, the print run will begin and backers will have the comic hot off the presses. I'll be using a printer I've worked with to produce the previous issues, so I know they can deliver to a high standard and on time. I would expect to have all the books ready for shipping within a month of the campaign finishing and will begin sending them out right away. I then hope to bring out one new issue every two or three months.
