I still have images of Superman comic books stuck in my head from when I was growing up in the 1960s. They were fantastic, a mixture of superhero and science fiction, two of my greatest loves ever at that age. I loved the stories of Lex Luthor (in his traditional gray prison uniform) teaming up with Brainiac (in a pink shirt and shorty-shorts). One of the most prevalent of those images was of Superman shrunken down and trapped in a birdcage.

Ahh, those were the days. But as I grew older, Superman grew more serious and so did his problems. Sadly, so did I. I realized there were worse things for Superman – for anyone —than being trapped in a birdcage. However, I still loved those stories. They were part of my childhood and I won’t feel badly for hanging onto them.

Especially since Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely are revisiting Superman with the same love and tenderness I remember from those comic issues. Those plots were innocent and fun in a way that comics haven’t been in a long time. Now, Morrison and Quitely are doing the same thing in the pages of All-Star Superman.

The series exists outside of the traditional Superman universe. From what I’ve seen of this first graphic novel, anything goes. Clark Kent is still something of a boob. Lois Lane is sharp and still doesn’t have a clue that Clark is Superman (until he tells her). Jimmy Olsen is perky and sharp and a geek all at the same time. Luthor is violently opposed to Superman breathing the same air as him, and is brilliantly carrying out multi-layered plans to bring that to an end.

And Superman is quietly heroic throughout it all.

The graphic novel gathers the first six issues of the series. Some of the stories function as stand-alone tales but they all have continuity threads. And they’re all just good fun. This is a Superman book I’m gleefully handing off to my ten-year-old because I know he’s going to have a blast with it too.

The first story shows Morrison’s deviousness. Luthor has a plan to destroy Superman by overexposing him to the sun’s rays. During the initial set-up of the story, Morrison quickly and quietly introduces his readers to the familiar cast of characters, letting everyone know just how he’s going to spin the relationships and at what point in their lives we are. The sequence of Clark entering the newsroom on the double is a long montage that expertly showcases Quitely’s artwork. I loved it.

The first issue leaves us hanging regarding Superman’s fate after the overexposure to the sun. But the second issue is a fan’s dream come true: Lois Lane is given super-powers for a day and becomes Superwoman the way we all imagined she might back in the 1960s. Not only that, but Quitely draws her smoking hot! The two-page spread of the Fortress of Solitude is awesome.

I also loved the calm, every-day way Superman discussed Batman and Robin, and the casual way the Superman robots got introduced. They were a staple of the 1960s as well. The secret of Superman’s key to the Fortress was terrific, and the stuff of science fiction. The way Lois’s paranoia about Superman backfiring was terrific plotting. Instead of being suspicious of Clark being Superman, she starts wondering if Superman has gone insane due to his exposure.

The third issue where Lois tries to make Superman jealous of Atlas and Samson is a hoot. So is the ending where Superman finally gets tired of their constant haranguing.

Issue four concentrates on Jimmy Olsen, and it’s the Jimmy I grew up with. The one that’s still young and naïve, and always in the middle of trouble Superman has to get him out of. This one also contains some of Morrison’s trademark outside-the-box SF.

Lex Luthor takes center stage in issue five. The team-up with Clark Kent was absolutely fantastic. Can’t believe no one ever tried that before. Of course, there’s probably some credit due to the Smallville television series there. “You write like a poet but you move like a landslide,” is a quote from Luthor about Clark Kent that I’ll probably never forget. The resulting adventure as they run from the Parasite (and Clark repeatedly saves Lex) is a series of neat twists. There’s even a cameo of Beppo the Supermonkey that’s hilarious.

Issue 6 hosts a lot of surprises and nostalgia. We get to see Ma and Pa Kent, watch Superman play with Krypto the Super-Dog, and even hang out in the Smallville malt shop with Lana Lang. Seeing the Supermen of the futures was a trip down memory lane as well. You just know Morrison is having fun with the cornucopia he’s laying down. But his is one of the saddest tales Morrison weaves, and it sneaks up on you in the end.

I can’t name a graphic novel I’ve read yet that seems to span the decades and the generations Morrison’s loving tribute does in All-Star Superman. For long-time fans that haven’t read comics in a great many years, this one is a perfect return. Pick this one up and prepare to enjoy the feast.

