Locke & Key: Alpha & Omega

Locke & Key, vol. 6: Alpha & Omega by Joe Hill, art by Gabriel Rodriguez, 191 pages

This is the final volume in Hill and Rodriguez's horror series, and as such, it's a bit hard to talk about the plot without spoiling the rest of the fantastic series for anyone who hasn't read it. Let's just say that this volume follows the typical horror narrative pretty closely, with the good guys facing down the big baddie in a big way. Death, destruction, sarcastic quips... the tropes of the genre are all there. That said, I think Hill and Rodriguez were fully aware of the tropes as they created this final showdown, even poking fun at themselves and the genre with obvious shout-outs to horror movie classics (most obviously, one created by Hill's dad, Stephen King). I had a couple quibbles with how things came out, but for the most part, this was a fitting end for the series.

As to the art, Rodriguez kept up the beautiful work he's done throughout the series. His creepy creatures are still scary, and the bad guy still has a certain evil apparent in his eyes. I particularly like a sequence between two related characters, who actually look related, though distinctly themselves, which seems to me (a non-artist) something that would be tough to pull off. That said, I wasn't quite as entranced by the art this time around as I have been previously. It seemed too slick and almost cartoon-y, though that's likely because the last graphic novel I read was the final Sandman volume, which had a rougher and more detailed style. So this probably won't be a problem to someone who hasn't just read something so different in style.