The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy (27 page)

1.
Time to Be Men
—Father Callahan speaks up in Calla Bryn Sturgis

2.
She Lifted It to Her Mouth
—Susannah on her nightly foraging expedition

3.
Gunslingers, to Me!
—The battle at Jericho Hill

4.
Do You See Him?
—Eddie and Susannah confront one of the vagrant dead

5.
Come-Come-Commala
—Roland dances for the people of Calla Bryn Sturgis

6.
Its Blade Gleams Brightly
—Father Callahan prepares to kill a vampire attacking Lupe Delgado

7.
She Throws It Hard
—Molly Doolin kills one of the Wolves

8.
The Searchlight Goes on Again
—Calvin Tower saves Father Callahan from the Hitler Brothers

9.
Riza
—Susannah Dean demonstrates her skills with the Oriza

10.
The Reclining Skeleton Grinned at Him
—Jake and Oy in the Dogan

11.
You Stainless-steel Bastard
—Eddie shoots Andy

12.
For Gilead and the Calla
—Roland takes the first shot in the battle with the Wolves

S
ONG OF
S
USANNAH

Artist: Darrell Anderson

Like Dave McKean, Anderson's artwork stands apart from the rest because of its abstract composition. He deliberately made the color paintings suggestive and abstract so that there would be room for interpretation by the viewer, though they are, in general, more accessible than McKean's. He contributed ten color paintings, along with endpaper artwork and spot illustrations for the beginnings of each of the thirteen “stanzas” and the coda.

The color prints are:

1.
Bursts of Green Lightning
—the Beamquake

2.
He Sees the Doors, at Least a Thousand of Them
—Jake's vision of a multitude of doors as he works with the Manni to open the Unfound Door

3.
Huge Rock Formations Sawed at the Sky
—Discordia as seen from the Castle on the Abyss

4.
“Down!” Roland Bellowed
—the gunfight in Bridgton, Maine

5.
…Signed His Name in a Quick Scrawl
—Calvin Tower signs over the vacant lot to Tet Corporation

6.
Susannah Closes Her Eyes
—Susannah enters her mental Dogan (also the cover art)

7.
Into a Forest of Watching Faces
—Roland and Eddie approach Stephen King's house

8.
…
Ka
Comes to Me
—Stephen King

9.
Two Hammarskjöld Plaza
—the Black Tower in Manhattan, with the rose overlaid

10.
Emerging from the Shirt's Collar Was the Head of a Bird
—A taheen in the Dixie Pig

T
HE
D
ARK
T
OWER

Artist: Michael Whelan

In an interview printed in
Knowing Darkness: Artists Inspired by Stephen King
, Whelan admits that he was “stoked” when he was asked to illustrate the final book in the series. In addition to the wraparound painting for the dust jacket that shows Roland standing at the base of the Tower among roses, with a Beam in the background—which is also included as an interior two-page illustration—Whelan contributed eleven paintings to the final book in the series. He also designed the endpapers and full-page black-and-white illustrations for the book's major sections and contributed nearly three dozen black-and-white drawings, one for the end of each of the novel's chapters.

The color illustrations are:

1.
The White Commands You
—Father Callahan in the Dixie Pig

2.
Come on Then, You Bastards
—Jake (armed with Orizas) and Oy at the New York–Fedic door

3.
Will You?
—Randall Flagg

4.
He Reached for It Again
—Walter and Mordred

5.
Below Them in the Seeping Light Was the Village
—Roland, Jake and Oy above Blue Heaven

6.
He Moved in Between Jake and Eddie
—Susannah, Jake, Eddie, Oy and Roland after the battle in Blue Heaven, with dead humes and taheen scattered around them