I love the whole premise behind Hawaiian Dick, the ongoing 1950s private eye comics set in Hawaii. The noir feel of the storytelling and characters is dead-on. The ex-pat main character, Byrd, is well-drawn and has a lot of emotional baggage he’s carrying that only gets opened up in this first graphic novel.

Byrd of Paradise gathers the first three issues of the comics written by B. Clay Moore and drawn by Steven Griffin. The story immediately seized a lot of attention when it first came out because of the mixture of old and new.

Moore has a great grasp of the story and noir must run in his veins. The set-up for the story and the execution hits all the cornerstones of the venue, and Byrd’s backstory comes as a natural progression of the case he’s on. Moore’s development of the story “reads” like a movie. He stays off the page and out of panels unless narration or dialogue is really needed. Action tells this story as well as anything, and readers often forget how much a good writer can do with a few panels of delineated action. Moore has a fantastic grasp of the concept.

As good as Moore’s story is, though, Griffin’s art emphasizes everything about it. Griffin’s use of color – bright and vibrant, then dark and moody – sets the tone for the scenes, the characters, and the atmosphere. Through color alone, Griffin could have brought home every emotion that he needed to in order to convey the story.

However, he doesn’t stop there. He gives us well imagined characters and body posture. Byrd just wouldn’t have been the cocky, worldly private eye without the five o’clock shadow and Hawaiian shirt. Mo wouldn’t have been the homicide cop without the immense stature, the clean-shaven appearance, and the immaculate black suit.

The artwork is loose and tight as needed. Sometimes panels only feature characters in action. Then there are other times that the background is developed in depth. All of it looks painted, with lots of contrast and rounded shapes that flow naturally to the eye. After you read the graphic novel, don’t be surprised to find yourself leafing back through the pages just to see the artwork again.

The story is pedestrian by all outward appearances. Byrd gets handed a case to find a car, but he’s getting paid more for the recovery than the car is worth. Immediately suspicious, Byrd confronts the man hiring him and finds out the car has a cargo that belongs to drug kingpin, Bishop Masaki. This is the kind of story a noir fan would expect to find laid at the feet of Marlowe, Spade, or Hammer. Moore throws in an extra wrinkle by including Hawaiian voodoo and zombies. The horror aspect never overshadows the private eye story, though. Rather, it complements it and gives the reader a little extra zest that gives the appearance of being something brand new.

I love this story. I’ve read it a few times now and enjoy it each time. It’s simple and structure, and delivers everything I’d want in a noir adventure. Plus the zombie creep factor and a few twists and turns I didn’t see coming. The 1950s feel makes a big difference too, like our heroes are just a little more exposed than they would be in the present day and age.

The graphic novel contains about 50 pages of extras, including sketches, notes, and script. Hawaiian Dick: Byrd of Paradise is a great entertainment and behind-the-scenes bargain. The property has also been licensed for movie development and you can see how a film would flow from these pages. This is a crackerjack read.

Greg Pak, the latest writer on The Incredible Hulk and now The Incredible Hercules, evidently ushered in a new period in the life of Bruce Banner, the Hulk with the Planet Hulk storyline. I wasn’t aware of this till my son got me to buy him an issue, then the graphic novel. I’ll be reading that soon because Pak has definitely made me curious.

Evidently in the Planet Hulk storyline, the Hulk was shot into space as a means to get rid of him. He landed on a planet called Sakaar. As it turns out, Sakaar is filled with warring races and violence. Hulk is enslaved, becomes a gladiator, and eventually king. He takes a woman named Caiera as his bride. Just as Hulk’s life seems on an upward turn, the vessel that brought him to the planet explodes and kills most of the populace. Caiera dies and the Hulk goes back to Earth on a killer rampage.

However, as it turns out, the story on Sakaar doesn’t end there. The people who live on that planet are incredibly hard to kill. Caiera manages to give birth to her son even as he lies dying. As one of the Shadow people, the child can run within minutes of being born. He can also survive the lava and other natural disasters that befall the planet. Given that he was half-Hulk, I could believe that.

