Slashdot Mirror
Dark Tower Comic Series Confirmed
uberbastard writes "For all of you die-hard fans of Stephen King's epic Dark Tower series, it looks like we're in for an extension. Stephen King and Marvel comics will be teaming up along with renowned artist Jae Lee to create an original comic series based on The Dark Tower. From the article: 'The comics will work in conjunction with the novels, further supplementing and defining the saga's mythology under the direction of the acclaimed author himself.'"
... which the author feels compelled to conclude with a plea not to drive by his house and take out his mailbox with a baseball bat, is probably best left concluded.
Marvel has brought high profile writers from outside the comic genre before, like Scott Orson Card on Ultimate Iron Man
I wonder how DC will respond, if they'll respond at all.
sorry..I meant Orson Scott Card, I can never remember his name right!
I hope that gets included in the storyline. I want to know what happened that led up to that final battle on jericho hill.
I loved the series. My only gripe was King slowly added more "stuff" to the universe that wasn't there in the first one (where the universe was introduced). So, it'll be nice to get the back story and more information on stuff that "appeared" 1/2 through the series. I guess I'll have to shell out the cash for this one.
I haven't read "Ender's Game" so I only know that he's a high profile writer and his Iron Man stories didn't impress me much.
:P
Still, it's cool that someone is named 'Card'.. now all he needs is to call his son video
Anyone else wonder at first, 'Isn't Dork Tower already a comic?'
For the most part I hope that Stephen King is doing this by his own volition, a desire to expand his genre to the more visual aspects.
I have been following Roland around for the last 15 years and enjoyed every book. As a kid I was a huge comic book fan but as most I grew out of it. Now it looks like I will return. Good news indeed. Heil Gunslinger.
You'll get off scot free! That Orson is such a card!
...the X-Men are attacked by umm...A LAMP MONSTER...ooowowwooowoooh!
The book King wrote, "Dragon's Eye", reveals a great deal about Flagg, for those interested. It's an old book, fairly difficult to find.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
SEO abundant guest alliance Devotes to the SEO research, altogether makes an effort the share cooperation! Impels Chinese SEO the development! http://www.9lolo.com/
His writings are a guilty pleasure and will not last long after his death. I remember reading his short story "The Body"(the movie stand by me was based on this). He took four freaking pages to describe the damn body.
Could we have a comics section please?
Cheers,
Ian
Needful Things. Also touches upon the Tower series, I think...
"The Eyes of the Dragon" speaks about some more previous incarnations of Flagg, or the Dark One, or the Walkin Dude (The Stand). When will we see something more on him? Let's see - who's the real protagonist here?
I haven't read more than an excerpt from the Tower series, unfortunately. WILL take it up seriously now.
-clueless
Chat with other atheists http://secularchat.org
Yeah, after what happened with the last 2 dark tower books i'm not going to be buying these comics. I dont want to spoil it but the way it ended was pure crap. Also, I saw no jack sawyer...WHERE WAS MY BELOVED JACK?
~~Altephfour Chat operator for G4TV
The end to the series, the final solution as to what lies behind the final door, was the probably the best I've ever read (only second to Asimov's The Last Question .
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
Um, skip this submission and don't read the coments?
Have you read the last revision of the first book? It got a freaking taheen brute-forced into it completely out of the story line! It does [maybe] help holding the series together, still IMHO it just sticks out as a sore thumb :-(
My other Beowulf cluster is... er...
Many Dark Tower fans praise Wizard and Glass as the best of the series. And most fans will agree that there are many unanswered questions at the end of Dark Tower VII, so any exposition, even a comic book, is most welcome. I did not like the way Randall Flagg was handled at all. The "resolution" of his story clashed jarringly with everything that was known about Maerlyn, and about what kind of creature he was ("His name is Legion. He is the King of Nowhere.") There is a lot missing about the nature of the Guardians, Maturin especially. Most of all, the connections with other books aren't satisfactorily resolved.. for instance, It... is It simply a glammer, a vampire, or something more? Is It the Crimson King himself, and is Black Thirteen the object that It arrived in? Are the Deadlights what everyone thinks they are? What is the connection between The Mist and the Dark Tower series? And what are the names of the rest of the Guardians, besides Shardik and Maturin?
I can tell you exactly when the story turn sour for me. the introduction of a character who's initials are S. K. there were a few bright spots after that but very few. And the ending? I wanted my time and money back! I should have listened to him when he warned us to stop reading.. "no ending" was better than the real "ending" heck any ending would have been.
Let it lay Mr. King.. Let it lay.
-Jason
I agree wholeheartedly! I've wondered for years how they might make a movie or series of movies based on these books. I never once thought about a graphic novel series. It is a much better fit than just about any other visual media. I've always suspected King also wanted another crack at editing and expanding the saga of Roland. Now he has the chance.
But I heard here on Slashdot that Stephen King was dead...?
Yup...
Same here.
King at one time said part 5,6 or 7 would be a flashback like part 4 was.
I was very dissapointed how it ended. The series started off so well and I even enjoyed part 5, but the last two were rushed. It was clear he lost interest.
WTF was the crimson king? What happened to Roland's dad? What happened to the witch?
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
Y'know, this is one of the reasons I like reading Stephen King (and watching Joss Whedon).
