Locke And Key: Welcome To Lovecraft Special Edition 1:10 Retailer Incentive Variant

In Shops: 2009-09-09 ; SRP: $5.99 ; 76 Pages

IDW, published date: September 2009.

This is the 1:10 retailer incentive variant of Locke And Key: Welcome To Lovecraft Special Edition. Note that "RI CVR" is printed in the upper right of the UPC on the back cover (below):

This issue reprints the debut issue of Locke And Key (below) from 2008 and includes the script plus a new 11-page story.

The standard edition of the Special Edition (below, featuring a red foil logo) had a very low distribution (likely to have been less than 2,000 world-wide) and there were some rumours that only 150 copies of the 1:10 variant were produced but this is only anecdotal (another website based in the Netherlands states 400 copies as the print run, but this is not an official Joe Hill website).

Below is the blurb for the original first printing from 2008:

Acclaimed suspense novelist and New York Times best-selling author Joe Hill (Heart-Shaped Box) creates an all-new story of dark fantasy and wonder: Locke & Key. Written by Hill and featuring astounding artwork from Gabriel Rodriguez (Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show, Beowulf), Locke & Key tells of Keyhouse, an unlikely New England mansion, with fantastic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them.... and home to a hate-filled and relentless creature that will not rest until it forces open the most terrible door of them all...

The blurb for the 2009 Special Edition reprint, featured here, reads:

This special presentation of the debut issue of the Eisner-nominated Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft includes not only the actual script from Hill, but also a second bonus: an all-new 11-page story, 'Freddie Wertham Goes to Hell', written by Hill, drawn by the late Seth Fisher and presented in color here for the very first time.

Near the start of August 2018, the CGC census recorded 35 gradings for the "Variant Cover" with one copy grading 10.0 (Gem Mint) and three others grading 9.9 (Mint Minus), one of which was on a Signature Series label.

By August 2021, the number of gradings recorded on the CGC census had increased to 57 (no change to the four top graded copies).