Product Description

Locke & Key tells of Keyhouse, an unlikely New England mansion, with fantastic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them.... and home to a hate-filled and relentless creature that will not rest until it forces open the most terrible door of them all...! Acclaimed suspense novelist and New York Times best-selling author Joe Hill (Heart-Shaped Box) creates an all-new story of dark fantasy and wonder, with astounding artwork from Gabriel Rodriguez.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #91327 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 152 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Novelist Hill, author of Heart-Shaped Box, crafts a gripping account of the shattered Locke family's attempt to rebuild after the father/husband is murdered by a deranged high school student and the family subsequently moving in with the deceased father's brother at the family homestead in Maine. But as anyone who has read horror fiction in the past 70-odd years will tell you, it's a bad idea to try to leave behind the gruesome goings-on in your life by moving to an island named Lovecraft. What begins as a study in coping with grief soon veers into creepy territory as the youngest Locke discovers a doorway with decidedly spectral qualities, along with a well that houses someone or something that desperately wants out and will use any means available to gain freedom, including summoning the teenage murderer who set events in motion in the first place. To say more would give away many of the surprises the creative team provides, but this first of hopefully several volumes delivers on all counts, boasting a solid story bolstered by exceptional work from Chilean artist Rodriguez (Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show) that resembles a fusion of Rick Geary and Cully Hamner with just a dash of Frank Quitely. (Oct.)
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Customer Reviews

Don't Go Through That Door!
I'm harder to scare these days than when I was a kid and horror movies were still black and white and filled with trademark Hollywood monsters. Currently, I've been through a plethora of Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, and ghost movies and their spawn. It takes a lot to scare me these days.

Then Hollywood introduced me to FRIDAY THE 13TH, HALLOWEEN, and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. George C. Scott's THE CHANGELING totally creeped me out, and Steven Spielberg's POLTERGEIST taught me to fear my television. Then I watched adaptations of Thomas Harris's novels, RED DRAGON and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and learned to fear serial killers that were really among us.

However, I have to admit that somewhere in there I became jaded. I started watching horror movies for special effects and the snappy one-liners that became so popular. I ended up laughing through most of them.

Like I said, I'm hard to scare. Of course, I can still scare myself pretty good. Let me curl up at night with a Stephen King book or one of Joseph Delaney's THE LAST APPRENTICE YA novels, and I can give myself a case of the willies. These books, thankfully, still deliver the sheer, enervating atmosphere necessary to amp up my adrenaline gland.

But I found a new fear-inducer in Joe Hill. I discovered him in HEART-SHAPED BOX and got totally weirded out listening to that novel on audiobook. Then I got my hands on the first issue of his comic book series, LOCKE & KEY.

Imagine a family that falls victim to what appears to be a deranged teenager looking for some payback. That's pretty horrific by today's standards because the news is full of lethal teens - and others. This could happen, so I wasn't immediately getting the spook vibe.

The story is harsh and emotional. I felt Ty, Kinsey, and Bodie's pain over losing their father to violence. The way that Joe cut the action between the past and present really upped the suspense and impending feeling of doom. Gabriel Rodriguez's art is loose and captivating, and he plays with angles that pulled me right into the frames and turned them into movies. I was THERE, inside the story on several occasions. And I wasn't comfortable being there. Especially in the scenes when Bodie was talking to the thing in the wellhouse!

As it turns out, though, the teen that planned the murder of Papa Locke wasn't entirely there out of vengeance. He had made a pact with the thing in the wellhouse, and that just spins the whole story on its ear.

After their father's murder, the kids end up at the Locke House, a place so riddled with mysteries that Joe says he's got 70 issues plotted out for those bewitched doors, nooks, and crannies already. Personally, I can't wait. I love the puzzles and the mysteries, as well as the fact that THINGS are lurking inside the house and waiting to spring out on unwary victims.

Joe and Gabriel have created a whole WORLD of spine-chilling entertainment to come. It's no surprise that Dimension Films has already snapped up the film rights to the property, or that IDW publishing had to reprint the issues several times. I expect they'll have to reprint the new hardcover graphic novel as well, but I didn't take any chances - I've got my copy already.

