I hate to tell you what these graphic novels are about, because it really takes away from the magic of reading the whole first volume. What I would like to say is that they’re creative, they’re brilliantly done, and if you’re easily disturbed I wouldn’t recommend reading the first one before bed. Whether you read graphic novels often, or this is your first one, this series is a great example of what graphic novels can be and I would definitely recommend giving it a try.

With that said! If you have read the series and are as geeked up about it as I am, you should know that…..

(If you don’t want to be spoiled about these books you shouldn’t read this list, you know.)

1) I cannot wait for the fifth volume and wish I’d started this sooner so that picking up individual comics would have been a bit easier. But still. I’m so excited! Volume four left off in such an amazing place.

2) There is a board game! And I want to beat you at it, and everyone else. I wish it came with keys.

3) There are keys! They’re cool looking and I want to wear the head key on a necklace.

4) Fox made a pilot for the show, but it didn’t get green lit, so it will probably never be. It’s okay though because if Fox had picked it up, they just would have cancelled it anyway, because they cancel everything I love. (Browncoats unite!) Anyhow, there is a trailer for the show that will never be! And I can’t stress how you’ll be spoiled if you watch it and haven’t read the books. I think it would have been a pretty cool show…. and it would have been a much cooler one on Showtime or HBO.

So, have you read Locke & Key? What’d you think? If you haven’t read it, will you check it out now because you trust my brilliant taste? And also, do you read graphic novels in general? It seems like a lot of people I know are interested in checking out graphic novels, but never know where to start.

Instead of telling you all about how awesome this book was, or all about how you should check out the Geek Girls Book Club that inspired me to read it in the first place, I’m going to shove some of my favorite things from the 80s at you in spirit of the book!

The sunglasses. These babies do not get mentioned enough, and is always one of the first things I think of when I think of the 80s. I have a deep appreciation for dorky sunglasses, and the 1980s really helps glorify that. The sunglasses from that time were so over the top I think they deserve a standing ovation. Three cheers for being this awesome! This bold! This in your face! (I also appreciate bad puns).

And we can’t talk about the 80s without talking about the glorious music. This is what singing in the car with your friends is made of, people! I wish it was easier to just post my spotify playlist here to try and force you to listen to it, but instead for the highlight reel I’m going to go with REO Speedwagon – Keep On Loving You, Men Without Hats – The Safety Dance, and Blondie – Heart of Glass. Seriously, if you haven’t sung these songs in the car with other people, you are missing out. Ridiculous sunglasses give you extra fun bonus points.

I don’t know how anyone talks about the 1980s without thinking of John Hughes movies. Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Some Kind of Wonderful, and Uncle Buck. But there are also those unforgettable fantasy flicks of the 80s that are really some of my favorites. We’ve got Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, and Ladyhawke (which holds a special place in Ready Player One), just to name a few.

What pops into your head when you think of the 1980s? And have you read Ready Player One?

* To be clear, this is in no way a ranking list of anything, just the things that first pop into my mind when I think of celebrating the culture of the 80s.

After the debacle with the palm tree Pieces decided that his strategy of being somewhere up high was still sound-he just needed to be careful about where he went. Nowhere he could be skewered seemed like a good place to start and so when he heard voices on the other side of the doorway he knew he was in the right place at the right time. Or, so he thought.

Eyes wide in terror, he hung from the door completely stuck in place. He may have been able to find a way to become unwedged had his arm not fallen off and caught on his leg. There was nothing left to do but wait for the rest of Pieces’ pieces to fall free…

While he hung in the doorway waiting, all the while losing hope that he’d ever find the BRAINS! he was searching for, his wide eyes caught sight of easier prey down the way…..

+ I love lists. Whenever my husband and I are having a serious conversation I’ll say “Hold on!” and run to grab some paper and pens. Whenever he suggests it first, he gets a kiss.

+ For two years I worked and lived at a retirement community as a night manager. This mostly involved being around and responding when typically able seniors would fall or have some kind of issue in their apartment and would call for help. I would then sit with them, call 911, and listen to them tell me about world war two. Really, it’s all about world war two, guys.

+ I once saw a U-Haul truck and thought “Oh my god! What is my dad doing here?!” for about five minutes before I remembered that is not actually his car. We moved a lot when I was a kid, usually with about three different cars, and my dad always drove the U-Haul truck.

+ When my family talks about events and when they happened, we identify the time period by what street we were living on at the time. I have no idea what happened in 1996 until someone says “Berry Creek! We were living on Berry Creek!” and then I can tell you all about how I spent the year watching Saved By The Bell reruns.

+ I used to write stories about Frankenstein monster’s family, and drew pictures to go along with them. They had a boy, a girl, and a dog—all with green boxes for heads.

+ This summer our car died in a graveyard. I still think that’s funny. The tow guy confirmed that it was the weirdest place he’d ever come to tow a car. If your car is going to break down in 105 degree weather, there better damn well be something to laugh about.

+ You can show me pretty much any still shot of Full House and I can tell you what’s going on in that episode.

How do you end a list post?

If I can’t pick the right music for my mood, I have a very hard time moving to actually working and filling up that blank page. My thoughts become disjointed, my body tense, and each word if a hard struggle.

But with the right sounds? It’s like my body falls into tune. My mind and shoulders relax, outside my headphones is the fast tip, tap, tip tap of the keys, but I don’t even notice the soothing sound. It feels like I’ve hit the right frequency to let me slide into another world, and I’m gone. The wrong song comes on, I snap out, hit the skip button, and slide right back in.

