It’s superb how two people can work so well together to come up with a chilling, tantalizing comic book series. All it takes is a talented writer that has a knack to grab people’s attention by the balls at the very first page and a creative artist that can serve the hauntingly magnificent story on a silver yet sinister platter through his eerie artwork.
The story begins by taking the readers instantly at the edge of their seats as Joe Hill opens it with two suspicious students who suddenly show up at a summer house where the Locke family is on vacation. Gabriel Rodriguez captured and executed the trepidation so well as he illustrated the two students with an axe and a gun that they’re hiding behind them, and their pick-up truck with an incompletely concealed bloody corpse that is parked outside. Hill gives the story more suspense as the readers know about their plan whilst the wife in the story who answered the door remained completely oblivious on what is about to happen.
The first arc of Locke and Key, Welcome to Lovecraft, is about the Locke children and the mother, moving into the Keyhouse in Lovecraft, Massachusetts after the murder of the father. It focuses on how each of the Locke family members is dealing with the death and how recurring images of the event haunt them. The three Locke kids, Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode are very much different from one another and each of them has dissimilar coping mechanisms.
Tyler, the eldest of the three, is still remorseful over how he took his father for granted and we can frequently see how he just wallows quietly in his piteous pond. Kinsey, an awkward teenager who is still unsure of herself and how she fits into the world, struggles everyday to be unseen and unheard at school. Lastly, we have Bode, the youngest of them all and he happens to have the most interesting escapades in this arc. It is through Bode that Hill slowly introduces us the secrets of the Keyhouse and how the many doors of the house have different keys that can lead to various and peculiar places or happenstances. The mother of the Locke children, who has painfully survived the unfortunate occurrence, tries to handle her grief by slowly drowning herself moderately with wine.
Living with their uncle, the Locke family has yet to discover the magic of the Keyhouse. And through Bode’s curiosity and innocence, he was the one to uncover bit by bit of the secrets of the house and how it may link to a darker, stranger, supernatural realm or force. This arc also introduces the killer of the Locke father and how disturbed he really is. Hill shows the readers how this juvenile delinquent should not be taken lightly.
Locke and Key is a dark, bloodcurdling comic book series that can satisfy many of our generation and older ones as it is under the adult horror genre. Hill definitely wraps the readers around his little finger as he expertly controls their attention and gives them what they want, piece by piece. Hill’s pacing of the story is brilliant as he knows just how much and how little to give the readers in each scene and dialogue. Joe Hill can definitely outrun his father, Stephen King, on his works. Joseph Hillstrom King, or Joe Hill, deliberately used that pseudonym so as to escape from the inevitable comparison of his and his father’s works. He believes and hopes that his works would be acclaimed purely from the superiority of his writings and not because of his father’s fame.
Hill first wrote “20th Century Ghosts”, a collection of short stories which was published in 2005, received numerous awards for Best Fiction Collection, Best New Horror, etc. He also has two published novels “Heart Shaped Box” and “Horns”. His first novel Heart Shaped Box, which was published in 2007, won numerous awards for Best Newcomer Award. “Locke and Key” is his first comic book series which was published in 2008, was immediately sold out after its initial release.
Locke and Key has been an ongoing comic book series and it now has 5 arcs. To pick up where it has left off, “Head games” was published in 2009, “Crown of Shadows” and “Keys to the Kingdom” in 2010, and “Clockworks” at present. Locke and Key was supposed to have a series on Fox but was immediately cancelled even before it hits the tivo. Despite the ill-advised decision of Fox, you can view the trailer of the supposed TV adaptation series over the internet. Fortunately, the comic book series is still up and running. I can promise you that “Locke and Key” is very addictive. Ditch the heroin and cocaine and go for this series; it’s a healthy drug-- and a cheap one I might add, if you got it from torrents.
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