The inclusion of the fantastic - ghosts, magic keys, doors to other dimensions, and the like, help to make the story a little less gruesome for me, as well as adding a mysterious quality. Actually, I don’t normally enjoy horror stories, but this one is so well written and engaging that it’s difficult to resist. So far I’ve just talked about the art, which is amazing, but the story is also truly brilliant, if you like horror. It gives the book a film-like quality, like dissolves between scenes, rather than a bunch of hard cuts. At other times, they will pull a part of a quote from the scene before or the scene to follow as another way of transitioning.

Often these little details are transitions between scenes.

Hill and Rodriguez pull this kind of visual taunting all the way through this story. In the third panel, you can just barely see the ax being held behind back of one of the teens, as well as a pistol in the pocket of the other one. Absolutely chilling…Īs you read the left page (with the right page in mind, of course), in the second panel we get a look at the two teens at the door - and they look completely crazy. Then and ONLY THEN are you going to go up to the top left where the two teens are knocking on a door. … but this is the first thing that catches your eye!

This is the first part of the spread you’re supposed to look at in Locke & Key, by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez, but …īut the authors know full well the first thing you’re going to look at is the art on the RIGHT side of the spread - of the gruesome dead bodies in the back of the truck, and the silhouette of the teens at door in the background. This is the left side of the page, where you are SUPPOSED to look first. Look at what the authors do on this spread, which occurs right at the beginning of the book. I also want to give a shout-out to colorist Jay Fotos, who gives the art a brooding, autumnal quality that truly lends to the mood of this series. That warning being given, I would like to introduce you to one of the great horror comics of our time: Locke & Key, created by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguz. The following series is for older teens and adults, due to graphic violence, explicit language, and sexual situations. Most of the graphic novels I review are for kids.

Locke and key book