‘Locke & Key’: Get Prepped With The Graphic Novels, Before The Netflix Series

Ready or not, the debut of Locke & Key is fast approaching… The dark fantasy Netflix series drops its first season on February 7, and I, for one, could not be more excited. I mean, I guess I could be slightly more excited if, say, it came with a free pizza (I’m a cheap date). But as a fan of the comic book series by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez, I’ve been looking forward to a screen adaptation for over a decade.

Let’s say, though, you haven’t read the Locke & Key graphic novels, and want to prep before the ten episode first season debuts. First of all: great. The series is superb, has won multiple awards, and from the time the very first issue debuted in 2008, has sold out at comic book shops. Written by Hill with art by Rodriguez, Locke & Key is perfect for fans of the ol’ Amblin Entertainment movies like Goonies, though with a bit more blood, gore and adult themes. The gist of the plot is that after the Locke family patriarch, Rendell Locke, is brutally murdered, his family moves back to his ancestral home in Massachusetts. There, they discover a series of magical keys hidden throughout the house, and an evil entity who is looking for one particular key to rule them all.

Second of all, unlike saying “I want to start reading Spider-Man comics” which would lead to furious “uhhhhs” from even the best comic book fan as they flip through the spinner racks full of stories in their minds, Locke & Key is a finite number of issues and books, from one team of creators.

Locke & Key, the comic book series, is composed of 37 issues over the course of six mini-series, plus a few one-shot stories we’ll get to in a moment. Each of the mini-series, though, tell their own, contained story that connects to the overall narrative of Locke & Key, and each mini-series has been collected in a volume, called a trade paperback. If you’re trying to be fancy, or selling a TV series you can call them graphic novels, but technically that’s a different thing. Whatever, it doesn’t really matter, call them whatever you want.

If you’re a complete comic book newbie, though, think: six books, six(ish) chapters each. Got it? Good.

The first book is titled “Welcome to Lovecraft,” and though the name of the town was changed for the TV show (it’s now called Matheson), it’s a perfect primer for the Netflix series without delving too heavily into spoilers. In it we meet Tyler Locke (the oldest kid, kind of a meathead), Kinsey Locke (the middle child, struggling to find her way in the world), and Bode Locke (precocious five year old who discovers the keys first). There are other characters, including: their mother Nina Locke who is struggling after the death of her husband; Dodge, the entity who lives in a well outside their house; and Sam Lesser, the former student who murdered Rendell. But our main characters are the three kids, and the series follows them throughout their battle with Dodge. If you want to test the waters, check out this book… Though a word of warning, you’re going to find yourself hooked.

The second book is titled “Head Games,” and it’s where you can really start to see Rodriguez stretch his artistic wings. Though a lot happens in the book, the main action centers around the Head Key, which allows you to open up your own head and look inside at your memories, hopes, wishes, fears and more. You can also remove things, put things in, and basically futz around with your brain — which of course all the kids use completely responsibly.

The third volume, “Crown of Shadows,” throws a couple of keys at the kids, most notably the titular crown, which allows the user to control living shadows and it is very, very scary. Really. One thing you should know about this series as a whole is that Hill and Rodriguez succeed in making comic books actually terrifying, something that is extremely difficult to do on the still comic book page.

The fourth graphic novel (told you, you can use them interchangeably) “Keys to the Kingdom” is the one where everything changes. Not only do Hill and Rodriguez play with the comic book form, including an issue inspired by and partially in the style of Calvin & Hobbes, but the things that go down towards the end set up the final act of the series in a big, big way. Once you get here, you’re not putting it down. Trust me.

Volume five, “Clockworks,” jumps to the past and fills in a lot of the missing pieces about Dodge’s plans, where the keys come from, and even the long history of Keyhouse stretching back to the Revolutionary War (and possibly earlier). Though every book in the Locke & Key series works as its own story, with a beginning, middle and end, this is one you do not want to read out of order.

…And it all ends in volume six, “Alpha & Omega.” The longest of the mini-series at seven issues, it deals with the final confrontation between the Locke kids and Dodge, and it gets extremely bloody, and extremely epic. Very few comic book series end in a satisfying way, but Locke & Key definitely sticks the landing. Fingers crossed the Netflix series does the same.

Earlier I mentioned one-shots, and though these aren’t collected in any of the aforementioned volumes, there are five-ish issues called “The Golden Age” that tell stories about the keys through different time periods. They don’t strictly connect to the main narrative, but if you’re a fan you’ll definitely want to track them down. These include “Open the Moon,” “Grindhouse,” “Small World,” and the recently released “Dog Days.” Also probably of note, there’s a sequel series to Locke & Key that’s supposed to debut later this year called “World War Key,” which will also run over six mini-series and presumably be collected later on.

But the short version is: read “Welcome to Lovecraft,” check out the other five volumes if you’re sold, and get hyped because Locke & Key is coming to Netflix very, very soon.

Stream Locke & Key on Netflix