The story moves quickly through the boy’s life. He grows up in days and becomes a killing machine, a predator that hunts what he needs. Caiera remains to deliver a voice-over for the book, and that insight feels real and natural. Her words are easy to read and create an instant bond with the boy.

I love the violence of the planet as well. It feels like an old Edgar Rice Burroughs novel mixed with Robert E. Howard. An alien Conan the Barbarian alone against the world. I flipped through the pages as anxiously as my son had, waiting for the story to unfold in the brightly colored panels filled with explosions of action. Within minutes, the boy’s plight had won me over.

Somehow Skaar becomes a leader of a bunch of giant ant-like things. I’m sure that bond will be explained later. The full-page splash of them battling a giant serpent thing is intense. Ron Garney’s artwork fits the series to a T.

Pak doesn’t slow the pacing down as he moves the time to a month later and a killing raid against people too weak to protect themselves or get away. Those deaths obviously leave a mark on Skaar, but we don’t know what it means yet.

Then, a year later, the action unfolds again as another group of raiders attacks a community. This group is led by Axeman Bone, who’s destined to become a chief villain in the series judging from the story time he’s given. Axeman Bone kills a young man who must be related to Caiera because he has the same flesh-to-stone power she had. Pak had me at that because at first I thought that was Skaar.

We don’t see Skaar again till the end splash page. By this time he’s fully grown and in a savage berserker rage. I don’t know how intelligent Skaar is because he never speaks in this issue, but there’s plenty of action.

I was definitely intrigued with this first issue. My son and I are going to pick them up for a time and see what develops. Pak’s sense of pacing and Forney’s pencils are worth the cover price investment, and I’m really curious about where they’re going to take the Hulk’s son. Hopefully they won’t take him off-planet for a while. There seem to be plenty of adventures waiting there, and I’d love to see Conan-style adventures for a time.

With the movie out this summer, plenty of attention is being paid to the Hulk. There’s even a new, mysterious red Hulk on the loose in the new volume of the series, and Dr. Bruce Banner is trying to help figure out what that means. I’ve also heard the Hulk is supposed to have a daughter by an old character named Thundra. That story is set in the future.

Peter David was the first writer in a long time to really build an audience for the Hulk, but Greg Pak’s take on the character has obviously done the same. Now we also have Skaar, Son of Hulk to follow, and I’m down for the ride to see what we’re going to be offered.

Brubaker and Phillips put stories together whenever they can, then run them as mini-series before they’re eventually gathered into graphic novels. I love the stories because they’re hard hitting noir tales about tough guys, violence, and constant danger. There’s not a superhero among them, and very few innocents.

Lawless is the second collection, and it’s a barbed-wire punch to the throat. Sleek and deadly as a bullet, the story of Tracy Lawless’s quest for revenge after his brother ends up dead rockets along to a climatic finish that belongs on the big screen.

Brubaker’s narrative, echoed by Phillips’s art, is interesting in this arc. Instead of simply breaking the story out from start to finish, Brubaker reveals everything in episodic chunks. He starts with an action, like killing a man on a rooftop and disposing of his body in a Dumpster in the alley, then circles back around to tell readers who the man was and why Tracy killed him.

Looking back through the graphic novel, I noticed how deliberate the reveals were. Brubaker dropped pebbles of plot into the pond of his story, then chased the ripples out for the readers till everything came together. The method is very effective, like getting a bite-size chunk of a mystery that allows you a look at only one piece of a larger puzzle.

Tracy’s background isn’t delivered in a large info dump either. Nor is everything completely explained. I still want to know what happened to Tracy and Ricky’s father, and even what happened to Ricky that put him into a life of crime. That’s because the character feel so real on the pages. Even though I didn’t get every answer, Brubaker and Phillips provide enough that I knew Tracy Lawless and the kind of guy he was. He’s the same kind of guy who’s adventures I enjoyed in the pages of the Gold Medal novels I read while growing up. Evidently Brubaker haunted the same aisles in similar bookshops.

Ricky Lawless was a wheelman for a gang. He drove the getaway car. But after a heist goes bad, Ricky ends up shot to death. Tracy is a soldier, a man with a harsh past that has no problem killing people he thinks needs to be killed. The problem is, he’s not sure who killed Ricky, but he knows once he finds out he’s going to kill whoever it was. In the meantime, he has to infiltrate the gang, help break out one of the members from prison, and stay out of the clutches of a mysterious group of killers that have somehow gotten onto his tail.

