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Dark Tower Comic Series Confirmed

Posted by Zonk on Sat Oct 29, 2005 01:29 AM
from the king-fans-squee-for-joy dept.
Books Media
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.'"
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  • Any series of novels.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 29 2005, @01:32AM (#13903262)
    ... 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.
  • I hope that gets included in the storyline. I want to know what happened that led up to that final battle on jericho hill.
    • 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?
        • 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.
          • " Of course not, just the major plot lines."

            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 t

            • 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 wri
        • 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 afterm

  • Awesome (Score:5, Interesting)

    by somethinghollow (530478) on Saturday October 29 2005, @01:37AM (#13903281) Homepage Journal
    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.

      • Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)

        by somethinghollow (530478) on Saturday October 29 2005, @03:51AM (#13903697) Homepage Journal
        I just mean in the "suspension of disbelief" kinda way. In the first book, we discover that physics of Mid-World is the same as our universe. We discover that magic exists in Mid-world. We discover that there are doors between universes when we meet Jake. We discover that there are mutants (which explains other bizarre animals in later books). We know time doesn't quite make sense any more. We learn alot.

        I can't think of any concrete examples at this time (it's been over a year since I re-read from the beginning -- and almost 10 years since I read Gunslinger -- and almost 6 months since I finished the last book), but I know I had some "WTF" moments where it seemed like things were just made up on-the-fly (and I don't think S.K. would disagree, since he claims to write books as-they-come, not with a pre-planned plot).

        I'm not arguing about it's ability to exist in that universe, just that it's nice if it's introduced from the get go instead of 1/2 way through the story. But seeing that the story was written over decades, unplanned, I can't expect anything more.

        Don't get me wrong. It's my favorite series of books (and as a whole, my favorite story), beating out The Vampire Chronicles by a good margin.
        • I'll whole-heartedly agree that it feels like he's just making stuff up at some points. When you're reading alsong and everything's going well them BAM you're in The Wizard of Oz it'a bit unsetteling. I feel like he had a good enough epic tale to tell without gettin into modern-day mythos. I understand that he wrote what felt right at the time, but I feel like some of it wa cheapened by harking on topics we all know. My argumnets being said... I'm looking forward to a comic and, hopefully, a 10+ hour movi
        • Don't get me wrong. It's my favorite series of books (and as a whole, my favorite story), beating out The Vampire Chronicles by a good margin.

          After finishing wolves of the calla I would have agree about it being my favorite series of book. Part 6 really killed it for me though. It was a huge boring book that did very little for the massive plot.
          I like part 7 somewhat, good action and it kept me interested, but how can anyone not feel a little cheated with the ending?

          Dark tower series is probably my seco
          • By the time the ending rolled around I was prepared for just about anything. Considering the author (not to mention the copious foreshadowing) I saw no reason why the ending couldn't be absolutely pitch black.

            So I don't feel cheated at all. I actually thought the ending was very fitting to the rambling and informal way that much of the story was written. It's the sort of ending you might expect from one of the original, un-sanitized "fairy tales".
          • He does, but I don't know how I feel about such retconning. I'd prefer the later books fit the earlier books, rather than creatively remixing the earlier books to make certain ISSUES OF IMPORTANCE (19, Walter=Flagg) fit the new continuity.
      • Adding more 'stuff' to the universe is part of the creation process...

        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 :-(

        • I wanted to read it (something about some certain number and death that I know nothing about), but apparently the copy I ended up with when I re-read it was an older one. Sounds bad :\. It is better when it flows well. I'll try to pick it up one day.
      • True enough, and part of the writer's craft is to introduce that new stuff in such a way as to make it seem like it was there all the time. The reaction you want is "Oh of course!" not "WTF!" Too many WTF moments among too many readers and you're probably not doing it right.

        Personally, I didn't didn't have a problem with the evolution of the Roland's world. The first one seemed to mix elements of gunslingers, high fantasy and post-apocalypse. I had more trouble with the fact that the narrative kept retur

  • Huh (Score:4, Funny)

    by coljrigg (810394) on Saturday October 29 2005, @01:44AM (#13903312)
    Anyone else wonder at first, 'Isn't Dork Tower already a comic?'

  • Expand on Roland's youth (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Phoenixhunter (588958) on Saturday October 29 2005, @01:56AM (#13903343)
    Sounds similar to what George RR Martin did with adapting one of his short stories "The Hedge Knight" into a six-part comic. Roland has quite a few years unaccounted for, and touched upon in at least one of Stephen King's short stories that I'm aware of.

    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.

    • 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.

      That or he's feeling guilt for having his fans read 7 long books without resolving some basic plot lines.
      In the preface on one of the early books (3 or 4.. can't remember) he said he would dedicate more time to Roland's youth.
      I'd love to see a comic dealing with the fall of Gilead.
  • 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.
  • 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.

  • Don't extend the end (Score:3, Interesting)

    by GroeFaZ (850443) on Saturday October 29 2005, @03:14AM (#13903592)
    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 [wikipedia.org].
  • 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

  • But...? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Altima(BoB) (602987) on Saturday October 29 2005, @07:31AM (#13904120)
    But I heard here on Slashdot that Stephen King was dead...?
  • 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.com] -- Google Images has lots of his stuff.
  • People still make comics?

  • Huge Let-Down (Score:4, Informative)

    by fdiskne1 (219834) on Saturday October 29 2005, @05:10PM (#13906327)
    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.
  • Diddi-chik?

    And as a follow up:
    Daddi-chum?
    • Bingo! You mention "Stephen King" and "death" in a single sentence without being a troll!!! (Ahh, I guess I'm too old to remember that. Maybe we need to revive that? On second thought, maybe not...)
    • Hear, hear...however, more on track with the topic, the idea of a comic series for "The Dark Tower" books leaves me feeling rather torn. I read all of the books and enjoyed the first five of them...then he started indulging in narcissistic fantasies...I don't know, maybe I just missed something...he implores you at the end of the final book to not read beyond a certain point...so I didn't...by that time, it became apparent to me that the whole point of this series was to push the reader off of a cliff...I

      • I for one found the end to be very fitting, plus it opens up an interesting possibility: another writer could now pick up the story of the Dark Tower, and write it as he sees fit, tying it into his own bibliography... I know it ain't gonna happen, no way King is gonna sign the rights to TDT away, but maybe someone might pick up the story again once it ends up in the public domain. Doubt I'd still be around to read the result though; last time I checked my due date was way before 2500AD. ;)

        No, what I had m

        • Don't get me wrong; I still love the series, but book 4 was somewhat of a disappointment: waiting for years for the story to progress, and being treated to a history lesson instead. And everything after that felt somehow rushed and... cheap...

          I remeber feeling that way when I stared reading book 4. I was realy digging the post-apocalyptic surreal world, then BAM, we're heading out to the old west. But the story of Roland with his buddies and Susand Delgado was pretty interesting so I really ended up likin

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