The Dark Tower Companion

by Bev Vincent

  A: I started working for Steve King back in 2000—the year after his terrible accident. Steve needed somebody to sort through the thousands of responses he’d received for the On Writing story competition. He wanted to help out a grad student, so he contacted Burt Hatlen. Burt knew that I was a writer, that I loved fantasy, horror, and sci-fi and that I was a fan of Steve’s work, so he recommended me for the job. That original project lasted about a month. I did some of my work from home, some from the King office, but most of my contact with Steve at that point was through e-mail. (Most of my work was with Steve’s assistant, the wonderful Marsha DeFilippo.)

  At the end of that particular assignment, I went into the office to pick up my final paycheck and met Steve King himself. I was really tongue-tied, but Steve was very relaxed and kind and asked me if I wanted more work. He was about to return to the Dark Tower series and needed someone to write up lists of characters and places and record the pages on which they could be found. (He wanted to be able to double-check for plot and character continuity—no small job for such a large body of work.) Anyway, when Steve asked whether I was interested in the job, I said yes. (Of course!)

  Not only did I create a huge dictionary of characters and places and plot twists, but I recorded Mid-World games, Mid-World languages, Mid-World diseases, and pretty much everything else I could think of. I drew a door labeled THE AUTHOR, which was supposed to help Steve reenter Mid-World. I placed the door at the front of the manuscript; then I bound the whole thing in black and taped a key to the front. (The key was so that Steve could open the door.) I wasn’t certain how Steve would react to my wild enthusiasm, but he liked it enough to ask whether I wanted to continue working with his manuscripts. After that, I received draft chapters as Steve wrote them, so that I could continue building my Dark Tower Concordance. I’ve been lucky enough to live in Mid-World ever since.

  The collaboration between Stephen King and Marvel Comics really began when Joe Quesada, Marvel’s editor-in-chief, mentioned at a comic book convention that he really wanted to work with Stephen King. Word eventually made it back to King’s office, and Chuck Verrill (Steve’s editor and agent) contacted Marvel. After many discussions, everyone decided that the best book to adapt would be Wizard and Glass, since it told the story of Roland’s adventures in Hambry, when he and his friends were fourteen years old.

  I was there at the original meeting between Steve, Chuck Verrill, and Marvel via phone link. I’d spent so long in the Dark Tower universe that Steve thought it would be a good idea to have me on board for the Marvel project. I’d never worked in comics before, but I loved graphic novels and illustrated books, so I was excited about the whole thing. I also wanted to see Roland and his friends take on that extra dimension—to have faces and bodies that moved through space. As you can imagine, my initial learning curve was incredibly steep. But luckily for me, I was working with a terrific team of extremely experienced comic book folks. Peter David, Jae Lee, Richard Isanove, Ralph Macchio, and all the other editors and artists who have worked on the series, have been great. I’ve learned a tremendous amount from all of them.

  Q: Your credit on the Marvel graphic novels reads “Plotting and Consultation.” What does that mean?

  A: As a consultant, I answer questions about all things Mid-World, from clothing to gun design to landscape and religion. I also answer questions about Roland’s history, or the history of the many other characters you meet in the series.

  Plotting is exactly what you’d guess. It means creating the stories that are then illustrated by the artists and scripted by Peter David. Basically, for each new arc, I write a detailed story. (We call this story the story arc or the outline.) I write the arc as one flowing piece, almost like a short novella. I make sure that it is broken down into the correct number of issues/comics. I also break each individual issue into scenes. (I often break the scenes down further into a series of numbered events, which the artist can use as possible panel breaks, but ultimately I always leave the panel breaks/page designs up to the artist, since that is his specialty!)

  In my story arcs, the individual issues work like chapters in a book. Reading one of my story arcs is (I hope at least) a little like reading the descriptive breakdown of a film. As I said, each issue is broken into consecutive scenes, one following from the other, and the issue itself always ends with a cliffhanger. The exception is the final comic book of an arc, which must have a sense of closure.

  When I’m writing, I make sure that everything in a scene is described in great detail, so that we can remain consistent with Stephen King’s world. I usually describe what characters are discussing in any particular panel. Sometimes I include placeholder dialogue so that the artist knows how to illustrate the panels and pages, but the scripts really are Peter David’s creation. He does a fantastic job, and I’ve learned a tremendous amount about dialogue and scripting from him. He is a terrific writer.

  Q: At what point do you discuss the plot with Stephen King?

  A: My discussions with Steve really vary according to what we are adapting and what I need to check. Sometimes I send him specific questions about plot direction/characters before I even begin. (I had to do this a lot before I started The Sorcerer.) At other times I send him a brief summary before I begin, just to make sure that he feels okay about the tack I’m taking. Sometimes, when I’m really unsure, I send him the whole arc, just to make sure that he gives it the thumbs-up. Steve has been incredibly supportive of the comics, which has been great.

  Q: What is the process after this?

  A: Once I’m finished, I send the outline to the Marvel editors for comments. Once the editors have checked the arc, it goes to the artist, who begins his panel and page sketches, and to Peter, so that he can start thinking about scripting and so that he can let us know if he thinks we need to adjust the story. If anyone has any comments, I rewrite. Sometimes Peter can take care of the problem via the scripting. (For example, in The Way Station comics, I had Roland kill and eat a dog that was possibly rabid. Peter made a quick fix in scripting—making it clear that Roland did not eat the infected dog. He was really worried that if Roland ate a rabid dog that he’d get rabies and die!)

  Peter really needs the pencils to finish his script, since his captions and dialogue must flow with the images. After Peter writes the script, I get a copy, too, so that I can read through. It’s always a lot of fun to read Peter’s scripts. At that point, the script and panels go to the letterer. The colorist, Richard Isanove, and the letterer can work simultaneously.

