There are already a couple of reviews up: MTV and Major Spoilers have lots of kind things to say about the end of this particular story.

What’s next for Locke & Key? The Clockworks hardcover will be out this summer, in time for San Diego Comic Con… and here’s a peek at Gabriel Rodriguez’s truly golden cover image:

There’ll also be an exclusive SDCC cover with a slightly more – ehrm – owlish look to it.

Late summer will see the release of Locke & Key: Grindhouse, a special standalone story, about some of Keyhouse’s earlier custodians. The issue will include an expanded Guide to Keyhouse itself, with a key (no pun intended) to all of the various rooms, views, and secrets.

The final Dodge vs. the Locke kids story will follow not long after, in the 7 issues that compose Locke & Key: Omega. It’ll be the conclusion of what has been a six year, 37 issue project, and Gabe and I are going to do our best to end it well. And while it will finish off the overarching narrative, Gabe and I expect to tell a few more stories set in Lovecraft, Massachusetts. There will, for sure, be more standalones, cos they’re fun to write, and refreshing for Gabe to draw, and you guys all seem to like ‘em.

Hope you all have some fun with the end of Clockworks… and thanks, as always, for reading our comic.

The story appeared in that Matheson tribute (HE IS LEGEND), had a turn as an audio book, was recently adapted by Nelson Daniel and Chris Ryall as a two-part comic, and as of today, you can now find it in the eBookstore of your choice as a standalone:

As an added bonus, the eBook includes some of Nelson Daniel’s concept sketches for the story. It’s illustrated just like yer little kid’s favorite picsure book, hoo hoo! Only don’t show this story to your little kid, on account of all the people gettin’ run over and macheted and butchered and so on.

Thanks much and if you haven’t had a chance to check “Throttle” out, hope you will, and hope it gives you a good ride.

So do I think internet memes qualify as art? I’m not sure. I’ll have to think on it for at least twenty-four hours. But my first reaction is… sure, yeah, almost definitely. I certainly believe the street art of Banksy and Shepard Fairey qualifies as real, capital-A Art; and to my mind Shepard Fairey’s famous OBEY series is just an internet meme that happens to be pasted up on buildings instead of websites.

(Shepard Fairey portrait by Elizabeth Daniels and snagged from TheGiant.org wiki)

That’s my first reaction, but my mind is wide open. Anyone want to disagree? Why’n't you hash this one out in the comments thread? That’s what it’s there for. Oh, and consider patronizing exp.lore.com and PBS’s YouTube Idea Channel for more tasty, chewy think pieces.

Me:

A few people out there are familiar with Terry Moore’s zen storytelling mastery; not enough, and I’m kind of sick of it. Go check out Echo, the 30-issue series that writer-artist Moore completed last year. It has the zip and swagger of those great early 80s SF smashes: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Starman, Superman II, and the first two Terminator movies. The cast of characters – anchored by a trio of strong, complicated, beautiful women – is Dickensian… by which I mean, each character is funny, distinct, memorable, and fascinating. The storyline, which concerns a woman who has been contaminated by super-powered buckyballs, and who soon discovers she can shoot laser beams from her boobs – YES – takes off like a ballistic missile, and never slows down. The subject matter is threaded through with compelling riffs on technology, quantum physics, and the frightening primacy of corporations in American culture. The violence is raw, bare-knuckled, and frequent, the way I like it. And then there’s a love story, and I’m a sucker for a satisfying, unforced love story. Echo is waiting for you. Get ye to a bookstore or your local comic shop, or fire up the ComiXology app and hunt it down.

What about you? Drop in on the comments thread, and spill a few words about a creator you love who you feel has been overlooked. It need not be a comic person; an unknown short story writer, a poet, a novelist, or a weird documentary film-maker would be just as good.

That would be the issue featuring “Open the Moon,” which is, for Gabe and I, just about the happiest we’ve ever been with any one LOCKE & KEY story. Our thanks to the Eisner judges for inviting us to their party.

I believe with all my heart that the most creative people in the world work in comics… it’s a field where everyone seems to have six brilliant ideas before breakfast. There’s so much talent, no awards ceremony can ever do more than scrape a little ice off the tip of the proverbial iceberg. There are a lot of amazing creators on the ballot, and there are a lot more who aren’t, but should and probably will be next year, or the year after. I’m just happy to be a part of a wonderful, crazy, happy, weird community.

Here’s a link to the full ballot.

On a vaguely related note, I’ve got piles and piles of LOCKE & KEY back issues lying around, and need to make some space in my long boxes. So I’m doin’ a thing with my friends at Jetpack Comics. Here’s the deal: the first 50 people to order a trade paperback, hardcover, or luxury edition of LOCKE & KEY from Jetpack will get a free signed issue… probably the Jetpack exclusive of HEAD GAMES #1, or CROWN OF SHADOWS #1, but I’ll throw some other issues in there, just to keep it interesting. Not only that, but the first 10 people to order the luxury edition of LOCKE & KEY will also get a free signed chapbook, selected at random out of my collection. At least one of ‘em is gonna be the “Voluntary Committal” chapbook I did a gajillion years ago with Subterranean Press, way before I managed to get a book published.

Here’s a link to the Jetpack site. This the very definition of a limited offer: 50 orders or so and we’re done. If you want, they got. Do I need to tell you they ship?