7.
The Place Where Roland Finally Stopped Felt More Like a Church Than a Clearing
—Roland carries Jake into the woods

8.
He Sat on His Throne, Which Is Made of Skulls
—the Crimson King

9.
Woe to Whoever Happened to Be in His Path
—Mordred Deschain in Empathica

10.
It Would Never Open Again
—Roland in front of the doorway marked
THE ARTIST

11.
His Face Went Slack with a Peculiar Sort of Ecstasy
—Patrick Danville

12.
The Dark Tower
—a two-page spread reproducing the cover art

O
THER
A
RTISTS

Other artists have tackled the subject of the Dark Tower over the years. These include Alan M. Clark, who chose Roland at the Tower for his subject matter for the cover of
The Stephen King Universe
by Stanley Wiater, Christopher Golden and Hank Wagner. Movie poster artist Drew Struzan created a painting of Roland and the Tower to be used in the movie
The Mist
.

Though much of this artwork can be found online in various forms, the ideal place to see it is in a book called
Knowing Darkness: Artists Inspired by Stephen King
from Centipede Press. Though the book is rare and quite expensive, it is enormous, which means the artwork is displayed in a format even bigger than the “originals” in the Grant books.

Illustrating the Dark Tower series went in a completely different direction in 2007 with the launch of Marvel's graphic novel adaptation of the early parts of Roland Deschain's life and quest.

I
NTRODUCTION

In 2006, two years after the final book in the Dark Tower series was published, Marvel announced plans to release a series of Dark Tower graphic novels. From Marvel's perspective, it was a chance to open up the world of comics to a whole new audience, and from King's perspective it was an opportunity to introduce the Dark Tower series to a new generation of readers, people who might migrate from the graphic novels to the books themselves.

King said that one reason he agreed to the plan was that he felt there probably would never be a Dark Tower movie and that this adaptation would be the next best thing.

Before the deal was announced, King visited the Marvel offices to discuss what kind of Dark Tower stories he could tell in this format. According to Joe Quesada, Marvel's editor in chief, within ten minutes King reeled off a number of complete stories about Roland's adventures, enough to fill several paperbacks.

While some fans of the series hoped that these monthly installments would pick up with the story where it ends at the conclusion of
The Dark Tower
, King wanted the story to begin with Roland's coming of age, moving on to the Mejis story that is told in
Wizard and Glass
. He wanted to explore events that were important in Roland's development as the last gunslinger.

From that point, it expands on things that are not mentioned or only briefly alluded to in the novels. The journey back to Gilead is greatly expanded. For the first time, readers learn how Farson's forces regroup after their defeat in Hamby and rise against Gilead, eventually sacking it. The climax of the series was to be the battle of Jericho Hill, where the gunslingers made their last stand. King went into a lot of detail about what happened during that final battle.

His research assistant, Robin Furth, was listening in on the phone and transcribing these stories. It would be her job to write the scripts for the graphic novels. As the author of
Stephen King's The Dark Tower: A Concordance
, she had access to the fruits of her vast research into the mythos and was able to bring in and develop characters who were only briefly mentioned in the novels.

The adaptation was conceived as thirty issues broken up into five self-contained arcs or miniseries. These were titled The Gunslinger Born, The Long Road Home, Treachery, Fall of Gilead and Battle of Jericho Hill, each with between five and seven issues. The Gunslinger Born was released in February 2007, with new issues appearing at one-month intervals. Originally, Marvel planned a five-to-six-week break between each miniseries to allow the artists to get a head start on the next installment. However, they discovered they were losing readers during those breaks, so they were shortened.

Though a passing familiarity with the Dark Tower books will no doubt enhance a reader's enjoyment of these graphic novels, the creators intended for them to stand by themselves and to be accessible to people who have never read the books or, for that matter, comics.

A press release from Diamond stated, “King is directly involved in the creative aspects of this project, supervising all editorial and visual content. Robin Furth…is outlining the Dark Tower comic book series, providing scene-by-scene plotting and maintaining the continuity and consistency of each story arc.” In other words, as executive editor and creative director of the series, King didn't write the scripts from which the graphic novels are created, but the stories have his stamp of approval.