The art in the book complements the story, providing mood and atmosphere. Phillips’s style and take on grungy metropolitan areas and action is fantastic. The layout of the scenes, the exposition of the surroundings and the snap-focus on characters, show just how easily the story could be rendered to cinema.

The language and story are harsh, so Lawless might not be everyone’s cup of tea. But fans of noir are going to feel right at home in these pages.

 Joe Hill switches points of view again in Locke & Key #3. This time the focus is on Kinsey, the middle child of the three Locke children. She’s fifteen years old and noticeably troubled by the savage murder of her father. That death precipitated the family’s move back to the ancestral home, Key House in Lovecraft, Massachusetts.

The story so far as been dark and eerie, and I’m totally loving the macabre nature of the events. Moreover, I’m actually enjoying waiting each month to see what’s going to happen next. Usually on a limited series, I wait to pick up the graphic novel collection, but I’ve discovered that I like playing with all the various encounters and resolutions I can come up with on my own. I love matching wits with Hill to see if I can predict which way he’s going to turn.

Fans who have followed the comic series since its inception might be troubled by the first couple pages’ of replay to introduce potential new readers to the book. However, the voice over Kinsey provides also gave me a chance to sink into her character and remember all that she’d been through. No one could go through what she survived and be unscathed. Kinsey’s carrying her scars, and Gabriel Rodriguez’s art brings all that horror to the reader.

Since her father’s murder, Kinsey has worked hard to disappear. That’s what she did while the killers hunted for the family, and that’s become her motto. I knew she was struggling with her own mortality, and Hill really pounds that in well.

After the soul-searching opening, I wasn’t quite prepared for the bloodthirsty escape in the next couple pages. Hill laid out the plans for the visuals, but Rodriguez brought the image home with scarlet-laced savagery. Furthermore, the reader gets to see exactly what Sam Lesser (one of the murderers of Rendell Locke) does with the mirror and scissors he got from the apparition at the bottom of the well in the wellhouse.

I laughed as I read and saw Kinsey’s relationship with her little brother Bode. The second issue revealed that he’s able to become a ghost when he goes through one of the house’s many doors. Unfortunately, he can’t get anyone to believe him. The author and artist’s handling of the comedic within the parameters of the chilling horror and grueling anticipation is awesome.

The reaction Kinsey has to the smell of fresh paint is great. Her father was painting their house when he was killed, so the smell was everywhere. I’d forgotten that, but Hill had it planned in. This is just another of those reasons I like the book so well. Hill has a fantastic eye for detail and how to use it. Even the heart-to-heart conversation Kinsey has with her coach, though serious, poses some comedic moments that are perfectly natural under the circumstances. I love how these characters are portrayed, and if the movie comes out, it should be a treat.

However, the bracelet Kinsey is wearing sends the coach into a search that lets us know that she knows something we don’t. The mysteries Hill has in play all the time make me re-read the book after I finish it the first time, and guarantee a later re-reading as I try to put everything together. The puzzle-lover in me feels challenged.

I’m halfway home after this issue, but I’m enjoying the trip. Even after months of waiting, I know I’m going to be sad to see this twisting jaunt into terror come to an end.

When you read Hidden Letters, the book is going to leave a mark. It’s going to hurt down deep and leave you thinking about things long after you’ve finished the book. After receiving the book, I admit to approaching the book warily. The subject matter is brutal, and it’s devastating to anyone who’s a parent.

First, a little history on the book. The letters that comprise the human narrative within the pages were discovered in Amsterdam in 1997. They were written by an eighteen year old Dutch Jew named Philip “Flip” Slier. He was sent to a Dutch labor camp in 1942. When first sent there, Slier believed he was going to be treated humanely, though restricted. He didn’t know the horror that awaited him, or that he would soon be dead.

At the time Slier first went to the work camps, letters shipped regularly between the families and the restricted men. As I read the letters, I was stunned by the naïve manner that Slier exhibited. He honestly thought he was only going to be there for a short time, and that his experiences there would be nothing more than what he would endure during some summer camp.

