[go: nahoru, domu]

Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Locke & Key: One-Shots

Locke & Key: Small World

Rate this book
Now a Netflix Original Series! Three years after wrapping up their award-winning, bestselling Locke & Key saga, the team that built Keyhouse returns to Lovecraft, Massachusetts with a new tale of terror and suspense! An impossible birthday gift for two little girls unexpectedly throws open a door to a monster on eight legs!

This deluxe hardcover edition contains the new 24-page story and adds pages from various drafts of Joe Hill's scripts, from the earliest hand-written pages to the various revisions; process pages from Gabriel Rodriguez; a special pinup from Brian Coldrick, and more!

72 pages, Hardcover

First published January 17, 2017

Loading interface...
Loading interface...

About the author

Joe Hill

437 books26.9k followers
Joe Hill's debut, Heart-Shaped Box, won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel. His second, Horns, was made into a film freakfest starring Daniel Radcliffe. His other novels include NOS4A2, and his #1 New York Times Best-Seller, The Fireman... which was also the winner of a 2016 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Horror Novel.

He writes short stories too. Some of them were gathered together in his prize-winning collection, 20th Century Ghosts.

He won the Eisner Award for Best Writer for his long running comic book series, Locke & Key, co-created with illustrator and art wizard Gabriel Rodriguez.

He lives in New Hampshire with a corgi named McMurtry after a certain beloved writer of cowboy tales. His next book, Strange Weather, a collection of novellas, storms into bookstores in October of 2017.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
675 (27%)
4 stars
974 (39%)
3 stars
709 (28%)
2 stars
111 (4%)
1 star
10 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 292 reviews
Profile Image for mark monday.
1,780 reviews5,731 followers
February 25, 2017
picture if you will a dollhouse, exquisitely detailed and true to life, true to the actual house that contains it. a dollhouse that replicates that house - and the people in it! you can watch your family as they move about the house, in and out of rooms, living their brief lives and none the wiser that your beady little eyes are fixed upon them. stick your hand through a window and watch as your family members cope with these giant fingers that have come from nowhere. now imagine a spider has made its way into this dollhouse... and so into your own house, transformed into a giant menace, now stalking your own house's hallways - now stalking you!

although the wondrous Locke & Key series and its standalones have all featured children, this is perhaps the sole entry so far that is actually suitable for children. it is full of amusing banter and offhand sweetness, shivery adventure and goofy physical humor, brave children and eerie shadow servants, a cat that saves the day (finally!) and, I'm afraid to say, boogers. gotta give the kids what they want, I suppose. the writing by Joe Hill is pleasant and breezy; the art by Gabriel Rodríguez is excellent as usual. overall a slim but delightful affair.
Profile Image for Chad.
9,106 reviews992 followers
July 6, 2022
A new Keyhouse short story featuring the Locke family from 1910. Their dad has created the Small World key which allows them to bring their dollhouse version of Keyhouse to life. The problem is the dollhouse is really just a portal to the actual Keyhouse so anything entering the dollhouse instantly becomes gigantic and real inside the actual Keyhouse. This family has that same magic as the modern day Locke family and the story is a lot of fun.

I got a hard cover version of this story from the library that was a bit of a cash grab. It's $14.99 for a 32 page story, an interview, and some sketches. I'd go for the cheaper version.
Profile Image for Sadie Hartmann.
Author 24 books6,365 followers
March 8, 2019
3.5 rounded up for Goodreads

I love the Locke & Key universe. I'm utter trash for anything that Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez put out collaboratively.
In SMALL WORLD Gabriel's artwork and Joe's imagination/writing is pure gold but I need to be perfectly honest--this was waaaaay too short.
The majority of the pages are linear notes, an interview and extra artwork-the story itself is short, short, super short.
Beautiful, eye candy yumminess--but sort of like just licking a smudge of chocolate off your finger instead of getting to take a whole bite.
Of course, super-fans will have to have this anyways (I did)
And the cover alone is worth the money--I'll be taking photos of it every chance I get--but I just feel a little like a kid in a candy store with only some spare change,
"Please Sir, can I have some more?"

Anyhoodles, fun to visit the universe again--I loved that Joe Hill mentioned in the interview that Locke & Key tie-in to the story in STRANGE WEATHER called, SNAPSHOT...now I need to re-read!

