Sunday Splash Page #310

 

"Peek-a-Boo," in Locke and Key: Welcome to Lovecraft #2, by Joe Hill (writer), Gabriel Rodriguez (artist), Jay Fotos (colorist), Robbie Robbins (letterer)

Welcome to Lovecraft was the first of, at that time, six mini-series following the Locke family as they return to the family home in Massachusetts following a family tragedy. It focuses primarily on the children - from oldest to youngest, Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode - since Hill's story operates on the "you become blind magic as an adult," principle. Which means it's Bode who finds the first of the mysterious keys and begins experimenting with their power. And it's Bode who discovers the echo in the wellhouse.

Most of this first volume is the kids dealing with what they went through, and how other people perceive it. Bode's teacher and mother think his cartoon about walking through a door and becoming a ghost and looking for his father is disturbing. Kinsey thinks Tyler is dealing with it by focusing on manual labor around the new house, when what he's really seeing is the dead he blames himself for. Kinsey tries to be as innocuous as possible to avoid being noticed, and runs from anyone that tries to get close.

Gabriel Rodriguez makes Keyhouse a massive, Gothic thing. Stone archways over huge wooden doors in the cellar. Elaborate wood walls covered in just the sorts of things that would encourage a small child to explore, and in the process discover hidden surprises. The violence isn't wildly graphic, but he'll come back to a shot of a person with their face busted in with a brick as Tyler replays that memory, or the peculiar way a body lands if you break the neck. Things that would stick with the characters, so they stick with us.

Any progress any of them might make is rushed by the surprise arrival of their father's murderer at their doorstep. Each of them end up desperate in their own way. Ty's desperation makes him try to be a martyr, and Kinsey takes a risk because she's determined to do more than hide to protect herself this time. But it's Bode, knowing the power of the keys but not who he's dealing with, that helps the echo escape and releases the problem that'll carry through the next five volumes.