Treat for 'Dark Tower' Fans

Bill Radford - The Gazette

Mar 06, 2008

Marvel Comics returns to the world of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" this week with the first issue of "Dark Tower: The Long Road Home."

The five-issue miniseries is a follow-up to last year's well-received "The Gunslinger Born," which explored the past of Roland Deschain, the hero of King's "Dark Tower" novels.

"The Long Road Home" picks up where "The Gunslinger Born" left off, with the young Roland and his friends in deadly danger.

The same team that produced "The Gunslinger Born" is back for the new series. It's written by "Dark Tower" expert Robin Furth and best-selling author (and veteran comics writer) Peter David, illustrated in stunning style by Jae Lee and Richard Isanove, and overseen, as Marvel says, "by the watchful eyes of Stephen King."

"The `Dark Tower' comics really are the result of intense collaborative effort," Furth said via e-mail.

Furth, in concert with King, creates the plot and works with editor Ralph Macchio to break down the story issue by issue. Lee and David offer their input, and then the story goes to Lee, who breaks the story down further panel by panel and draws each issue. Then it goes to Isanove for coloring and David for scripting.

"To be totally honest, Robin and Jae are doing the heavy lifting when it comes to telling the story," David said, also via e-mail.

Once Lee is done with his part, it's David's job to "pull it all together with the narrative, conveying the characterization, the mood and the story."

King weighs in at several points in the process, including a final thumbs-up before each issue goes to press.

At first David found it a bit nerve-racking to have King looking over his shoulder in a sense, but he now feels more confident with his place in the creative process.

"The only `direct' feedback I've gotten is when I met Steve face to face at the N.Y. con and he told me what a great job I was doing," David said. "The rest of his comments have been relayed to me through the editors, which is the way the process should occur."

For Marvel senior editor Macchio, editing the series has been a dream job.

"I remember sitting in the first meeting we had with him (King) at Marvel and thinking: I can't believe I'm in the same room as Stephen King and he's going to be doing a major project with Marvel," Macchio said.

Macchio has been a fan of King's "Dark Tower" novels from the beginning.

"I found that first book so fascinating. It was like nothing I'd ever read before. It was so difficult to pigeonhole as belonging to any single genre. It was a Western, but it was a fantasy, but it was horror; it was so many things."

Furth, the researcher and writer of the two-volume "Stephen King's The Dark Tower: A Concordance," believes bringing "The Dark Tower" to comics has resulted in new "Dark Tower" readers and new comic book readers.

"At both the New York Comic Con and the Heroes Convention in North Carolina,," she said, "I spoke to `Dark Tower' fans who'd never read comic books before, but who were enjoying `The Gunslinger Born.'

"I also met a lot of comic book readers who were discovering Roland Deschain and Mid-World for the first time. It's really gratifying to be part of a project that has such a diverse readership."

MORE ONLINE

www.marvel.com www.stephenking.com/DarkTower

----

More book news

Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion