The Dark Tower Companion

by Bev Vincent

  He is also a novelist, with numerous books to his credit, including original Star Trek books and movie novelizations. He is part of Crazy 8 Press, a group effort involving several authors who want to make their novels accessible to fans at reasonable prices, using primarily social media to let people know about them. His Hidden Earth series has the epic scope of the Dark Tower series and The Camelot Papers is a revisionist version of the King Arthur legend.

  The following interview was conducted via e-mail in March 2012.

  Q: Do you have a preference between writing novels versus comics?

  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.

  Q: What was your introduction to the Dark Tower series?

  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.

  Q: Describe your part in creating an issue of the Marvel adaptation.

  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.

  I’ve never actually written script over someone else’s plot before. But there’s plenty of precedent. You see it all the time in television, for instance. A “story by” credit that is different from the “screenplay” credit. It doesn’t happen quite as frequently in comics, but it does from time to time.

  Q: Do the artists provide you with some amount of space to enter your text?

  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.

  Q: Were there times when you found the story going in a different direction than you’d imagined when reading the books?

  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.

  Q: Is the process different for issues dealing with parts of the story that aren’t direct adaptations of King’s novels?

  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.

  I more or less lifted the tone from King’s writing in Wolves of the Calla. There were townspeople there who spoke in a certain cadence that I thought would be a good style to adopt. Since the series has such scope, I felt having a narrative voice would enable me, as a matter of practicality, to cover gaps in the visual storytelling since there was so much to convey—especially in the beginning—that I felt it would be a handy tool to provide a unifying style. So in my head, I pictured a group of cowboys along the trail, and they’re talking about different legends of Mid-World, and the name that keeps coming up is Roland’s. And I figure there’s this one guy, the eldest of the group, hearing all these conflicting stories. And he spits out a wad of chaw and growls, “All them stories are wrong…and all them stories are right. I’ll tell ya about Roland, the last of the gunslingers. Starts with a desert. A man in black is running across it, and the gunslinger’s following him…” And off we go.

  Q: Were you more nervous about King’s reaction to the results, or the reactions of longtime fans of the series?

  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.

  Q: Were there particular scenes or story arcs that you looked forward to adapting?

  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.

  Q: Were there open questions from the novels that weren’t answered by the graphic novels that you wish there’d been an opportunity to explore?

  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.

  Q: Did the way you work change in the second series, when different artists became involved?

  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.

  Q: What are your impressions of Roland? Do you find him hard to like at times?

  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.

  Q: What has the fan reaction been like?

  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.

  Q: Did you ever get feedback from King regarding your work?

  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.

  The entire team did the series launch at New York Comic Con. We were waiting in the green room when King showed up. You’d expect that someone of his level would have an entire entourage of handlers, but no, in he walked, and it was, “Hi, I’m Steve,” and he’s shaking people’s hands, utterly unassuming. Believe me, I know writers with one tenth the success of Stephen King and ten times the attitude. It was the first opportunity I had to speak with him about my work on the series, and I was so nervous and, frankly, needy, asking him if he was pleased with my scripting. And he put his hands on either side of my face like a benediction and said, “You’re doing a great job.” Which was good because right before he said that, I thought he was about to snap my neck. And you know the roomful of people would have covered for him. “Yeah, Peter tripped and fell wrong. Tragic thing.”

  Later, when we were on the panel, one fan in the audience stood up and said, “I just wanted to say that Stephen King is my favorite novel writer and Peter David is my favorite comic writer, so this series is a dream come true for me.” And totally spontaneously, Steve and I high-fived each other. Understand that, to me, it was practically yesterday that I was just another fan, an aspiring writer, standing in line at a Stephen King book signing, and now I was on a panel with him, high-fiving him. How cool is that?

  JAE LEE

  Jae Lee started working for Marvel comics when he was eighteen. He quit art school without a backup plan, worked up a portfolio and took a four-hour train ride to a convention in NYC. Since then, he has worked on series such as Spider-Man, Batman, Uncanny X-Men, Fantastic Four and a book he both wrote and drew called Hellshock.

  He has worked on projects outside of comics, including ad campaigns and novel covers. He also illustrated the Donald M. Grant limited edition of The Wind Through the Keyhole. At the time of this interview, which was conducted via e-mail in March 2012, he was working for DC Comics on a book called Ozymandias, one of the prequels to Watchmen.

  Q: Were you familiar with the Dark Tower series before you started working on The Gunslinger Born?

  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.

  Q: How did you find out about the Marvel project?

  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.

  Q: How did you approach the proof-of-concept project for this presentation?

  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.

  Q: Did that early work define the style of the graphic novels, or did you step back and consider the overall scope of the project and start fresh again?

  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.

  Q: Was it a deliberate decision to use a traditional layout for the pages?

