Of Kings and PADs

[sdelmonte]

Peter A. David will be scripting the first seven issues of Marvel's Dark Tower preqeul comic book.

Let's ignore for the moment the disappointment of seeing anyone but King writing Roland and friends.

Instead, let's ask whether this is a good match. And while I think PAD is one of the best comic book writers in the game, and that King is a brilliant master of fantasy and horror, I don't like this matchup.

See, King and PAD are often cynics, but King's cynicism is often balanced by a certain optimism this is of late missing from much of PAD's recent work. What's more, PAD is known for a brand of humor that is very different than King's. King can be crude at times, but is also rather subtle. PAD is almost never subtle, and a master of the in-joke.

Will I buy this? Of course. It's Roland, it's King's plots (we think), and it's PAD's scripts. Do I have much in the way of expectations? Not really.

Thoughts from the DT crowd? Or from the PAD fans, for that matter?

Comments

[sdelmonte]

You (and Aspen) didn't like Storm of the Century?

[agonistes]

It could have been done a lot better. I'm not saying it was rancid. It's just that King's forte is prose, and considering the odd literary traditions from which DT derives, I'd really rather not run the risk of the comics taking on the same qualities -- and considering the time period in canon that they're going to cover, that chance is so there. I like old-school chivalric narratives (so long as they're not in Middle English), and I like Owen Wister-style Westerns (even if the ideology is problematic), but neither of them lend themselves very well to condensing to a medium where quite literally every word is vital, and where image is just as if not more important than word.

...and I just realized that I could condense all that by saying that this is the part of DT where it's more like Shane than anything done by Sergio Leone, and Leone lends himself to comics in terms of style, while Shane just begs something overwrought and too detailed. And King loves him some details. So. :D