Profile Image for Tawfek.
3,053 reviews2,223 followers
July 5, 2024
My keyboard is broken, maybe it's the universe telling me to stop writing.
Writing the review on my phone, same as the last few reviews honestly, my reviews have devolved to lazy and unhelpful reviews lol
This issue was amazing, great way to end my locke and key journey.
I have delayed it for quite a long time, but since i was in desperate need for a modern comic to read, I finally finished the last one shot issue I had left.
I think I saw somewhere that they integrated the world of locke and key into the world of sandman, but i am not sure right now.
Which reminds me, reading the dreaming would be perfect for this period of time I am in, if i didn't already start Cinderella from fabletown with love.
Anyway this was like saying goodbye to a short friend (the original series was short!)
Can't wait to read the dreaming and see if there is more locke and key somewhere among the multitude of series following the dreaming.
Profile Image for Dave Schaafsma.
Author 6 books31.8k followers
December 30, 2016
One shot issue of a return by Hill and Rodriguez to Lovecraft, Mass., and an interesting premise: Two little girls get a birthday gift, an elaborate doll house, with living characters, where they can manipulate the world--oh, and it is THEIR OWN world they can manipulate!!--through the windows and doors.

But the heart of this tale is an assault on the family--focusing on the children, the "small world"-- by a giant nightmarish spider.

There are echoes of the art from Jacen Burrows in Alan Moore's Providence that I see here and like, a formal Victorian cast to it, not smeared or sketch and gray, but precise and clear echoing a bit of the well-lit world of The Shining. In an afterword interview, Hill says the series is as much influenced by the work of Richard Matheson as it is Lovecraft. He says the last 12 panels are completely a tribute to Matheson's world ( cf., Hell House, Shrinking Man). Pretty cool to be back in Lovecraft and connected to the key house, again.
Profile Image for Leah.
696 reviews86 followers
February 10, 2018
3 reluctantly given stars.

I really enjoyed the story but didn't realize it was so short and this was primarily for the interview, some art, and behind the scenes/process of how the comic is made. That's my fault for not realizing that but I'm allowed to be annoyed.

The story itself was good. I liked seeing an earlier Locke generation and how they used the key and hinted at how open they were with the other keys.

As always, the art and writing worked well together.

I just wish a "deluxe edition" felt more, you know, deluxe? I would suggest looking for just the single issue version and saving some money.
Profile Image for Baba.
3,804 reviews1,255 followers
February 13, 2020
Although the one-time special Locke and Key bring added historical stories, I feel overall they weaken the brand, and look more like ways to generate extra income than anything else!
.
It's the Harland and Ian era at the dawn of the 20th Century, and the girls get the benefit of the Small World Key when gifted a dollhouse that mirrors reality... and it all goes wrong when the house gets a visitor.
.
Definitely read (via library) for completist reasons and nothing else. 6 out of 12, just for the Small World Key concepts and seeing Harland and Ian again.
Profile Image for Tony Vacation.
423 reviews311 followers
February 11, 2018
A 24 page story padded with 50 pages of facsimiles of Hill's handwritten and note-laden script of the aforementioned (to show inquiring minds and wannabe writers how the son of one of the most popular authors in the world writes a comic book). The story itself is lightweight, charming and trivial; and by now Gabriel Rodríguez has matured enough as an artist to create pleasing sights for the eye instead of the goofy sophomoric imagery that plagued early issues of Locke and Key. This story of a magical dollhouse and a behemoth black widow spider also features the previous generation of the magic-key-wielding family that dominated the stories in Locke & Key: Heaven and Earth. Again, for diehard Locke & Keyheads only.
Profile Image for Ashley Daviau.
2,045 reviews989 followers
March 28, 2021
Ahhh, what a treat to be able to dip my toes into this wonderful world again. I fell in love with what Hill and Rodriguez created and I was itching for more. This little gem certainly delivered. It was completely different from the original series which I wasn’t expecting and I ended up LOVING. The story was do enthralling and I was so sad it was so terribly short. That’s actually why I had to deduct a star, it was just too fleeting. I felt it was cut short abruptly and was incredibly disappointed it ended so quickly, it felt unfinished. But despite that it was still wonderful and I continue to be utterly amazed at the artwork, just out of this world!
Profile Image for Shadowdenizen.
829 reviews40 followers
August 20, 2017
Since many Locke & Key fans aren't aware of this title, and a handful of people have asked.. I thought people might find this blurb useful.