In the various issues, Joe shifts the point of view around from Ty to Bodie to Kinsey, and all of them achieve a distinct voice that bring a different flavor to the emerging story. When I read the graphic novel all at once, the voices didn't quite stand out as much as waiting a month between, but that's only because I was trying to get to the end of the story faster and faster. I'd read the first three issues, then couldn't get my hands on the last three, so I was desperate to know what happened next.

The suspense ratchets up like a whipsaw rollercoaster cresting the top of the final plunge leading to a white-knuckled grip (thank God the book is a hardcover or it wouldn't have survived the read!).

I couldn't stop reading, and now I can't wait for the next volume in the Locke family's adventures. The old house as a lot of life (and UNLIFE) still waiting to be discovered and feared.

Horror fans will love this book because it delivers every delicious thrill and chill a reader could want. And Gabriel's art is absolutely eye-popping, alternately beautiful and then gruesome. LOCKE & Key is a definite, pulses-pounding winner.

As good as any comic I've read
I actually started with the first two issues gave up, and then read it straight through when I received the "Welcome to Lovecraft" hardcover. It was much more satisfying when reading the story arc straight through. And it's good, real good. This was a very enjoyable comic arc, and almost stands up there with Gaiman's and other comic greats work.

It tells of a family harassed by a teenage killer who went to the same school as the family, and where the dad was guidance counselor. And things go bad immediately, as the first issue details the death of the family's father by this killer. So the family heads east to live with their Uncle in Lovecraft, Massachusetts. The House is called "The Keyhouse" and it's large and with many doors that don't always just lead into the next room. There are supernatural aspects to this house and they are not the only one's inhabiting the house. This really leaves open unlimited possibilities for future story arcs, because in this first issue we only learn about two keys, and heck there could be a hundred others, who knows?

Anyway, this is a violent, yet intelligent take on the graphic form, and Joe Hill weaves a very good story, with some twists at the end, and leaves you grasping for more. If you want to categorize this I would say it's a mix of horror and mystery. As it's violent, but what is happening isn't told so easily and you have to figure it out as you go along, and with any good mystery there is always a twist at the end, and this one has a doozy. The artwork is very colorful, characters and sketches are simplistic yet easy to read and view, and they compliment the story very well. The artwork and story are very good in this excellent first story arc by Hill and Rodriguez.

Comics don't get much better.
Overview: Locke and Key: Welcome to Lovecraft is the first volume in the tale of the Locke family and the terrible events that drive them to seek solace in their family home, the Lovecraft residence.

Points of Interest: You might be saying to yourself, wait, isn't this a comic book? That's kid's stuff! Well, you wouldn't be further from the truth. If you are one of those readers who chooses not to read comic books--or graphic novels as the more high minded readers prefer to call them--then you are missing out on some of the hottest talent in storytelling.

Look at the treasure trove of quality stories Hollywood has been plundering lately (although they may not always do the characters and stories justice, but hey, that is a discussion for another day). Every other blockbuster to hit the screen in the past few years has had some or other spandex clad superhero performing feats of daring do. However, super heroes and spandex are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what comic books have to offer. There are titles out there that are sizzling with talent. The medium allows for a greater freedom in the storytelling art than prose books are capable of. Some of the most complex, challenging and well crafted stories that I have ever read come in the form of little text bubbles floating in colorful panels.

Locke and Key is one such comic. Collected by IDW in a great hardbound edition, the first volume tells the story of the Locke family and the terrible tragedy that befalls them, driving them to seek sanctuary in their old family home, the Lovecraft residence; which in itself is an homage to the great horror writer H.P.Lovecraft.

The book is written by the extremely talented Joe Hill, which is the pen name of Joseph King, son of the horror writer Stephen King. He appears to have followed in dad's footsteps by choosing this genre to write in, but he is entirely capable of standing on his own two feet when it comes to talent. The story is incredibly well crafted, and moves at a perfect pace. The characters are beautifully portrayed and are what really took this comic to the next level for me. I found myself truly caring about what happened to them within the first few pages.

The artwork of Gabriel Rodriguez evokes this same empathy in the characters through his attention to detail. The little things the characters do, their facial expressions and mannerisms all bring them to life in a way that a prose novel would be hard pressed to match.

I would love to delve further into the events of the plot itself, but to do so would be to give too much of it away. I will say this though, if you took a classic ghost story, mixed in a contemporary thriller with a dose of family drama, and presented it in a perfectly polished little gem, you would have Locke and Key. Read it!