Locke & Key could easily rank in one of the best comics of the past five years, but since we’re only working with 2013 here, that will have to be praise enough somehow. Like many of the comics in this list, it’s the product of a strange confluence between the kind of stories a couple of supremely talented people are internally driven to tell. It’s hard to imagine that Joe Hill would have produced such startling concepts in quite so flamboyant a fashion were he not egged on by Gabriel Rodriguez’ upping the ante consistently on how to express supernatural themes visually and psychological realities in such sensory-engaging terms. It would be remiss not to include Jay Fotos color work on the series in this visionary company because the tone of the comic is so firmly established by the tension between a certain physicality in flesh-tones and the strangely blurred lines between the gradations of perception and reality. Fotos in many ways is the artist who makes us “believe” in the world of Locke & Key so firmly, though that’s not to take away from the heights of imagination Rodriguez routinely reaches in each issue. Selecting the series as one of our top comics of 2013 is not a lament for its conclusion, but a reminder that a tightly conceived series that nevertheless allows room for its own growth in storytelling techniques can maintain massive readership over time. It’s a testament to the strengths of the comic art form when it is handled in a way that includes the reader as a participating factor, reminding us that in many ways, comics are all about the experience of the page.
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