As a father of five, I know how innocent kids can be. They think they know so much, but they’re blind to so many things. They often don’t know they’re in over their heads until it’s much too late.

And that’s what happened with Slier.

I felt somewhat guilty while reading his letters, almost voyeuristic into a world of pain and innocence. The letters are inane and even cheerful. At times Slier obviously felt he was on some grand adventure. At other times I could see that he was putting on a front for his parents, acting brave while he was scared to death, or at least mightily confused by what was going on around him.

That human element, and that innocence, is what is going to haunt me about the book. Slier also took a camera with him. He took several pictures and sent them back home to his parents and friends, and those people managed to hang onto them throughout the blackest days of World War II. I saw his face, and I saw how much of a kid he still was. He aged decades in months, and he finally got killed.

That’s one side of the story, but the authors added a tremendous amount of history materials to further the reader’s understanding of what was going on in this area at this time. More pictures and maps fill the book. On one hand, Hidden Letters is a short journal of tumultuous times in a young man’s life, but on the other hand the book is a great historical record. I love history, and I equate it with the story of people rather than names and dates. But Philip Slier’s story truly brings home the fact that history is made up of people more than dates or events.

Hidden Letters is going to satisfy the armchair historian’s perusal of the time period, and will give some sense of people and what was going on to genealogists that have discovered they’ve got family members that were in this camps at the same time. For either of those groups, I’m sure the book would be a beneficial addition.

The parents saved those letters all those years. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to pull them out every so often and read the last words of their lost son.

Joe Hill kicked off his comic-writing career with IDW Publishing with an imaginative and compelling story. Locke & Key flew off the shelves in comics stories, required another printing, and was snapped up almost immediately by movie production companies.

For those who don’t know yet, Joe Hill is one of Stephen King’s sons. Joe wanted to become known as a horror writer in his own right rather than hanging onto his famous dad’s coattails, and Joe has succeeded in a lot of ways. His first novel, Heart-Shaped Box garnered a lot of literary attention as well as readers. His collection, 20th Century Ghosts, became well-known in short order.

Locke & Key is going to be at least a six-issue comic series, though Joe promises he’s got plots that would take the series out to nearly 70 issues if he gets to write them. The story’s focus is on the Locke family, which went through the horrible tragedy of losing there father, Rendell Locke, to psychotic students he once taught.

Issue #2 picks up the family’s story after they’ve moved to Lovecraft, Massachusetts. And doesn’t that name summon all kinds of wicked demons immediately to mind? As it turns out, Keyhouse, where the family moved, has got all kinds of dangerous secrets lurking within it.

I love Joe’s easy storytelling ability. He makes everything look simple as he tells the story through dialogue between the characters as well as Bode’s first-person narration. Bode Locke is in grade school and Joe portrays his voice convincingly throughout. Joe maintains the eye and focus of a child almost effortlessly, filled with excitement, the need to be the center of attention, and the disappointment and irritability that he displays when that doesn’t happen.

Joe also writes Bode intelligently, showing how he’s smarter than the monster he discovers in the wellhouse. But he also has fun with Bode, showing how Bode carries on while he’s bored, such as putting the mop bucket on his head while talking to the woman in the bottom of the well. Of course, the inherent danger of walking on the edge of the well that seems to miss Bode screams in the face of the reader. I found myself tensing up, waiting for Bode to inevitably fall into the well and meet his doom.

Gabriel Rodriguiz’s artwork is stupendous this time around again. His energy and understanding of the characters is on every page, and he works hard to play with different angles so readers aren’t looking at the same kind of picture or view each time. The environment is interesting, spooky, and foreboding all at once, and I love it. You can actually see how the movie should look in these pages.

Joe’s first page of the new comic is a riot. It’s a page taken from Bode’s homework, and it retells everything the family has been through up to this point. His mom believes the part about him becoming a ghost when he goes through one of the house’s doors is just a fabrication. We know better because we saw this happen to Bode in the last issue. In case you forgot, we see Bode in ghost-form watching his mom and his uncle talking about him while they’re sitting out on the veranda.

I love how Joe is slowly parsing out the information and background of the house. I don’t want to know everything all at once, and he’s not a storyteller that dumps everything on you and doesn’t keep surprises or twists to himself. Things are wild and weird in this series, and I’ve gotten totally wrapped up in the world and the characters.