  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.

  Q: How do you attack a script in terms of layout and panel design?

  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.

  Q: How did you and Richard Isanove interact during the illustration process?

  A: I wasn’t sure how well our styles would mesh at first, but when I saw what he did with the sample pages, I was blown away. And we never looked back. It became a symbiotic relationship.

  Q: Do you do studies of characters or scenes before you attack what will become the final pages?

  A: Yes. I do rough layouts for every page. I don’t make them too tight, because that only leads to disappointment when I do the finished pencils because the tight pencils will never have the same energy or flow the sketches had and that can be infuriating.

  Q: Do you prefer working on established characters or do you like to introduce new ones?

  A: I preferred working on characters that I could use descriptions to guide me. If the character isn’t described in detail, there’s more responsibility on my shoulders and that can get scary.

  Q: How long does it take to create a typical issue?

  A: It varies tremendously. I would love to say I can do a book in thirty days, but I’d be lying.

  Q: How much back-and-forth was there among you and your collaborators?

  A: We all wanted to be faithful to the source material, so we were all open to suggestions. We just wanted to do the best we could.

  Q: Do you have a favorite panel or sequence from your work on the series?

  A: I’d have to say the fight sequence between Roland and Cort in the first issue of Gunslinger Born.

  Q: Is it different illustrating a novel?

  A: The stuff I did for Marvel was a comic book. This is very different. This is a novel accompanied by a number of full-page illustrations. Some are in color, some in black-and-white. I think close to twenty images. I did the cover as well. All the line art is hand drawn and the coloring was beautifully rendered by my wife, June Chung, digitally. Few things I’ve worked on are as cool as doing the illustrations for The Wind Through the Keyhole.

  RICHARD ISANOVE

  Richard Isanove colored every issue of the Marvel graphic novel adaptations, providing a consistent look and feel to the series over its nearly six-year publication run. He was also the sole illustrator for the Fall of Gilead series, The Sorcerer and Sheemie’s Tale.

  Isanove is originally from Bordeaux, France, where he was introduced to American comic books. When he was eleven, he told his school class that he wanted to be either a comic book artist for Marvel or an astronaut. Both of these professions seemed equally unlikely for a kid growing up in France.

  He attended École Nationale Supèrieure des Arts Décoratifs (ENSAD) in Paris for five years, where he studied fine arts geared toward animation. Because he spoke English (his mother is British), he was able to get a post as an exchange student at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Los Angeles in 1994, where he also studied animation.

  When San Diego–based comic book studio Homage opened Top Cow in LA, Isanove—a longtime comic book fan—applied for a job, though he was still in school. He was hired based on his paintings and was introduced to the world of computer coloring. After Top Cow, he received an offer to work on Daredevil for Marvel. It was his childhood dream come true.

  He met his wife—who works in animation as an editor—and has remained in the United States ever since, although his wife’s job has moved them around a lot over the past four years, including a year back in Bordeaux. He has done over five hundred covers for Marvel, including work on just about every title and character. He has done major series of Spider-Man, Wolverine and th
e X-Men. He started developing a computer painting technique that went beyond simple coloring, where he worked directly from pencils instead of inked art while working on Wolverine Origins in 2001.

  The following interview was conducted via telephone in November 2011.

  Q: Was it a big transition to move from animation into comics?

  A: Not really. Both deal with storytelling. We do what animators do in layouts or storyboards. Animation is the more tedious part of it. Doing the storyboards and figuring out how to tell the story was always my favorite part. The biggest challenge and the most interesting part. When I drew some episodes of Dark Tower, it was always the most exciting part. There’s about a week of just doing layouts and sketches, figuring out how to tell the story in pictures. After that, it’s almost a routine. It’s still interesting, but the most stimulating part is doing the storytelling. And that’s common to both animation and comics.

  Q: Because of the way the Dark Tower is being created, you actually have more creative input into the layout than a traditional comic because Robin Furth is just providing outlines.

  A: It reads almost like a short story. It says SCENE ONE and then it’s a few paragraphs of describing what happens in the scene with bits of dialogue, but it’s more prose than a scenario. It’s really great. It would be harder now to work any other way because it’s so cool. She’s very open to suggestion. We’re working on the one-shot right now about Sheemie. I’m able to negotiate with her to get things I want to draw. We shape the story together. Often, also, to put everything she puts in would take forty-eight pages and we only have twenty-two to twenty-eight. You’re allowed to do the cuts yourself, but I like to go back and forth with her until we are both happy with what there is. There’s been a lot of back-and-forth and deciding what we keep and what to cut out and how to tell that thing more efficiently, or what would be more interesting visually, and then she just rewrites it until we’re both happy with it. It’s a very satisfying work process. She’s so easygoing and very enthusiastic about everything.