Locke & Key - Coming Soon To A Theater Near You

Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez' acclaimed supernatural comic book series Locke & Key has been optioned by Universal to be developed as a feature film. The film will be produced by Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci - writers on the Star Trek and Transformers movies - through their Universal-based K/O Paper Products outfit. It will be co-produced with Ted Adams, the CEO and publisher of IDW Publishing. IDW Publishing is the company that publishes the Locke & Key comic series. For Univeral, the project will be overseen by Executive VP Jon Mone and Creative Executive Jay Polidoro.

This is not Hollywood's first bid at making a Locke & Key feature film. Initially, Dimension had the screen rights but they lapsed in 2010. That's when the superstar writers of Star Trek, Transformers and Fringe jumped in. K/O Paper Products and DeamWorks TV produced a pilot for Fox TV in an attempt to make the property a TV series but Fox turned it down. Although K/O Paper Products tried to shop the series around, no one picked it up - apparently due to budgetary constraints.

Locke & Key tells the story of three siblings who move to their ancestral home in Massachusetts after the gruesome murder of their father. The siblings discover that the house has magical keys that give their possessor a wide and varying array of powers and abilities, depending on the key. However, the family is forced to make a stand against evil when they realize that a deviously evil creature is also after the keys. As their popularity grew, Locke & Key expanded to tell a coming of age tale encompassing two generations and filled with heroism, tragedy, thrills and chills.

The Locke & Key graphic novel collections have been featured multiple times in the New York Times bestseller list, including the #1 spot on the list. The Locke & Key comics have garnered Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez multiple Eisner Awards nominations. The series has twice won the British Fantasy Award for best comic/graphic novel.

Joe Hill's claim to fame is not limited to the Locke & Key series. Hill is also the son of bestselling author Stephen King and the author of horror novels such as Heart-Shaped Box and NOS4A2. The latter won Hill an Eisner Award for best writer.

Pedophiles and Dragon*Con

Edward Elliot Kramer, 51, is one of the co-founders of Dragon*Con, the role-playing/gaming convention held in Atlanta, Georgia every year.  He is currently in jail facing charges of child molestation dating back to the year 2000.

Kramer was first arrested on August 25, 2000, accused with sexually abusing three teenage boys.  He was believed physically incapable to stand trial due to spinal and respiratory problems, so he was released on bond.  He resigned from Dragon*Con that same year.

Initially, he was under house arrest for several years.  Later, he was allowed to travel between Georgia and New Jersey/New York to receive medical treatment or to visit his mother.  However, he was required to report his location weekly and prohibited from having unsupervised contact with children under 16.  Then, on September 2011, Kramer was arrested again, this time in Connecticut, when he was found alone in a hotel room with a 14 year old boy.  He was extradited to Georgia last month.

The reason this news relates to our hobby is that Swamp Thing creator/contributor Nancy A. Collins and Transformers producer Don Murphy have started a boycott against Dragon*Con until it severs its ties with Kramer.  According to Deadline Hollywood:

"In the 1990s, Collins had a professional relationship with Kramer that included co-editing an anthology of horror stories and increasing involvement in Dragon*Con.  She broke ties with Kramer shortly before his arrest in 2000 as a result of what she says was the inappropriate interest he had toward her 12-year old step son.  After Kramer's arrest, Collins was among the first to speak publicly against him[.]"

Kramer is a 31% minority shareholder and reportedly pocketed $150,000 from the 2011 Dragon*Con.  This is money that, according to Collins, has "enabled Kramer's defense lawyers to delay trial indefinitely with an array of legal maneuvers."  Murphy agrees:

"There's absolutely no excuse for the fact that one cent of this money should go to enable a pedophile to be free to molest again.  I will do everything in my power to make sure that nobody associated with Transformers or Vampire Academy or any of my many comic book-related projects has anything to do with Dragon*Con while that's still the case."

Swamp Thing artist Stephen Bissette, Marvel and DC comics writer Ron Marz, Girl Genius creators Phil and Kaja Foglio, Bubba Ho-Tep creator Joe R. Lansdale, screenwriter John Shirley, and A Distant Soil author Colleen Doran also support the boycott.

For their part, Dragon*Con reportedly offered Kramer $500,000 to divest his ownership stake and go away, but he refused, and stockholders can't be forced to sell the shares they own.  As for Collins' suggestion to dissolve the Dragon*Con corporation and start a new one without Kramer, under Georgia law, voluntary dissolution cannot occur while the corporation has pending legal disputes, and Kramer and Dragon*Con are currently involved in litigation regarding Kramer's rights as a minority shareholder.

If you were given the option to go to Dragon*Con this year, would you take it knowing you would be putting money in the pockets of accused pedophile Edward Elliot Kramer or would you support the boycott by not attending Dragon*Con?