Book Cover
Title Welcome to Lovecraft
Author Joe Hill
Ilustrator Gabriel Rodríguez
Publisher IDW Publishing - 2011
First Printing IDW Publishing - 2008
Book Cover
Title Head Games
Author Joe Hill
Ilustrator Gabriel Rodríguez
Publisher IDW Publishing - 2011
First Printing IDW Publishing - 2009
Book Cover
Title Crown of Shadows
Author Joe Hill
Ilustrator Gabriel Rodríguez
Publisher IDW Publishing - 2016
First Printing IDW Publishing - 2010
Book Cover
Title Keys to the Kingdom
Author Joe Hill
Ilustrator Gabriel Rodríguez
Publisher IDW Publishing - 2016
First Printing IDW Publishing - 2011
Book Cover
Title Clockworks
Author Joe Hill
Ilustrator Gabriel Rodríguez
Publisher IDW Publishing - 2013
First Printing IDW Publishing - 2013
Book Cover
Title Alpha & Omega
Author Joe Hill
Ilustrator Gabriel Rodríguez
Publisher IDW Publishing - 2014
First Printing IDW Publishing - 2014
Book Cover
Title Heaven and Earth
Author Joe Hill
Ilustrator Gabriel Rodríguez
Publisher IDW Publishing - 2017
First Printing IDW Publishing - 2017
Book Cover
Title The Golden Age
Author Joe Hill
Ilustrator Gabriel Rodríguez
Publisher IDW Publishing - 2022
First Printing IDW Publishing - 2022
Category Horror
Warnings None
Main Characters Kinsey & Tyler & Bode Locke, Dodge
Main Elements Magic Houses
Website ---




Click to read the summaryWelcome to Lovecraft

Click to read the summaryHead Games

Click to read the summaryCrown of Shadows & Keys to the Kingdom

Click to read the summaryClockworks

Click to read the summaryAlpha & Omega

Click to read the summaryHeaven and Earth

Click to read the summaryThe Golden Age




Warning - this series has probably every possible trigger (rape, abuse, torture, you name it, its probably there) and its not shy about being graphic about it.

My initial reaction was that this series was nothing at all like I expected it to be.

1 - It takes place in a town called Lovecraft but has absolutely nothing to do with Lovecraft lore

2 - The story involves kids, figured it be a kind of Lovecraft-lite. Now it does have some classic features of stories like Narnia, or the House with a Clock in the Walls, or Spiderwick. The kind of tale where even the adults that once knew all this stuff as kids, will have forgotten it and can no longer see it even when its right in front of them. However, its definitely not for kids.

3 - The first volume had monsters in it, but they were human monsters. So between being in the head of a crazed serial killer, and being inside the head of the kids who lost their father and had to do some extreme things to protect themselves, a mother who turns to drink...man it was dark. Its got every kind of trigger in it, and it's a graphical novel remember, you can see it all.

In retrospect maybe I should have realized what I was getting into. I read NOS4R2 by Joe Hill, and that was some crazy mind messing stuff. A few days agot I read Wraith, since its a prequel to NOS4R2 and well...go see my review. Stephen King might be Joe Hill's father, but the son really cranks the psychological horror up a few notches. You don't want to live in Joe Hill's head, that's for sure, there's some seriously twisted stuff in there.

But by the second volume, the human monster has been dealt with (maybe?) and that leaves another...human (?) monster...only he's also something other. He's creepy as heck, but he's at least evil, not just some poor kid who went over the deep end. You know, your normal supernatural villain you don't need to be *that* scared of because he's not real, unlike the other guy who totally could be.

in the second volume we also get all the siblings in on the magic key thing, mainly by having the youngest boy stick the key in the back of head and pop it open...which was also creepy as heck. People can look inside and pull things out or put things in, and the facial expression on the people having their heads poked around in was just darn disturbing. And there's more, while you are looking in another person's head, you will also see that other person out of the corner of your eye looking in alongside you...who comes up with this stuff (kinda loved that though, so mind-warpingly freaky). Also kinda loved the creatures they find in the various minds they rifle through, like a kid's memory of a scary person becomes this kind of unrecognizable caricature, as one character points out, memories are unreliable.

And I have to wonder...who is the dude that created these keys? Some are cool and kind of fun but others are rather messed up. In fact there are so many keys, and so many battles that some scenes are only as long as a single page. Let's just say the Locke kids are dealing with a lot. Their father is dead, their mother is an alchoholic and they have to battle evil every weekend, while still surviving high school!

This may not be Lovecraft, but it is Lovecraft level weird. And eventually it is supposed to crossover with Sandman (which is why I discovered this series in the first place), certainly no leap of the imagination needed to picture opening a door into Dream, you can go everywhere else after all.

And finally in the last two volumes there is a little Lovecraft, just the words the characters shout out. Must admit I want from finding the books too disturbing at the start to, well its all still disturbing in that the worst possible things happen to these poor kids and they have to deal with it, but I got really invested in the story, the history of the keys and who was going to survive and who wasn't. Definitely difficult to read but I found it to be worth it. There's still two additional volumes to go, but the story ends with book 6.




Posted: July 2025

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