Locke & Key!

It looks like promo issues work after all. I mean how could I miss anything with the word Lovecraft in the title?

I had been receiving encouragement recently from a friend to read Joe Hill. Joe Hill if you didn’t know, is the son of the master Stephen King, choosing this pseudonym to honour the previous civil rights leader, whom as Joseph Hillstrom King he had been named after, and forge his own path rather than exist under his fathers shadow or gain fame as simply Stephen King’s son.

Here, Lovecraft is simply the name of the town that the Locke & Key tale occurs in. A nice little town, with what appears to be an interesting history. Now as I viewed this title on the stands, I went though various illusions about this title, thinking it was some weird spooky private detective story, or an out and out ‘Elder Gods are coming to eat your world’ tale of madness. However Locke & Key has far more in common with Zenescope’s Wonderland series, less graphic, less sexually charged but far more subtle.  Just like one of those films that keep you pondering for hours afterwards.  Not with actual questions per se, but with the feeling of the air around you, and isolated scenes that flash back into your minds eye.

It should be a children’s story, except that it is most definitely not, with plot points that would haunt a seven-year olds sleep. Which is to say a charm, almost Peter Pan, but real with it. This will be a long story, if this was spandex it would be classed as ‘deconstructed story-telling’, but the pace is just right.  Maybe appearing slightly slow, but I think any faster would ruin the atmosphere. I’m just greedy, I read the first three series in the course of two days, and I want more. Now!

The Welcome To Lovecraft special out last week is pretty much a Locke & Key Saga (in the style of Marvel Saga issues) that had whetted my appetite.  If you can find it still on the shelves then I recommend giving it a go.