Skeleton Key Volume 1: Beyond The Threshold

Skeleton Key #1

by Andi Watson

Tamsin Mary Cates' boring high school existence is turned upside down when she obtains the Skeleton Key, an artifact that can open doors to anywhere. Liberated from her small Canadian hometown, Tamsin becomes involved with a Japanese fox spirit, tea-drinking witches, and a closet monster. Can she cope with a typical teenage school life of parties, friends, bullies, and kung fu, as well?

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics

96 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1996

About the author

Andrew "Andi" Watson (born 1969) is a British cartoonist and illustrator best known for the graphic novels Breakfast After Noon, Slow News Day and his series Love Fights, published by Oni Press and Slave Labor Graphics.

Watson has also worked for more mainstream American comic publishers with some work at DC Comics, a twelve-issue limited series at Marvel Comics, with the majority at Dark Horse Comics, moving recently to Image Comics.

Reviews

[Mely · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very early Watson. The narration has some charm and he's already doing strong female characters, but the blocky drawing is overdone and ugly, the plotting is bumpy, and the characters not engaging. Some of the designs are interesting, but I like his later simpler art much better.

[lesleymac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too short! Really need to keep reading. Book one sets up the odd-girl-out situation nicely, but then it gets pretty weird and surreal. Took me a while to catch up. Still, interesting premise. I want to see how it plays out over the next book, at least.

[B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I agree with a lot of the reviewers that said the art was blocky and the text was hard to read - but just for chapter/issue one. Both improved greatly with each subsequent issue. What remained confusing throughout, however, were the action scenes. It was all too black with so much going on and no text that several places I had to study the images to try to figure out what was happening. What I understood of the book, I enjoyed.

[Rob McMonigal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read this classic series a few years ago. Andi does such a great job writing stories about young women who are trying to find their place.

[Weslyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty low four (probably should have left it at three) star for me. I enjoyed the concept, but I found the text difficult to read at times and the images were unclear. I found myself flipping back multiple times after the dialogue clarified what the previous images were. I liked the characters, but they definitely could have been developed a tiny bit more. I do love a black and white comic though and I’m sure I’ll read this one again at some point.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

finally happened, found a book by andi watson that Didn't impress me. guess it had to happe. the art isn't really clear in this book - the inks are way too heavy. and the art looks like it is done on a computer.

[Allie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who found the action hard to follow in this book, but I've seen later Skeleton Key books that were drawn a lot more clearly, and I enjoy watching an artist's process in figuring out what works so it doesn't worry me.