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IDW Limited Releases Deluxe Limited-Edition ‘Locke & Key: Head Games’

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IDW Limited is at it again, this time they are releasing an “ultra-exclusive” limited-edition hardcover of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s “Locke & Key: Head Games”. This edition comes with a tray case an exclusive photo portfolio, a Head or Echo Key, and a secret compartment containing pages from the Locke family journal. If you’re an avid “Locke & Key” fan and you’re looking to get yourself something special this holiday season, look no further. There are a few version of the release ranging form $175 to $600, each offering something unique.

Official Press Release:

San Diego, CA (December 4th, 2013) The story of Locke & Key may be coming to a close, but IDW Limited is just getting started. Available today from IDWLimited.com, fans can pre-order Locke & Key: Head Games in a new deluxe, limited-edition format (http://idwlimited.com/series/locke-key.html). This oversized hardcover comes packaged in an exclusive tray case and cover only available through this release. Each book is packed with extras, including: an exclusive photo portfolio, a Head or Echo Key produced by Skelton Crew Studios just for this edition, and a secret compartment containing pages from the Locke family journal!

“As a writer, the IDW Limited Head Games is the stuff of daydreams, the kind of thing that seems like couldn’t exist in the real world,” said series writer and creator Joe Hill. “It’s a glorious presentation of Gabriel Rodriguez’s art, wrapped up in a giant, jaw-dropping, heart-breakingly beautiful hardcover. And that doesn’t even get into the extras.”

“It’s both an honor and a pleasure to see what IDW Limited is doing with these special editions of Locke & Key. The series went beyond our wildest dreams,” added Eisner award-winning series artist, Gabe Rodriguez. “To see these books made with such care and love, in this spectacular format, and with contributions from top-of-the-line artists, contributing their own fantastic and beautiful visions of Locke & Key’s mythology is a blessing. I hope readers will enjoy them even more as both Joe and myself are receiving this as a gift.”

Black and Blue Label editions of this limited-edition collection will feature original art from an impressive group of artists, including David Petersen, Langdon Foss, Alan Robinson, and Jim Mahfood. Black Label books (10 copies available per artist) will feature artists working on a sketch plate with a background by Gabriel Rodriguez, while Blue Label books (3 copies per artist) will come with a cover interpretation by the guest artist.

“Locke & Key has been a triumph of masterful storytelling on the part of Joe Hill and amazing visuals by Gabriel Rodriguez,” said IDW Chief Creative Officer/Editor-in-Chief and Locke & Key Editor Chris Ryall. “So for us to offer an IDW Limited edition of Locke & Key with art by someone other than Gabe, who has been the sole artist on the series for its entire run, we wanted to make sure we had a stellar line-up in place. And it’s been a blast to see these characters and the world Gabe’s created come to visual life in other talented artists’ hands. Add to that the deluxe package created around the art and it’s a great showpiece for passionate Locke & Key fans.”

Locke & Key: Head Games is available now on idwlimited.com – pre-order now before you’re locked out.

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[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream

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Tender Beth Hetland Graphic Novel

Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge.

“I’ve wanted this more than anything.”

Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s Tender such a refreshing change of pace. It’s earnest, honest, and impossibly exposed. Tender takes the body horror subgenre and brilliantly and subversively mixes it together with a narrative that’s steeped in the societal expectations that women face on a daily basis, whether it comes to empowerment, family, or sexuality. It single-handedly beats other 2023 and ‘24 feminine horror texts like American Horror Story: Delicate, Sick, Lisa Frankenstein, and Immaculate at their own game.

Hetland’s Tender is American Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Swallow. It’s also absolutely not for the faint of heart.

Right from the jump, Tender grabs hold of its audience and doesn’t let go. Carolanne’s quest for romantic fulfillment, validation, and a grander purpose is easy to empathize with and an effective framework for this woeful saga. Carolanne’s wounds cut so deep simply because they’re so incredibly commonplace. Everybody wants to feel wanted.

Tender is full of beautiful, gross, expressive artwork that makes the reader squirm in their seat and itch. Hetland’s drawings are simultaneously minimalist and comprehensively layered. They’re  reminiscent of Charles Burns’ Black Hole, in the best way possible. There’s consistently inspired and striking use of spot coloring that elevates Hetland’s story whenever it’s incorporated, invading Tender’s muted world.

Hetland employs effective, economical storytelling that makes clever use of panels and scene construction so that Tender can breeze through exposition and get to the story’s gooey, aching heart. There’s an excellent page that depicts Carolanne’s menial domestic tasks where the repetitive panels grow increasingly smaller to illustrate the formulaic rut that her life has become. It’s magical. Tender is full of creative devices like this that further let the reader into Carolanne’s mind without ever getting clunky or explicit on the matter. The graphic novel is bookended with a simple moment that shifts from sweet to suffocating.

Tender gives the audience a proper sense of who Carolanne is right away. Hetland adeptly defines her protagonist so that readers are immediately on her side, praying that she gets her “happily ever after,” and makes it out of this sick story alive…And then they’re rapidly wishing for the opposite and utterly aghast over this chameleon. There’s also some creative experimentation with non-linear storytelling that gets to the root of Carolanne and continually recontextualizes who she is and what she wants out of life so that the audience is kept on guard.

Tender casually transforms from a picture-perfect rom-com, right down to the visual style, into a haunting horror story. There’s such a natural quality to how Tender presents the melancholy manner in which a relationship — and life — can decay. Once the horror elements hit, they hit hard, like a jackhammer, and don’t relent. It’s hard not to wince and grimace through Tender’s terrifying images. They’re reminiscent of the nightmarish dadaist visuals from The Ring’s cursed videotape, distilled to blunt comic panels that the reader is forced to confront and digest, rather than something that simply flickers through their mind and is gone a moment later. Tender makes its audience marinate in its mania and incubates its horror as if it’s a gestating fetus in their womb.

Tender tells a powerful, emotional, disturbing story, but its secret weapon may be its sublime pacing. Hetland paces Tender in such an exceptional manner, so that it takes its time, sneaks up on the reader, and gets under their skin until they’re dreading where the story will go next. Tender pushes the audience right up to the edge so that they’re practically begging that Carolanne won’t do the things that she does, yet the other shoe always drops in the most devastating manner. Audiences will read Tender with clenched fists that make it a struggle to turn each page, although they won’t be able to stop. Tender isn’t a short story, at more than 160 pages, but readers will want to take their time and relish each page so that this macabre story lasts for as long as possible before it cascades to its tragic conclusion. 

Tender is an accomplished and uncomfortable debut graphic novel from Hetland that reveals a strong, unflinching voice that’s the perfect fit for horror. Tender indulges in heightened flights of fancy and toes the line with the supernatural. However, Tender is so successful at what it does because it’s so grounded in reality and presents a horror story that’s all too common in society. It’s a heartbreaking meditation on loneliness and codependency that’s one of 2024’s must-read horror graphic novels.

‘Tender,’ by Beth Hetland and published by Fantagraphics, is now available.

4 out of 5 skulls

Tender graphic novel review

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