The monster at the bottom of the wellhouse is going to mean a lot of trouble. I really enjoyed the subtle way Joe and Gabriel revealed her evil nature to the reader through the mirror sequence. That was a grabber once I saw it, and it doesn’t hit you between the eyes. If you’re not paying attention you’ll miss it.

I also like the way that Sam Lesser, one of the teens that killed Rendell, remains a threat to the family. Especially when the monstrous lady at the bottom of the well speaks to him and offers him a key to get out of the sanitarium where he’s being held.

With everything going on, I can’t wait till the next issue. I’m just glad it’s only a month away. If you haven’t picked up this great series, you’re missing out on some groundbreaking horror.

Ghost Whisperer is currently in its third season on television and has a few more new episodes that will air now that the writers’ strike in Hollywood has ended. Produces confirmed in February that the show is returning for a fourth season.

Created by John Gray and based on James Van Praagh’s own experiences as a psychic and medium, the series stars Jennifer Love Hewitt as Melinda Gordon. Melinda operates an antique store and has had to deal with ghosts that appear to her to get messages to their loved ones nearly her whole life.

With the success of the television franchise, IDW Publishing has started a comic book series base on Ghost Whisperer. The first issue is out now and is called “The Haunted.” It’s written by Carrie Smith and Becca Smith and illustrated by Elena Casagrande. The two writers have written scripts for the television show, so it’s no surprise that the issue parallels the movement of an episode perfectly. Elena Casagrande has worked on “Star Trek Alien Spotlight: Orions” so she’s no stranger to tie-in work coming from a television series. Her panels come to life with movement and angles deliberately staged to seduce the eye.

I really liked the opening montage in the coffee shop and appreciate the quick way the story got up and got moving. There’s no stopping to explain things. The writers assume the readers picked up the issue because they’re fans of the show, and that’s not a bad assumption to make.

Three girls, obviously well-to-do, are menaced by a girl ghost that’s about their age. The ghost, Alice Henderson, is angry at them and seeking revenge for her untimely death. Melinda steps in and attempts to intercede, but Alice’s rage knows no bounds. When Alice disappears, though, Melinda is left facing a bird-man dressed all in black.

The way the story progresses so quickly is fantastic. A mere flip of the page brings us to Professor Rick Payne, another regular from the show. Quickly, with great one-liners and snappy patter, Rick brings Melinda up to date on Osiris, the Egyptian God of the Underworld.

Back at the antiques shop, Melinda confers with Delia, her partner, and finds out the name of the dead girl as well as how she died after being hit by a car while crossing the street. Melinda goes back to high school and finds the three girls that had gotten menaced in the coffee shop. The scenes set there are great, and Casagrande’s pencils really showcase what she’s capable of when it comes to establishing an environment. I was impressed with her vision of the high school building.

Melinda goes to see the girls again when she finds out where they’re living, and gets there just as Alice sweeps in for her revenge again. The action scenes and the angles Casagrande takes are marvelous. You can almost shoot the episode from these panels, or at least know how the story would look on television. The writers’ dialogue is spare and lean, and keeps the tale moving at breakneck pace.

When the story is resolved in tried and true fashion that’s become familiar to the regular viewers of the television series, the mystery of Osiris deepens. He doesn’t go away as Melinda had thought. Instead he threatens Melinda directly.

This beginning arc hammers the reader with the same kind of seasonal epic usually carried in the series. I can’t wait till second issue to see what happens next.

In addition to being a bestselling novelist and a noted award-winning short story writer, Joe Hill also happens to be the son of novelist Stephen King. I lead with that and I feel guilty about it at the same time. Hill created his own name in order to create his own identity, and as soon as we found out, we start telling each other. As I said, I feel guilty, but I also know that letting the cat out of the bag, again, will draw more people to this review and hopefully pump up Hill’s sales. He deserves to be read. He has an intriguing mind and a unique way of looking at the dark corners in life.

Despite his paternity, Hill has crafted an existence for himself that’s just starting to take off. His novel, Heart-Shaped Box, leapt onto bestseller lists and latched hold of horror fans’ psyches in wild, delicious ways. His collection of short stories, 20th Century Ghosts, has won the Bram Stoker Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the International Horror Guild Award.