In life, not everything is explained, and when people do try to explain it, they are often full of shit. This is something that holds true in KIng's stories as well.
we shouldn't expect to learn all of the answers.
we shouldn't expect to learn all of the answers.
Of course not, just the major plot lines.
Don't get me wrong, I've read most of stephen king's books and he's still my favorite author.
I'm psyched that he's part of creating these comics and I'm really looking forward to getting back to Roland's world.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
Why, he's one of the most King-appropriate comic book artists I can think of.
http://images.google.com/images?q=jae+lee -- Google Images has lots of his stuff.
dont screw this up, im already at book 5 in the series called wolves of calla
the dark tower series roxxx
You are told what basically happens. Roland and company fight John Farson's army, everyone dies but Roland, the Horn of Eld is lost, etc. The rest of it is left to the imagination (which King assumes his readers have). I mean you are not exactly told how the hotel in The Shining came to be haunted.
Stephen King was planning to write a lot more, but was unable to due to the fact that he recently realized he was mortal. He had to get his story down, and now that he is finished (isn't he officially retired now?), he can direct other people to expand the world he had created.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
People still make comics?
You are told what basically happens. Roland and company fight John Farson's army, everyone dies but Roland, the Horn of Eld is lost, etc. The rest of it is left to the imagination (which King assumes his readers have). I mean you are not exactly told how the hotel in The Shining came to be haunted.
I might be a little biased against the ending. I picked up part 5 not long after finally finishing Return of the King and its appendices. Tolkien was nothing if not thorough.
I know they are totally different writers, but Stephen King did take quite a bit from tolkien's story.
King did explain that Roland was the sole survivor of the battle of Jericho Hill, but Rhea of the Coos was a major player in the story. And she just disappeared after tricking Roland in Gilead.
We can't assume that she was even at Jericho Hill or hanging out with evil santa in the tower.
Sure she might have just decided to hide out and lay low, but after what she did to Roland, his vengenance should have been directed at her more than Walter, Farson, and the Crimson King combined.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
Someone has already mentioned Needful Things. Flagg's character shows up in a lot of books, often as Randall, or the Walkin' Dude. The Stand also involves Flagg. I can't think of any more off the top of my head, but he has a presence.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Want to read a King that makes no sense? I recommend From A Buick 8, or if you want one that makes no sense AND sucks, Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.
I certainly do think they should keep King away from writing the dialogue, but as far as the plots go, they are perfect comic world material. No real linear storyline, and it jumps around like you wouldn't believe. Only the Batman universe has nearly as many breaks. I got tired of having to buy from three or four different comic lines to just read one story. Ever tried reading how Bruce Wayne got acquited from his murder charges in the Gotham Nights line? You have to buy a few Robins, and a couple of the Azraels to know. I still don't what went on there.
Yes, I said it.
Really? I think the beauty of the Dark Tower universe is that nothing is absolute.
You're right, we shouldn't expect all the answers.
However, with regard to the Dark Tower, there's a pretty clear (and pretty unfortunate) division between books 1-4 and the rest: the pre-accident and post-accident era. King's near-death experience profoundly affected him (heck, the fact that he writes the guy who hit him into the story--a guy who, you'll remember, killed himself not too long after the event in question--is testament to that by itself), and frankly, I think his writing suffered in the aftermath. A few people theorized that part of the problem is that his editors "went easy" on him afterwards, and that he was rushing to complete the series "just in case."
I agree with the grandparent that the series ended on a slow, disappointing note. No, I didn't expect everything to be explained. What I did expect, however, was storytelling that made up for the lack of clear explanations. Books 1-4 had this in spades. 5-7? Exposition, exposition, exposition. The characters are no longer "effortlessly" the characters we got used to; instead, they're almost forced in mannerisms and attitudes. Et cetera.
They weren't bad, but they weren't great, and as one who thinks that Stephen King is a profoundly underrated author (yes, yes, he's popular, but I think he has a grasp of literary technique that he is rarely acknowledged as posessing) I expected more.
From a Buick 8 made sense--it's about how the profoundly unordinary can be absorbed by day-to-day life--but its structure didn't do it any favors, I agree.
I never said it was lost forever.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Bango Skank was here
I started reading Stephen King books back when Carrie first came out. I really enjoyed most of them, but in recent years his quality has dropped. Most of my friends have been wondering why I continue reading his books because like they say, "His early books were good, but it's pretty much just crap any more." I have every book he published. I really enjoyed the first three books of the Dark Tower series. The ending to book three pissed me off because of the "cliff-hanger" ending. What made it worse is the way he started book four. Can anyone whose read it say that was an honest conclusion to the climax of the third book? I don't think so. The quality of the series continued to go downhill from there. I see a few people commenting on how they thought the ending and what was behind the final door was great. I can't disagree more. I thought that was the most amatuer ending of any of his books and that's saying quite a bit. Sad to say, but I've stopped purchasing SK books and the poor quality ones will be finding themselves in the closet as I find new books to replace them on my bookshelves.
I'm left with The Stand (another one that was great until the end), It (ditto), Salem's Lot, Misery, Christine, The Dead Zone, The Shining, The Night Shift Collection, Firestarter, Pet Semetery and Carrie. I tried to stay a loyal fan and I made it much longer than others I know, but after all those years of the Dark Tower to end like that...I'm done.
But why is the rum gone?
What you have is class envy.
Diddi-chik?
And as a follow up:
Daddi-chum?
Support the FairTax