(Excerpts from the full interview that you can find in Things From Another World website, TFAW.com)

(Extracto de la entrevista completa que pueden encontrar en el sitio web Things From Another World, TFAW.com)

Full of humor, pathos, and a truly unique supernatural elements, Locke & Key has been nominated for an Eisner, and two story arcs, Welcome to Lovecraft and Head Games, are available as graphic novels. The first issue of the third arc, Crown of Shadows, will be released from IDW on November 25. Fortunately, we were lucky enough to be able to speak with the very enthusiastic Joe Hill and pick his brains about where Locke & Key is headed, and what he’s liking from the horror genre in general:

TFAW.com: One thing that really sets Locke & Key apart from other horror comics is it’s as much a family drama as it is a horror tale. What attracted you to that combination?

JH: One thing that often happens, when people do a horror movie, or a frightening TV show, or a horror comic, one mistake which often gets made is, there’s a big focus on the supernatural element and on the bad guy, but there’s no effort made to make the main characters likeable and unique and sympathetic. A lot of times they’re just types, and this is why so many of the slasher films are such a joke, why everyone laughs at them. Cause, you know, the teenagers in a Friday the 13th movie have all the emotional power of a paper target in a shooting gallery. No one really cares about them, they’re just there to be struck down by Jason.

For me, the first step to making a successful horror story is making sure the characters matter and are emotionally real and unique. You want the reader to invest in those characters and care about them, because then, when the guy shows up in the hockey mask, they’re really frightened for the main character, as opposed to just waiting to see how they get cut down.

So my intention was always to slow the pace down a little bit and focus on character as best as possible, and try to get the reader engaged in who these people are and see them as unique human beings, as opposed to types. But I think that’s true not just in horror–that’s true in every sort of storytelling. The first key element of telling a story that people care about is engaging them, making sure that they invest emotionally in the characters in the story. Because if you don’t have that, you don’t have anything.

TFAW.com: So Dodge is the ghost or the demon form of teenager Lucas Caravaggio. What was Lucas like? Was he always evil, and was he ever actually a teenager?

JH: In one sense, Dodge is the resurrection of Lucas Caravaggio. In another sense, he’s something quite a bit more, and quite a bit different. And we’re sort of revealing his true nature in the very first issue of Crown of Shadows.

You know, I was a big X-Files fan. Loved the X-Files, and I loved the first couple of seasons of Lost, but I think one problem with ongoing series, one way they sometimes go bad is they keep piling on the mystery. They keep piling on the questions. And after awhile there’s too much mystery. They raise more questions than they could ever possibly hope to answer. And so one thing I’m committed to with Locke & Key is making sure that when I raise a question, I have an answer, instead of continuously heaping on mystery after mystery. In each arc, some of the major questions get answered, so hopefully when we come to the end of this thing, the very final page of the very final issue, it will be about tying up the story for a final emotional resolution, as opposed to cleaning up messes. That would be terrible. No one wants to be in that kind of situation.

So in the very first issue of Crown of Shadows, one of the things that will be revealed is why Dodge is the way he is, and why he’s capable of such terrible things. Especially considering that once upon a time, Lucas Caravaggio was actually a heroic figure. Not a bad guy at all, but one of the best of the good guys, which is pretty strange to think about, considering how we met him and what he’s done since we’ve got to know him. In many ways, Dodge was as likable as Kinsey or Tyler.

TFAW.com: Can you tell us more about the questions that will be answered in Crown of Shadows?

JH: Let’s see. Well, we’re going to see a lot more of what makes Dodge tick. And we’re going to find out a little bit more about Sam Lesser. And we’re going to learn a little bit more about the Omega Key, which opens the black door. I don’t want to give it away–I want to avoid saying too much and telegraphing what we’re going to do. What I will say is there’s a big reveal on the last page of the last issue, and we’ll get an answer to one of the big questions that has been hanging around the story.

TFAW.com: I’ve heard that Locke & Key is going to be six miniseries. Do you think it could continue past that, or is that the end?

JH: Well, once I tell the story of Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode, I’ll be done with that. That doesn’t necessarily mean there will never be any more Locke & Key stories, but I will have told the story I want to tell. It’s important to remember that when I started Locke & Key, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I was still very green with this, I had only written three 11-page comic book stories, and when I did it, I had two notions. One was that it could be a continuing thing that would run somewhere between 36 and 48 issues. And I had a lot of the story plotted out. But I also wasn’t sure it would succeed–it could have tanked, or been a big bomb–so I also had a plan for six issues, and then if this thing had completely tanked, I had an escape hatch where I could finish the story in another six issues. And it wouldn’t have been very good, but it wouldn’t have been shameful, either.

Fortunately the comic did well, it’s been well received, it’s continued to build its readership, so I get to do the daydream, and I get to explore these stories in a very full kind of way. It’s taken me a little bit of thinking to figure out how many issues it’s going to take to tell the story, but I don’t like it when things are stretched out. So it’s possible that the series could go as many as 48 issues, but I’m aiming for 36, and I think it’s possible. I think I can tell everything I need to tell in 36. We’re going to see, though.