While I was at WonderCon, I had an on-the-fly chat with FearNet, and they grilled me about the new novel. The thing is called NOS4A2 (it’s a vanity license plate — try sounding it out) and stars a vicious country rube named Charlie Manx who just happens to be 140 years old. I spill a whole lot more about it in the video:

Hope that sounds good to everyone. Bad news: it won’t be out until April of 2013 at the very earliest (and later is a very real possibility – I won’t surrender a final draft to my publisher until I’m completely satisfied).

While I was in not-so-sunny Anaheim, I also blabbed with ThinkHero about THE CAPE and THE CAPE: 1969… my pal, Jason Ciaramella, the actual scripter behind these beasts, was on hand to chime in about what we’re doing:

(And here is the place where I feel obliged to mention that THE CAPE is a comic book based on my short story, from 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS. It has NOTHING TO DO with the shitty TV series of the same name, and besides, I got to that title first.)

Finally, and on a totally different subject… my friend Amanda Boyle, who once directed a beautiful and quiet short film based on my story “Pop Art”, has made a film/PSA to draw attention to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Hope you’ll check this one out and think about the kids in your life. Like the man said, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good folks to do nothin’.

Oh, and if you want to see Amanda’s adaptation of “Pop Art” – a story which expands on her preoccupation with neglected children – you can check it out here. Sorry, international viewers; only available to UK audiences.

On the surface it seems like a story about a bunch of highway badasses on bikes running from a homicidal motherfucker in an unstoppable truck, but if you peel back the surface, it’s really a searching look at the way modern capitalism perpetuates a system of global predation and… uh, no, wait, actually if you peel back the surface, you’ve still got a story about a madman in an unstoppable truck after some bikers. I think it’s fun all the same. Check it out: Chris and Nelson kicked this thing’s ass. ROAD RAGE continues in the months to come with an adaptation of Richard Matheson’s high-octane masterpiece, “Duel.”

In other news I rocketed off to WonderCon last weekend. The Comic Con people know how to send a man in style; fuck the plane, they shipped me my own jetpack:

Turns out handling a jetpack isn’t so easy, though. I caught a bad case of altitude sickness and, ah, let’s just say, you wouldn’t want to be the next person to wear that helmet.

Fortunately, there were several medical professionals at the show to look after me:

A loyal fan showed up early for my panel:

I thought, for a minute, it was William Shatner standing there, but no, just some dude. A little worried, I decided to have my eyes checked. I was in luck – it was no trouble at all to get a new prescription for my failing vision:

Figured I’d get myself some new headgear to go with the classy eyewear:

I heard somewhere Fezs are cool. Darth Vader doesn’t agree, however:

Y’know, so, there you go. Yer basic trip to the eye of a pop culture hurricane. Or, in other words: can’t fuckin’ wait until San Diego.

The fifth issue of LOCKE & KEY: CLOCKWORKS drops today. This is the one that loads the gun for the big finale of the CLOCKWORKS arc; hope you’ll check it out.

The CLOCKWORKS arc has been tremendously satisfying to work on; I’m just sorry for those poor kids. CLOCKWORKS is really the story of 6 sweet, loving friends, who are found guilty of being young, and are punished for it to the full extent of cosmic law.

In related news, I touch down in Anaheim tomorrow for a weekend of WonderCon action. I’ll be available to sign books and comics, and will be talking about the imagination business in a pair of panels. Here’s the schedule as it stands right now:

Friday, March 16th

4:30 – 5:30 – Signing LOCKE & KEY, THE CAPE, ROAD RAGE and the books at the IDW booth with Chris Ryall and Jason Ciaramella.

Saturday, March 17th

11 AM – LOCKE & KEY: THE GAME. I’ll be playing a couple matches of the Locke & Key card game with some folks picked at random. Come join in and have a couple hands with me at the Cryptozoic booth.

1:00 – 2:00 – SPOTLIGHT panel (will be interviewed by Chris Ryall). Room 213. The program suggests this will be followed by a practical pole-dancing demonstration, but the program lies.

3:00 – 4:00 – Signing LOCKE & KEY, THE CAPE, ROAD RAGE, and all the books at the IDW booth with Chris Ryall and Jason Ciaramella.

6:00 – 7:00 – HORROR IN COMICS panel, with Rebekah Isaacs, Mike Mignola, Eric Powell, and Scott Snyder. Room 213 again. Holy shit. It’s just hitting me I’m doing a panel with these guys. How f’n awesome is that?!?

Sunday, March 18th

1:00 – 2:00 – Signing in the IDW booth.

And stay tuned: there’s an excellent chance there’ll be a surprise game session at the Cryptozoic Booth. I’m hopin’ to sit down with some folks and have a couple rounds of the LOCKE & KEY game; while nothing has been formally scheduled, I kinda figure that one is gonna happen. Yep, game time on Saturday. See updated schedule.

Hope to see you there guys.

Big thanks to Jason Ciaramella, who scripted this thing from start to finish, and Zach Howard, who made The Cape one of the best looking comics of the last few years, and Nelson Daniel, who provided some of the most creative and inspired colors you’ll find anywhere. You guys rule; I count myself lucky to have had anything to do with this mag.