Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

It's been a month or so since I started this, and almost a month since I finished, and for that whole time I've idly been trying to process what my rating should be. The 3-star end result is tempered by - even though it absolutely shouldn't be - the fact that this was given to me as a gift by two people who really love it. This makes me want to love it too! Because when smart and kind people like things I'm inclined to like them too.

... which made me push back against this series when I initially didn't like it, setting up this weird feedback loop of "I should like it / I don't like it / why don't I like it? / I should like it! / I hate it for making me want to like it / why don't I like it?" and so on. You get the point.

So a few weeks away, and that loop finally petered out, and I have had some time to process it, and here's what I came up with, the crux of the whole thing:

I didn't like Gabriel Rodriguez's art here.

I don't know Rodriguez from Adam and that's fine, and so I don't know if this is the best or worst example of his illustrations or maybe just in the middle, and that's fine too. And I'm not implying they're bad, they just were not a good fit for me with regards to this story. I hear many many other people heaping praises on his stuff and that's justified for them.

[basically I don't want Rodriguez to hate me if he ever sees this because it's good work, it's just not at all what I would have pictured for this series and his slightly more cartoony exaggerated style constantly took me out of the story.]

If I had my choice in an imaginary world where everything was done to my liking I would have picked someone like Michael Zulli, or Dave McKean's work on Arkham Asylum, or Walter Simonson's work on Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown. Basically: either stark B&W or very painterly fluid stuff. I just ... didn't dig Rodriguez here.

okay so past that! At some point a few years back I apparently got Locke & Key TBP #1 through Comixology. I know now that the series starts in media res, but at the time I didn't. I thought, "Well, this is ... this sucks. I didn't realize I was coming in in the middle of the story" and I just kind of walked through the pages feeling lost and then let it go. When I picked up this set and started and it began in the exact same place I realized, "Oh, okay. I was a dummy before and should have recognized that this was the true beginning of the series" but by then my beginning-the-story experience was already tainted by my past idiocy. This just meant that the first issues came pre-packaged with a bit of a bad taste from previous consumption. Again, totally my fault here. It just made for a rocky start.

Once I was past that, though, it was a pretty enjoyable story. I really liked knowing that it had a beginning and a middle and an end. That sounds like a joke, but there's nothing worse (in my mind) than TV show (or written work, or whatever, you get the point) that makes a couple bucks and then the execs or whatever say, "We are ordering 10 more seasons!" and some writer has to say, "Uh my story takes two seasons at best" and then they continue to milk that cow until it's dust. It's extremely satisfying to know that I'm taking in a product that's built around a real story that won't be stretched like taffy just because someone's trying to squeeze some more bucks out of it.

If I were still a teen - with my then-infinite capacity for wonder and fantasy - I would have eaten this story up. A big mysterious house full of magic keys? Oh shit yeah. Absolute home run. As a boring adult who's constantly distracted by spreadsheets and veterinary bills and teleconferences and mortgage payments and all that, I just couldn't sink into it like I needed to. Honestly this made me a bit sad, but I get it. That's the nature of growing up and losing some of the ability to immerse yourself in fantasy.

Uh let's see. What didn't I like, other than the art? I didn't like that Hill d-

okay I know I know I know he's not his dad, but we are influenced by our parents and I feel this is a valid comparison

I didn't like that Hill decided to use that weird and borderline offensive trope of "developmentally disabled person is actually Magical". Some Locke & Key wiki says of Rufus "He has an unspecified mental disorder, and is affected by the Keys in different ways than anyone else." To be clear: I am all for people of all colors, beliefs, conditions, etc. being included in any work. This world is populated with diverse humans. I don't feel like you have to "make up for" someone being disabled in some way by granting them additional powers the other characters don't have. Blind people don't have enhanced senses to make up for their lack of vision. You wouldn't write a character who suffered a terrible accident and became a quadruple amputee but her IQ suddenly went up by 30 points.

I mean I get it, I'm reading a fantasy comic book for cryin' out loud, but I also mean it: let Rufus be Rufus. If someone in the series needs to have the mystical ability to see things that no one else can, then draw straws or something. Don't always hand it to the disabled character because doing so makes it feel like you're saying they were less important or less than whole without it.

[see for reference King's characters Duddits (Dreamcatcher) and Tom Cullen (The Stand). "From you, Dad! I learned it from watching you!"]

This has already gotten too long, and spilled out in too many directions, and I'm too far behind on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ reviews to take any more time on it. As usual here's the summary at the end:

I want to take this back in time and give it to my 13-year-old self, who would have unabashedly loved the shit out of it. I want the alternate dimension version done by a different artist.

... but I want these things because ultimately it was a fun story that entertained me, and I just want to love it more than I did.