Should the incidents within them be treated as part of the Dark Tower canon? There is some debate among Dark Tower fans on this matter. Many consider this, like Discordia, to be part of an expanded universe and thus not canon. Since this visual medium is different from prose, the creators have taken some liberty with the known “facts” and there are times when the graphic novels contradict King's books. King said that he wanted to give a lot of creative control to other imaginations that he had come to respect. See also his comments about the graphic novels in his interview in this book.

In addition to the story arcs, Marvel ordered a number of single-issue references (
Gunslinger's Guidebook
,
Guide to Gilead
and
End-World Almanac
), along with some single- or two-issue stories:
The Sorcerer
and
Sheemie's Tale
, for example.

Robin Furth also writes essays in each issue that elaborate on the Dark Tower mythology, covering such diverse topics as the geography of
Mid-World, the Guardians of the Beam and the magic number nineteen. She often seeks King's input and approval when writing these essays, but they are her own creations and not King's.

Marvel promoted the series heavily, producing a trailer, screensavers, a free promotional volume that was given out at comic book stores a few months before the launch date and midnight launches for the different series with artists and writers on hand. Collectible issues with variant covers by noted comic book artists were released. The issues were among the most popular titles from Marvel throughout their five-year run.

T
HE
G
UNSLINGER
B
ORN

Original release dates:
February 2007 through August 2007 (7 issues)

Credits:

•
Creative Director and Executive Director:
Stephen King

•
Plotting and Consultation:
Robin Furth

•
Script:
Peter David

•
Art:
Jae Lee and Richard Isanove

•
Lettering:
Chris Eliopoulos

As with
The Gunslinger
, issue one of The Gunslinger Born introduces the man in black before Roland and delivers the iconic opening sentence of the first novel among some rather chaotic visuals. Then Roland is introduced in all his glory in a two-page spread that also drops in the concepts of
ka
and the Dark Tower.

Turning the page, readers see a new image of Roland in a similar stance. His face, which aligns neatly with the one on the previous page, is younger. Fourteen-year-old Roland has his hawk on his outstretched arm and his fellow gunslingers-in-training are with him. In rapid succession, readers are introduced to Roland Deschain, Cuthbert Allgood, Alain Johns, Thomas Whitman (mentioned only in passing in
The Gunslinger
) and their fighting instructor, Cort.

The story picks up with Marten Broadcloak exposing Roland to his mother's infidelity, which goads him into his test of manhood, presumably before he's ready. The story of Roland using his hawk, David, against Cort follows the tale Roland told Jake Chambers in
The Gunslinger
, except for a scene that shows Marten's reaction to Roland's victory.

While Roland's father is chastising him for acting rashly and allowing Marten to manipulate him so easily, Marten shifts into the guise of Walter o'Dim and communes with his master, the Crimson King, at his infernal
castle via Black Thirteen, which isn't introduced in King's novels until
Wolves of the Calla
.

This scene introduces the pink orb from the Wizard's Rainbow that will play an important part in Roland's adventure in Mejis, The appearance of the Crimson King here is also unique, in that the Lord of the Spiders is offstage for most of the Dark Tower series, appearing in person only at the end of
The Dark Tower
. They discuss John Farson's planned ambush at the Shavéd Mountains, which Roland learns about only near the end of his stay in Mejis.

The Crimson King knows of a prophecy that says Roland will one day be the end of him and his minions. Steven sends men to arrest Marten, but the wizard turns them into dogs and vanishes through a magic door that he draws on the wall with chalk.

The elder gunslingers send Roland, Cuthbert and Alain to Mejis to count horses, but also to see if the oil fields there can supply Farson with fuel for the machines of the Great Old Ones. This is another way the graphic novels diverge subtly from King's text. Roland learns of the Citgo field and Farson's plan only after he arrives in Hambry.