Locke & Key Vol.1 Issue 1

I said that I would read the Jerome K. Jerome book first. But this one was too tempting!!! So I went ahead and read this book instead. I had to read the book twice. Once for the story, and once to really enjoy the artwork and take in everything. That iss how I like reading comic books. I am so hungry for the story that I just read all the dialogues, look at the expressions and move one. I then sit back a second time and pay attention to the artwork, the details, every expression of every face, the position of objects in the background, the sky, the window etc. It helps me to connect to the story better. Comic books are awesome in this way - they tell a story in words and in pictures and you need to put both together to get the whole story or you are left with only a partial story.

Okay. Comic books in general are awesome. But what about this one? Well, I think this one was no different. At first it seemed a bit confusing, since the author is telling the story of the past and present at once and if you are reading only the dialogues, you will get muddled up completely. So I went back and looked at the artwork and found that there is a difference in the way things are drawn and of course there was this box which said something like `before` and `after`. One thing that I really liked was bringing in characters without introductions. I was able to guess who they were based on the protagonist's previous dialogues and imaginations. This was really cool. This kind of thing expects us as a reader to immerse ourselves into the comic book and experience the story rather than just observing the story unravel.

I am trying to write without including spoilers in this post. So I am going to just end it here and say that I am going to go ahead and continue reading the rest of the volume(s). This book has me hooked.