REVIEW

Comic Review: Locke & Key #1 by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

Written by Mel Odom
Published February 25, 2008
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The story begins quietly, almost innocently, but it quickly turns mean and hard-edged, which is one of the qualities of Hill's writing. The story picks up with Sam Lesser and Al Grubb, two high school students that were counseled by Tyler Locke's father, turning up at the Locke house. A single page of simple conversation with Mrs. Locke turns chilling when we see the weapons they're packing.

On the next page, we get a full-page shot of a man and a woman lying dead in the back of a pickup truck. A bloody tarp barely covers them.

Hill plays with time in this first comic. He leaves us hanging, wanting desperately to turn the pages, but afraid of what we're going to see at the same time. In four quick panels, we're introduced to Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode Locke, who are evidently going to be our main characters throughout the comics.

Tyler is the brooding high school teen who resents his dad's manipulation to get him to help paint the summerhouse. Kinsey is a pre-teen girl who seems to be the responsible one. Bode is the ever-curious and ever-daring kid who's always getting into trouble and exploring. Rodriguez's art is fantastic and really brings the characters and the environment around them to life while looking simple at the same time.

The panel of Mr. Locke coming home and surprising the teen killers is chilling. Then Hill cuts away to the funeral and we don't know who's dead. Afterwards, Tyler sits through unbearable visits from friends who are so disconnected from reality I wanted to scream at them. One guy can only talk about himself. Another can only talk about how famous Tyler is going to be. Writing about real people is one of Hill's gifts. Apparently illustrating them is one of Rodriguez's.

While sitting with his Uncle Duncan, Tyler remembers how his father planned for them to go live at Keyhouse if anything ever happened to him. Hill's script is an economy of language. Every panel moves the story along and provides information as well as emotion. Rodriguez makes them all beautiful to look at.

Then the story plunges back to the day of the murders, when the teen killers were inside the Locke summer home. The next few pages are full of tension, suspense, and thrill-a-second pacing that had me flipping pages like a madman. The story turns chilling, and then cuts off again, leaving me hanging once more. You know Tyler survives, but you don't know if anyone else does.

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Mel Odom is the author of over 100 novels. Winner of the American Library Association's Alex Award for 2002 and runner-up for the Christy in 2005, he's written in several genres, including tie-in novels for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Without A Trace, and novelizations of Blade, XXX, and Tomb Raider. Thankfully, he's learned to use his ADHD for good instead of evil.
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Comic Review: Locke & Key #1 by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
Published: February 25, 2008
Type: Review
Section: Books
Filed Under: Books: Horror, Books: Fantasy, Books: Comics and Graphic Novels, Review
Writer: Mel Odom
Mel Odom's BC Writer page
Mel Odom's personal site
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