I never read a whole lot of Stephen King, but in recent years I've read a few of his short stories (particularly the ones made into movies I've liked) and generally I've enjoyed them. I don't know much about his Dark Tower series except that it took him a really long time to write the whole series and lots of people were eagerly awaiting the publication of the final volume back in 2003 when I was working at a bookstore. It's described as a blend of genres, including fantasy, western, horror, and science fiction.
This book turned up at our local library recently and I decided to take a look. King worked with the folks at Marvel Comics to start turning The Dark Tower into a comic book series. It's illustrated by Jae Lee, who has a dark gothic style that matches the story really well. (I'd previously seen some work by Lee for an article in Wired magazine and was impressed.) The story in this volume centers around Roland Deschain, a young man from a line of "gunslingers," apparently something a bit like knighthood in a Western movie. He and his friends set out on a mission, working against the evil John Farson.
It's a richly-created world and the illustrations are striking, but I can't help but feel that the language in the original novels is probably stronger than David's adaptation. Even with plenty of narrative text boxes, I'm sure there's much that's left out, and King's made-up High Speech sounds a bit stilted in the small portions doled out here.
If I come across more of these at the library in the future, I'll probably have a look, but I'm thinking it may be a better bet to go look for the originals.
Fed to jonathan's brain | February 19, 2008
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