There are certainly days that don’t work like this, but they mostly go down as the days I couldn’t find a single agreeable song. In contrast, there have definitely been those days where I’ve listened to just one song loudly on repeat for hours on end to reach the conclusion of a story it inspired.

Music is more than just my inspiration, or even my motivation, it’s part of my writing routine. Though my words are hopefully always changing, my routine changes little, and when it does, my relationship with music always stays the same. The music I listen to helps mark my days.

Do you have a music routine, some other routine that helps you work, or are you one of those people that avoids routines?

Well, it seemed like a really brilliant idea at the time, I promise you. Climb palm tree. Wait for brains to go by. Jump out. BRAINS! Simple, really. But there was an unknown factor that came to play straight away: palm trees are tricky. From a distance you would never realize, but as you can hopefully see in this picture, they are pokey.

But Pieces persevered and got to the top, and waited. And waited. And then when it finally happened and a brain walked by and he went to make his daring jump for the prize-he was stuck. He was skewered. It took a good ten minutes to get his young body free and by then the brains had long gone by.

Like I said. Palm trees are tricky.

Breaking Twig. This is my first official book of 2012. It’s a story about growing up in the worst circumstances. It’s not the books events that have really stayed with me, though there’s always something happening, it’s the characters that made me really appreciate the book. They’re real, they’re interesting, they grow, and when the book was over I wanted to reach in and give them a hug for all we’ve been through together.

I think this book is only available in ebook formats, but if you’re good with that I recommend it.

Everyone Gets Scared Sometimes. I love reading short stories. Daily Science Fiction has a ton of great flash fiction that you can read if you think you just don’t have time to read. Some are better than others, and this is one that really stood out for me lately. Zombie apocalypse, post traumatic stress…. brilliant.

Looking For Alaska. I know that everyone is reading The Fault in Our Stars right now, but this is my first John Green experience. I’d seen a lot of people in love with this book, and now I know why. This book was laugh out loud funny. It’s one of those great gems that made me both laugh and cry, and another book with real characters I just wanted to hug. I feel like everyone should read this book.

Obviously, I need to read more John Green, and will really be doing this soon. Promise.

So, what have you read lately?

Meet Pieces. It wasn’t that long ago that his life began in the labs at think geek, but since then his adventures have taken him far for such a young zombie. While trying to keep his parts together, he is currently exploring the Sonoran Desert in his unending quest for brains.

Tune in on Fridays for his dangerous exploits with cactus, playgrounds, and the dangers of youth.

It all started when Buffy graduated high school. I’d seen enough sitcoms (Boy Meets World, Saved by the Bell) to know that when they leave high school and head off to college they’re about to ruin my damned show. It really broke my heart to see it happen to Buffy, especially after we’d just had such an amazing ending to Season 3, but alas, I knew it was true. We were going to college. Angel was leaving. A spinoff show? Yeah, ’cause THAT always goes well…. Farewell, sweet show, I loved you so.

And while I know a lot of people rag on Season 4, I really liked it. There are some low points, but there are some amazing ones, too. How can you be mean to a season that has Hush, Something Blue, and my favorite Halloween episode, ever?

And Angel! Oh, Angel! You’re not bad at all. You make me weep like a baby, but I can work with that.

So, okay, Joss. I’m still with you, after all. Oh, Season 5 Buffy is mysteriously getting a little sister? Why do you do this to me. You’re ruining my show!

Oh…okay…this is interesting…..

A MUSICAL?! WHAT THE?! … oh my god, it’s the best thing, ever….

And you’d think I’d have learned, after going through all of that, but I didn’t. And when I was at my weekly Joss meet up group and someone brought up that there was a new Joss show, I got excited—until they said “scifi western”. It filled me with dread. It got canceled after thirteen episodes? Well, of course it did, my god. If it weren’t for the peer pressure of a bunch of geeks wanting to watch it RIGHT THEN, I never would have given it a chance at all.

Oh. My. God. Firefly… Okay, I see the error of my ways now, Lord.

I went home that day with an important lesson that has stayed with me and given me an important motto. In Joss We Trust. We never question the Joss until after we experience the phenomena, to avoid feeling embarrassed about our ridiculous lack of faith later. So now when I hear something like he has a new film coming out in April and someone starts trying to tell me what it’s about I stop them. “No, no, that’s okay, I don’t need to know what it’s about. I have the faith.”

Most evenings I can be found lounging in bed with my husband. We both have a kindle in hand and we’re often accompanied by a few comic books, possibly some fruit, and hot chocolate. The only sounds you hear are the occasional laughs where we then stop, shake the other out of their book, and proceed to tell them all about what just happened. We often end up reading the same books (most recently Ready Player One) but we talk just as much about ones that only one of us has read. We always take our characters lives seriously and get upset when the others favorite character dies as if it were their close friend. These are the days of our lives.

I suppose I just always assumed that for the most part that if you are a reader then your partner was one too. I recently came across a forum post, fifty comments long, full of people talking about how their partners complained about their reading or how they’re mostly left alone while their partner watches television.

After reading through the thread I immediately went to my husband. “Do you know how lucky you are to be married to a geeky girl like me, Mister?” I can’t imagine how frustrated I would be if I couldn’t have all of those long conversations about books with Robert.

So, it has me curious. What about you? Does your partner read? Do they complain about your reading? Do you ever talk about books?