Okay, so I liked this! It was creepy but not scary, and it was intriguing without being overly complicated. I liked the art overall, and the coloring struck just the right balance between bright colors and the darker tones you would need to connote creepy and scary.
I’ve only ever read one thing from Joe Hill before, and that was dark and WEIRD AS HELL (Horns). So I was cautious going in to this, hoping for weird, but not that weird.
This trade is the first of six volumes, and it introduces the Locke family, who have just moved to their family home back east after the brutal murder of their high school guidance counselor father, who was murdered by a former student. The main characters are Tyler, Kinsey and Bode. Tyler is depressed and angry, and he blames himself for his father’s death. Kinsey is traumatized, and Bode seems to be relatively unscathed as the youngest. It’s Bode who discovers the mysteries of Key House (and what kind of house has a name, anyway?). There’s this strange well, with a new kind of echo, and a door that you walk through and leave your body behind. And that’s only the beginning, apparently.
I’m already mad that my library only has the first one available. I’m probably going to read it a couple of times before I return it so I can try and lock it in my memory for whenever they get their crap together and get my the second and third volumes from ILL. (Sidenote: Interlibrary Loan is awesome, my whining aside. It’s just because I’m impatient and want things NOW.)
My only complaint is that some of the characters’ faces were weird and I didn’t like them, particularly their dad’s killer. I hated that guy’s face. Also, the main kid Tyler. His face is all in the middle of his head, and then he has all this head on the outside. It’s like someone took a beach ball and drew two tiny eyes, a nose and a mouth right in the center and left everything else blank.
Anyway, can’t wait to see where this goes. Hurry up, ILL!