Now, along with artist Gabriel Rodriguez, Hill has staked out the comics medium with a new series called Locke & Key. The launch is a page-turning suspense story full of surprises. According to information that’s been released by IDW Publishing, this is going to be at least a six-issue monthly series. Hill has plans for at 68 issues of Keyhouse.

I really like the idea behind the house and the series. It focuses on kids, and the house has doors they can pass through that will change them. The power of the doors can change their age, their race, and their sex, and has a tendency to push people toward the evil we all carry around inside us.

The first issue is stunning. When I saw the blood-red cover with the old key so prominent, I didn’t at first see the house in the background. Then when I saw the house I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I just sat there for a moment, frozen, thinking about all the possibilities of that key and that house and all those doors. I think that’s what still consumes me about the story.

The story begins quietly, almost innocently, but it quickly turns mean and hard-edged, which is one of the qualities of Hill’s writing. The story picks up with Sam Lesser and Al Grubb, two high school students that were counseled by Tyler Locke’s father, turning up at the Locke house. A single page of simple conversation with Mrs. Locke turns chilling when we see the weapons they’re packing.

On the next page, we get a full-page shot of a man and a woman lying dead in the back of a pickup truck. A bloody tarp barely covers them.

Hill plays with time in this first comic. He leaves us hanging, wanting desperately to turn the pages, but afraid of what we’re going to see at the same time. In four quick panels, we’re introduced to Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode Locke, who are evidently going to be our main characters throughout the comics.

Tyler is the brooding high school teen who resents his dad’s manipulation to get them out to help him paint the summerhouse. Kinsey is a pre-teen girl who seems to be the responsible one. Bode is the ever-curious and ever-daring kid who’s always getting into trouble and exploring. Rodriguez’s art is fantastic and really brings the characters and the environment around them to life while looking simple at the same time.

The panel of Mr. Locke coming home and surprising the teen killers is chilling. Then Hill cuts away to the funeral and we don’t know who’s dead. Afterwards, Tyler sits through unbearable visits from friends who are so disconnected from reality I wanted to scream at them. One guy can only talk about himself. Another can only talk about how famous Tyler is going to be. Writing about real people is one of Hill’s gifts. Apparently illustrating them is one of Rodriguez’s.

While sitting with his Uncle Duncan, Tyler remembers how his father planned for them to go live at Keyhouse if anything ever happened to him. Hill’s script is an economy of language. Every panel moves the story along and provides information as well as emotion. Rodriguez makes them all beautiful to look at.

Then the story plunges back to the day of the murders, when the teen killers were inside the Locke summer home. The next few pages are full of tension, suspense, and thrill-a-second pacing that had me flipping pages like a madman. The story turns chilling, then cuts off again, leaving me hanging once more. You know that Tyler survives, but you don’t know if anyone else does.

The next sequence introduces Keyhouse, and the layout of the grounds, the fact that it’s on a peninsula cut off from civilization, is at once intriguing. I know that the distance away from a populated area is going to be trouble.

Once the exploration of the house begins, which I was dying to see, Hill moves us back to the past again. The graphic panels Rodriguez presents had me once more hanging on as what happened that day of the killings is finally played out. It’s brutal and vicious, but that’s the only way it could have happened.

The true weirdness descends on the story in the next few pages. Bode is off exploring the weird house all on his own when he has an out-of-body-experience. And we learn that Sam Lesser, one of the teen killers, is still alive in juvenile lockup. Not only that, but he’s talking to a mysterious entity he can see in a sink full of water.

I’m totally jacked about this series. I think it’s going to be great. I can’t believe Hill decided to do it as a comic book instead of a novel, but in an interview I read he said he’d just always envisioned it as a comic book.

I love Rodriguez’s art, so that’s a bonus in addition to a great, macabre story with plenty of mystery and suspense. But the waiting over the next five months is going to test me to my limits. I expect I’m going to be daydreaming – or having nightmares – about Keyhouse and what’s really going on for some time now. If you’re a comics fan or a horror fan or a Joe Hill fan, you gotta check this one out.