As best I can gather at this point, the plan going forward for this saga is to do a series of one-offs/one-shots before another major arc (tenatively called World War Key)

So this one-shot issue is out now (both physically and digitally) and this takes place after the main story, and is a Prequel (of sorts) to the new arc. [Though that new arc seems to be WAY down the line, so whether this will connect directly or not? Who knows?)
Profile Image for Paul.
563 reviews184 followers
March 18, 2018
On the short side but great art and good story. Hopefully a more meaty prequel will appear based on the characters in this.
Profile Image for Mindi.
1,365 reviews265 followers
December 29, 2017
Small World is a single comic edition that contains some other goodies that relate to the Locke & Key universe, as well as the process behind creating this comic.

The story is centered around the ancestors of the original Locke & Key family. This comic is about the Locke family of 1912, and a new key, the Small World Key. Combined with a replica dollhouse of Keyhouse, the Locke children can see what anyone in the house is doing at any time, just by peering into the windows. Mary and Jean are the Locke family girls, and their father Chamberlin gives Mary the key for her 10th birthday. Chamberlin tells Mary that it's very important to use the key wisely and not lose track of it, so of course Jean swipes the key from Mary and puts all the Lockes in danger.

This comic was a lot of fun, and I'm really invested now in this era of the Locke family. Chamberlin and his wife Fiona have 4 children, 2 boys named John and Ian, and their sisters Mary and Jean. They live in Keyhouse with Chamberlin's brother Harland and the Locke family cat.

This edition contains a conversation with Ted Adams, Joe Hill, and Gabriel Rodriguez, an art gallery, and a section called From Script to Page that shows numerous hand written notes by Joe Hill, as well as details regarding the creation of a gorgeous two-page spread that introduces the characters.
Profile Image for Andrew.
2,384 reviews
May 23, 2018
Okay so here we are with the second special one shot Locke and Key book however its not really a one shot as the characters in this book appear in the other one shot and sadly it would appear that should have been read AFTER this one - hmm who would have thought it.

Anyway the book itself - this is really for the true fan (do I consider myself one I am not sure) as yes there is a great story in here but there is also a lot of padding as well - from preliminary artwork and designs to copies of the original notes of the story you would have read at the start of the book.

That said this is a tantalising view in to possibly something new and exiting in Lovecraft country and this could be (at least hinted at in the authors notes) of a new series - a prequel series if you like set in a totally different era of the key house and in the history of the keys themselves.

DO not get me wrong this is a great read - I just feel that some indication that this would have been bette read first might have helped. (if you have read Heaven and Earth you know what I mean).

The artwork is still spectacular and the story still as tight as ever - so yes I think I am a true fan of the Locke and Key universe - so hurry up and give us some more one shots or even better a new series all together.
Profile Image for José.
486 reviews270 followers
January 15, 2017
¡Una nueva historia de Locke & Key! Esta la primera serie de novelas gráficas que leí y me encantó, presenta un mundo muy raro, personajes excelentes y seres aterradores.

Small World es una historia corta ambientada muchos años antes de la serie principal y no tiene relación directa con la misma; simplemente nos presenta a algunos antepasados de los protagonistas.
Lo mejor de todo es que es apenas el comienzo de una serie de novelas gráficas independientes ambientadas en el universo de Locke & Key y luego Joe Hill y Gabriel Rodriguez comenzarán a publicar una nueva serie titulada World War Key, ¡no puedo esperar! :D

Si te interesa conocer más acerca de estas excelentes novelas gráficas, puedes leer la entrada que escribí acerca de ellas en este enlace.
Profile Image for Zedsdead.
1,236 reviews77 followers
April 13, 2017
A short story about the Small World Key, which activates a three foot tall detailed model of the Keyhouse. Things inserted into the model appear in giant form in the Keyhouse itself. This is a problem because:
1) spiders, and
2) four year olds like to wipe boogers inside three foot tall detailed models of things.

It's nice to revisit the world of L&K, to once again explore Gabriel Rodriquez's phenomenally detailed art. But there's not much to this single issue story. It's just, "here's a thing that could happen in a world of magic keys the end." It needs more.

In a transcribed interview at the end, Rodriguez excitedly talks about plans for another six-volume story arc, and then Hill immediately drops a wet blanket on that possibility. Le sigh.
Profile Image for Cameron Chaney.
Author 8 books2,080 followers
April 4, 2017
This book is really less of a story and more of a behind-the-scenes companion to the series. There is a very short story offing a tiny glimpse into the history of Keyhouse, but it doesn't really contribute anything to the original story. While I'm excited to see more Locke & Key material (and am excited for the new stories Joe and Gabriel have planned), this one just wasn't that special. I did like the behind-the-scenes material though.
Profile Image for Tecilli Tapia.
207 reviews21 followers
March 9, 2021
Creo que los dibujos siguen siendo muy buenos, pero la historia no me impresionó.
Profile Image for Maria.
227 reviews15 followers
January 3, 2017
I was so happy when I saw Issue 1 at the store. The Locke & Key series is one of my favorite collections of graphic novels.

