stand-alone horror story set in the early 20th century written by Len Wein and drawn by Bernie Wrightson. The woman appearing on the cover of this issue was modeled after future comics writer Louise Simonson. The Patchwork Man, a character from the Swamp Thing ongoing series, was to have become an ongoing feature in the series, but only appeared in one issue. The revival of The House of Secrets, sporting many covers by Neal Adams, Bernie Wrightson and Michael Kaluta, ran through issue #154 (Nov. 1978), with six months passing between issues #140 (February–March 1976) and 141 (August–September 1976). Cancelled as a result of the DC Implosion, it was then "merged" into The Unexpected with issue #189 through issue #199. The series was 68 ad-free pages, allowing all three portions to be full-length issues. The House of Secrets also came to be the name of the actual edifice in which Abel lives. Writer Mike Friedrich and artist Jerry Grandenetti introduced the house and explained its origins. The building itself was constructed for a Senator Sanderson using only materials from Kentucky, and went under the enchantment that only pure-blood Kentuckians would be able to live there. Later, Sanderson's wife went insane in the upper floors, leading the Senator to sell the house. The next four owners, none of them pure Kentuckians, found themselves driven away for various reasons. The following owner attempted to move the home from its original location, but the house tore itself free from its trailer, ran its owner over a cliff to his death and settled less than 200 yards from the Kentucky state line in a graveyard. Whether by fate or some mystical alignment, the companion House of Mystery stands at the other end of the graveyard. Shortly after this, Abel was driven to the house and entrusted as its caretaker by a man who revealed himself to be an aspect of the House's existence, but making vague references to an employer. Abel was showing living in the House of Mystery in the quarterly DC Special #4, published one month earlier (July–Sept. 1969). In the 1980s and 1990s, The Sandman series revealed that the House of Secrets edifice exists both in the real world of the DC Universe and in the Dreaming, as a repository for secrets of all kinds. The character of Abel would later become a recurring character in The Sandman (vol. 2) and