Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft

First, a confession: I never quite understood the appeal of comic books and graphic novels. Over the years I've hung out with many people (mostly men) who collected and devoured them. And while I'm at it, I'll sheepishly admit to being a bit of a snob about graphic novels. Those weren't "real" books. And here's where I apologize to everyone who's read a graphic novel and loved it. I'm sorry I was such a snob.

Because I loved Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft, and I simply cannot wait until the next one arrives. Within the first few pages, I wanted to cry for this family whose lives were shattered by murder. Farther in, I wanted to warn a little boy to stay away from the voice he heard in the well. My heart may have actually skipped a show more beat as I read. The art, the story. I have been missing out.

Thanks to my friend Kevin, who gave this to me as a birthday gift, and who has promised to send the others when he can. He has been so generous and has turned me on to some incredible books. Where would we be without our friends who grab us by the arm and say, "ZOMG!!!! You have to read this!" show less

When I put down [b:Horns|6587879|Horns|Joe Hill|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1275832291s/6587879.jpg|6781405], I had a feeling I was going to be a Joe Hill fan. However, when I finished [b:Locke and Key, Vol. 1: Welcome to Lovecraft|3217221|Locke and Key, Vol. 1 Welcome to Lovecraft|Joe Hill|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327921403s/3217221.jpg|3251160], I traded that "feeling" in for a Joe Hill fanboy membership.

Good Gravy, this book was spectacular.

Granted, I had my reservations before cracking the cover (which I think I literally did when I dropped it on the floor of the library). Whenever I start a second book by an author I reallllly liked the first time around, my head fills with all these questions. "Is it going to be as show more good as what I just read?" "Am I going to be letdown?" "Is there anyone that doesn't know he isn't Stephen King's son?" Thankfully, 2 out of those 3 questions were answered.

This guy literally came out of no where for me. I knew who he was and had heard about the hype surrounding his work but for whatever reason, avoided him until recently. If anything, this graphic novel gives me another reason to branch out to comics that do not only feature dudes running around in tights.

While I haven't exactly forgotten my experience with Y: The Last Man from last year, Hill has helped confirm the feeling I've had about non-superhero style storytelling. I've really been missing out on a genre of the format.

Now begins the painful wait until Vol. 2 is in my hands. show less

After a brutal attack leaves their father murdered, the wounded and traumatised Locke family move to an old family house in Lovecraft, New England. Situated on an island, it's a weird old house where their father and his brother played elaborate game with keys and doors. Except it turns out they weren't actually games, as Bode discovers when a key and a door turn him into a ghost. Bode also discovers someone living in the wellhouse, but can't persuade his brother or sister ton listen to him. Then their father's surviving killer escapes and heads out on a long journey to Lovecraft, and he's looking for keys.

Rodriguez's art is stunning, but Hill's scripting is precise, well-observed and merciless. A brilliantly tense and suspenseful show more horror comic. show less

Summary: When their father, a high school guidance counselor, is murdered by a deranged student, Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode Locke relocate from California to Lovecraft, Massachussetts. They and their mother are taken in by their uncle Duncan, who still lives in their father's boyhood home, named Keyhouse. The children are just trying to survive and move past their horrible trauma and lead normal lives again, but Keyhouse is not quite normal. It is a house in which certain keys open certain doors, with certain strange powers. Bode, the youngest, discovers The Ghost Door, which will (reversibly) kill anyone who tries to walk through it. But there's also something strange living in the well house, something that wants Bode to help free it... show more and if that's not enough, Mr. Locke's murderer is still out there, fixating on the Locke family.

Review: I stopped being a horror fan sometime around the time I graduated from junior high, so I can understand why I've never read any of Joe Hill's (the son of Stephen King) work. But while I don't tend to seek out horror as a genre, there is a way to write horror that I respond to, and Locke & Key absolutely hit the mark. It's got a bunch of different horror tropes - deranged murderers, creepy old houses, malevolent ghosts, etc. - but they're combined in a new and interesting way. In particular, the idea of the magic keys that can turn any door into a special door gives the whole thing enough of a fantasy flavor to take it out of the realm of pure horror. It doesn't hurt that the characters are incredibly sympathetic as well; watching the kids deal with the violent death of their father (and the repercussions of their own actions during and after the murder) is horrific enough without any of the supernatural stuff, but it's presented in a way that's empathetic and heartwrenching.

Rodriguez's art was also not what I was expecting, although it suited the tone of the story perfectly. In fact, it actually heightened the drama and the pathos of the story, rather than just complementing it. The color palette adds to the creepiness factor without overselling it, and the sheer fact that Tyler can't see his own reflection without envisaging himself holding a bloody brick just about broke me. The book is fairly gory (unsurprisingly), but I appreciated that the gore didn't really feel gratuitous, or like it was just there for the gross-out factor (I'm looking at you, Chew).

Overall, this book was an exciting surprise, and full of some really great potential. I can't wait to see where it goes next. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: I don't know that I've been this excited by the potential promised in the first volume of a comic since The Unwritten - and I think it's likely to appeal to the same sort of people. show less

Oh boy!
While I generally shy away from comics, or graphic art, this book gives even prose a run for its money. No words could have captured the brutality, the horror, the gore that Rodriguez's art and Joe Hill's dialogue do. When I saw the first few minutes of the first episode of Locke&Key on Netflix, I knew this would be a worth reading. So I stopped watching the TV adaptation and read the first volume on my Kindle. And though I finished reading Volume 1 within an hour, I knew I'd made a terrible mistake! This book is not meant to be read on a Kindle. It needs to be held, to be breathed in, to be put on a pedestal from where it's never coming off. And so, to rectify my blunder, I waited a whole year (for logistics reasons and not show more because I'm a masochist) to buy the entire series.

This volume is awesome, awesome, awesome. The way the teenage angst of Tyler or the innocence of Bode have been captured through just the first few panels is difficult to achieve. Nina's drinking, the mysterious and evil Echo, and Sam Lesser's inevitable path to becoming a psychopath have all been portrayed brilliantly. The book, of course, ends at a cliffhanger, so please do not read it unless you have the next one queued up. That's how riveting Locke& Key is! show less

Joe Hill is a horror writer and this, the first collected volume of a lengthy comic series, is right in his wheelhouse. Full of blood, violence, and otherworldly scares, the book also manages to be a thoughtful meditation on trauma and the way it changes different people in different ways. I'm excited to read the next volume... and verrrrry nervous about what's going to happen to three siblings and their mom, in a place called Lovecraft.

O.K. Joe Hill, I'm hooked, I'll keep reading these. Old east coast house, mysterious keys, beautiful keys, that open mysterious doors that unlock mysterious powers. Rodriguez's art work is a little shiny and cartoony but I can handle that. His line drawings are great. This story is gory. Horror story gory. I need to put these up on the tall shelf before my son gets old enough to understand what a brutally murdered person looks like, not to mention forced sodomy. Yeah, these are definitely adult themed books. Regardless, they are intriguing. I look forward to reading the next one.