Issue 1, Small World, is another time but the same place. The reader gets to experience an earlier generation of the Locke family. This family is fully aware of all the keys and uses them significantly. We are introduced to a new key that of course unleashes a deadly foe.

This is a very quick read, and lets us see another version of Lockes. For me it was good but not great. I wasn't attached to these characters, and there wasn't any depth developed. It's too short for that and I think that's the point.

Being in the house again and seeing the keys utilized and a part of daily life was cool. I'll continue to read any future issues released and was happy to return to this world. I would like to get to know these older Lockes and see how the generations evolve.
Profile Image for Ryan.
5,023 reviews28 followers
March 10, 2020
Welcome back to the Key House. If you thought the fun ended after book six, then prepare for a short but fun wild ride. This story takes place in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s. We are given no exact time time. The current members of the house have just had a birthday, and are gifted a special doll house. This doll house keeps track of everyone in Key house, and things that happen inside it, effect the Key House as a whole. When a little someone sneaks a play, a dangerous foe is set loose. Only the furriest of felines will be able to save everyone. This was super short and most of the book is about the TV adaptation that is in the works, or who the series came about. It was a great look into a story I love.
#LitsyAtoZGN
#booked2020 #bottomofTBR
#beatthebacklist
Profile Image for Rick.
2,842 reviews
January 20, 2017
Here I am doing it again. Writing a review for a single comic. Ok, so this is a one-shot (or done-in-one for those in Europe), but still...
This is a prequel to the entire Locke & Key but should definitely be read after the series if you want the full impact of the series (which is really, really good). Still the story and art are easily as good as the rest of the series. The creators are back at full steam, and they've let themselves run amuck in that house again. These guys are at the at the peak of their collaborative talents. And this comic is a delightful mix of horror with a touch of humor. Definitely worth checking out, and I Rickommend the entire series.
Profile Image for Chris Lemmerman.
Author 7 books108 followers
January 22, 2021
Short and sweet - a flashback story to a previous Locke family, whose birthday gift to their young girls turns into a house of horrors when an enormous spider takes over the house. A little ingenuity and some very brave children (and their cat) save the day.

Hill's plot is brisk but feels robust despite the small page count, and Rodriguez' artwork is excellent as ever - the giant spider is absolutely chilling.

The hardcover collection also includes an interview with the pair which has some interesting insight into the future of the series, as well as some script-to-page behind the scenes notes for those interested.
Profile Image for Jamie Stewart.
Author 11 books173 followers
November 9, 2021
I’d love to gift this story five story, and there is nothing wrong here; Hill’s story telling is as good as ever, especially the character development, and the Rodrigues art is equally brilliant, but it’s slightness prevents me from doing so. It’s just too short, I’d love for the team to get together and do more.
Profile Image for Shannon Appelcline.
Author 25 books149 followers
March 18, 2020
I'd really like to see the rest of The Golden Age, but this is a nice teaser (and it turns out to be more, since it's the framework for really understanding who the characters are in "Locke & Key: Heaven and Earth and Locke and Key: Dog Days. It's fun to see a different era of Lockes, and Hill has done a great job of characterizing these people in 24 short pages. It's also interesting to see a much more magical take on the Locke house. However, the story is simple and shallow.
Profile Image for Daniela.
239 reviews57 followers
December 23, 2016
Jean is my new favourite Locke! She's the cutest! What a wonderful Christmas gift from Joe and Gabe!
Profile Image for Jason.
140 reviews
March 4, 2017
Didn't realize that this was one issue. While the art was top notch the story was quite a bit lacking.

Plus it was one issue!
Profile Image for Malex.
433 reviews39 followers
February 16, 2020
Fun story about Chamberlin Locke's family and how the keys provide a never-ending source of adventures 😁


Chamberlin appears as a ghost in the main Locke & Key series and the one-shot stories that have been released are about his family:
- Locke & Key: Small World, about his whole family and their life at Keyhouse.
- Locke and Key: Guide to the Known Keys, about his son Ian.
- Locke & Key: Grindhouse, about a break-in at Keyhouse when his daughters Mary and Jean, now adults, are living there.
- Locke and Key: Dog Days, about Mary's children.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 292 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.