The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy (39 page)

A:   They both have their advantages. With a comic book, you work with an artist who brings his own talents to the endeavor. A good artist can elevate your story to a level of quality above the script that you've written. The flip side is that a lousy artist can drag it down, so that suddenly it seems to the reader as if you've forgotten how to write. I've had artists who were so bad even I couldn't stand to look at it. With novels, it's just you. There's no filter between you and the reader.

A:   I read the very first short story when it came out in
F&SF
. I remember reading it and thinking it was really unusual for King.
Honestly, I wasn't wild about it. I saw what he was going for but thought he hadn't quite gotten there yet. Then again, Dark Tower has been a fascinating exercise in watching a writer's development. As compelling as I thought the first entire book eventually turned out to be, I think Steve really found his voice for the series with the second novel, which was a quantum leap over the first. That's the advantage I've had in scripting the comic series: I've used the narrative styling of the subsequent books to inform the way I script the series.

A:   I receive the plot outline from Robin at the same time as everyone else. I read it over and if I have any comments, concerns and observations, I voice them. I've had to do that less and less since Robin's writing has gotten so much better over the years. In terms of actual production, scripting an issue takes me less than a day.

A:   It's standard practice for artists to go light on scenery in the upper half of the panel since that's where the majority of word balloons are going to go. I've been doing this for a while, so I can get pretty innovative with where to put the word balloons. Basically I place the balloons on B&W copies of the art using Magic Marker and then fax them to the editors, who are able to use them as guides for the letterer. I never feel constrained. I've been doing this for way too long.

A:   There were any number of times that I was surprised and intrigued with things that Robin came up with. I think, though, considering the admittedly different requirements of novels versus graphic novels, that the comics have been remarkably faithful. If nothing else, one of the reasons I developed the idea of a narrator was
because King fans are accustomed to reading. They read a
lot
. And King's books are narratively packed. I wanted people reading Dark Tower comics to have an experience akin to reading the novels. Having a narrative voice enabled me to have a natural reason to pack more words on a page in order to accommodate fan expectations for a Stephen King–related work.

A:   The difference is that I don't have to have the novel next to me. When we're doing stories that have already been told, I feel obligated to use as much of King's narrative as possible. Sometimes it's had some amusing results. One review writer swore that I had no feel for King's narrative at all, and he held up as an example of that a dialogue exchange that I had lifted word for word from King's prose.

A:   King. Unquestionably. It's impossible even under the best of circumstances to satisfy everyone. In this case, though, the only person whose opinion I cared about was Steve. If he was happy with it, that was what mattered. I'm reasonably sure everyone else on the project feels the same way. We're producing this comic for an
audience of one. If he's happy with it, we're happy with it. If the fans love it, hey, bonus.

A:   The original story line involving Susan that had such long-term ramifications for Roland and also the story line we're doing now, The Way Station, with the introduction of Jake.

A:   The biggest question is the fate of Rhea of the Cöos. To my mind, she looms almost as large in Roland's personal history, in terms of villainy, as the man in black does. Yet we have no details of their final confrontation other than a passing mention that he had killed her at some point. I would
love
to do a one-off issue with Robin (and, one would hope, Steve's input) that told that story. If for no other reason than that I hated Rhea more than any other villainous character in the series, but we never got to see her get hers.

A:   It didn't, really. The narrative style I developed was pretty much artist-proof. That's another one of the reasons I came up with it. Some are better storytellers than others. The narrator serves as a means of leveling the playing field. With the stronger storytellers, the narrator serves to set the scene, fill out details. With the storytellers who aren't quite as clear visually, the narrator can inform the reader of what isn't being shown.

A:   Sometimes, yes. He's obsessed. A zealot, an extremist. He cares about two things only: getting to the Dark Tower and catching the man in black. And the latter mostly serves the former, when you get down to it. Roland may indeed be hard to like at times, but he is easy to understand when you think about the idea that we all have our obsessions. He's just an obsession taken to the extreme.

A:   The fans have been effusive to me in their praise when I see them at conventions, and I've also seen mostly positive reviews here and there. The midnight launch parties were amazing. The first one I went to was at Midtown Comics in Manhattan. It was the dead of winter, it was midnight, and there were arctic-level winds blowing through the concrete canyons of Manhattan. I figured we'd get zero turnout. And yet there were over a hundred fans there, thrilled for the opportunity. It was an absolute blast.

A:   There were some line edits (including, to my amusement, Steve editing things that were taken verbatim from the books, which just proves that art is never finished, only abandoned) and general comments about the narrative voice that I'd adopted.

A:   I never read the series in its entirety until I got the job.
Wizard and Glass
was my favorite book, so I was fortunate the project revolved around that. And, of course, I'd read most of his classics,
It
being a favorite.

A:   Joe Quesada called me up one day and asked if I'd want to work on a Stephen King book. I was floored. Now, the pressure was on to work up some sample pages to present them to Stephen. I didn't want to get my hopes up too high in case I didn't get it.

A:   I was told to illustrate the opening sequence to
The Gunslinger
. I had something like two weeks to do it, and I squandered most of that time suffering from artist's block. Then, at the last minute, my survival instinct kicked in.

A:   So much of the opening sequence was sheer luck. Once I started work on the first issue, I had to take a very deliberate approach and start fresh. In fact, I ended up redoing one of the sample pages to fit better with what I was doing.

A:   I didn't want the reader to be confused about what panel to read next. There were going to be a certain amount of people picking these comics up, never ever having read a comic before, so I made all the panels horizontal to make each panel a mini–movie screen. I stuck with it for the entire run, but realized that approach had a number of limitations. Mainly, it was really difficult squeezing in a full body shot with that kind of approach.

A:   Robin provided a loose plot of each volume. I had to interpret them and break them down into pages and panels. Once the art was complete, I sent them off to Peter to script.