Stephen King And Comics? A New Love Affair

Stephen King has been flirting with Marvel Comics the past couple of years working on three mini-series (7, 5 & 6 issues respectively) based on his Dark Tower series of novels. The first was called "The Gunslinger Born" and retold the early tales from Roland's life in DT:4 Wizard & Glass. The second series, "The Long Road Home", all original material taking place after the events of DT:4 and before DT:1 (the events of 4 are a flashback to Roland's youth). "Treachery", more new material debuts in September.

With the overwhelming success and beautiful, amazing artwork, King has been branching out. Planned also for September is a mini-series of 5 issues based on "The Stand", King fans' longstanding favorite post-apocalyptic novel, featuring the ultimate bad guy, Randall Flagg, the walkin' dude, the wandering stranger... the dark man. Should be excellent from what we've seen so far from marvel.

Now, just released and created specifically for small screen, is the new animated comic "N". Based on an unpublished short story from an upcoming collection, "N" is tale of a psychologist driven mad and the "thin-ness" between worlds. I've only seen the first 5 episodes so far, but man, has it turned out nice. Superior production values. Planned are 25 episodes, one each day M-F until the end of August. Should be a treat. I've embedded the player below if you want to take a peek. Each episode should show up as the days progress and are only about 2 minutes a piece, so not a huge time waster. If you watch, be sure to start with episode one, they preset to the newest one. You may have to watch one 15 sec. commercial every 5 episodes or so. Sorry 'bout that!





Given the nature and success of King's film versions of his books (the films being generally terrible) comics seem to be the way to go for him. With the exception of his dramatic, non-supernatural movies (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile) the rest of his works translate very poorly to film. Christine anyone? Or when the source material is so abandoned as to make it unwatchable (The Lawnmower Man, please!)? Comics may be right up King's alley. The artwork and dedication Marvel has put into the translations have done them justice indeed, the fantastical elements are just so much believable when done this way. Bravo!

I definitely hope to see more from Marvel & King over the coming years.