  Q: Do the artists ask you questions as they work?

  A: I answer most questions while the artist is creating the initial layouts. So problems are solved at a really early stage. I get to see the process at every step, which is fantastic. I receive the artists’ initial panel sketches via e-mail, then pencils, then inks and color, and finally the lettered pages. I try to pack my outlines/stories with visual detail to help the artist see Mid-World, but I often get questions about guns, or clothing, or accessories. I remember once, when I was in New York and we were working on The Gunslinger Born, Jae asked me really complex questions about Mid-World etiquette. He wanted to make sure that everyone bowed correctly and did the fist-to-forehead correctly, etc.

  One of the most humorous questions came from Michael Lark, while he was penciling the Tull comics. I had written the story as if the weedeater Nort had once pulled a real honey wagon—you know, one that sold honey. Michael thought that Steve was talking about a sewage/manure wagon. I checked with Steve, and Michael was right. Boy, was I embarrassed. Anyway, the joke was on me, but we all had a few laughs about it.

  Q: What process goes into the individual essays that are included in each issue?

  A: I really try to make sure that each article is relevant to the issue in which it will appear, and so my decisions are based on content. Sometimes the editors make specific requests and ask me to write about topics that they think will be of special interest to readers. For example, I�
�ve written several pieces about Roland’s guns and the types of guns available to gunslingers. (Apprentice gunslingers don’t use the big six-shooters used by fully-fledged gunslingers. They are much more likely to use barrel-shooters.)

  I always go back to the original novels for inspiration. When important info isn’t in the books, I pick Steve’s brain. Since Mid-World and our world are related, I also turn to our world’s history for answers. For example, when I wanted to write about the blue dye that Grissom’s men used to paint their faces, I decided on woad, since both Pictish and Celtic warriors used that dye to paint patterns on their skins. (They used it to terrify their enemies, and I’m sure it did a pretty good job!)

  Q: What sort of feedback do you receive from readers?

  A: Most of my feedback comes from Dark Tower fans and fellow Constant Readers that I meet at conventions. Sometimes we end up having long discussions about the books, which is always good fun. Most of the readers I’ve talked to or I’ve heard from have been very supportive, which is great.

  Q: What deviations from the source material have you found it necessary to make because of the nature of the graphic novels?

  A: Adapting a novel to comic book form is a bit like altering a novel so that you can make it into a film. Every medium has its own demands and its own restrictions. In a novel, an author can spend a lot of time using internal monologue, stream-of-consciousness writing and quick flashback. A protagonist can hear voices inside of his mind, just as Roland often hears Cort speak. A narrative voice can be used to explain certain situations, or to foreshadow events, or to explain or comment on something that the protagonist might not know about.

  In comics, everything has to be visual. The number of lines that a character can speak, and even the number of captions that can fit on a page, is extremely limited. The story has to be told in a sequence of panels, and then the script has to be extremely tight. An excellent comic book script has the force of fiction but in the limited line length of poetry.

  Another difference is the use of flashback. Comics definitely use flashback, but it has to be used more sparingly. The forward momentum of the story has to be very powerful. It is harder to show two characters sitting and having a very long conversation. In a book it works brilliantly, but I have to limit the amount of conversation-without-action.

  Comics—as I’ve learned to write them—have a very exacting format. The writers and artists have approximately twenty-two pages to tell a tale. The story has to have a beginning, a middle and an end. The story must be told visually, and the story must move relatively quickly. Each individual story must have a cliffhanger ending, but the individual stories must also fit into a story arc of five to seven comics. (These story arcs are later published in collections where the individual comics become chapters of a graphic novel.) Although the individual comics are often self-contained, the five to seven comics in an arc must tell a cohesive tale, and the arc itself must have a satisfying ending.

  In order to fit these requirements, the elements of a story often need to be rearranged. Sometimes I need to add link material, and for this link material I always return to the brief stories that Roland recounts to his tet-mates during his travels through Mid-World. My goal has always been to stay true to Steve’s vision and to introduce people to the wonders of Mid-World. Occasionally that means inserting “new” material so that I can communicate another aspect of Mid-World’s reality, or of Roland’s reality, to new readers. But no matter how I try to do it, my goal always remains the same: I want to make Roland, and Mid-World, as real to comic book readers as they are to longtime fans of the original novels. In the best of all possible worlds, people who read the comics and people who read the novels can have conversations about Mid-World, even though they came there via different mediums.

  Q: Where do you stand in terms of the original versus the revised and edited version of The Gunslinger?

  A: For the comics, I tend to use the revised and edited version of The Gunslinger. I love the original, too, but I think that the revised version has some really interesting twists, like the addition of “nineteen” and Roland’s continuing sense of déjà vu.

  Q: In the graphic novels, it seems like Walter and Marten are distinct entities at times. Are they different aspects of the same creature?

  A: In the comics, Walter and Marten are different aspects of the same creature. Flagg is another aspect of this being. When we first started working on The Gunslinger Born, Jae Lee really thought a lot about how to have Walter morph into Marten, and back again. In the end he decided that Marten/Walter could use a hand motion to indicate the change. You can see one of these morphs in chapter four of The Gunslinger Born. Walter is definitely a shape-shifter. And a born liar!

  Q: In my interview with King, he is adamant that Farson is not Marten, but in the synopsis at the beginning of Wolves of the Calla, he states that they are the same person. What is your opinion?

  A: This is one of those incredibly thorny questions in the Dark Tower universe! When I was writing my Dark Tower Concordance Part I, I thought that John Farson was another aspect of Marten. However, when it came time to finish the Concordance Part II, I had decided that Marten, Walter, and the man in black were all one being, but John Farson was a separate being. I based this decision on Walter’s musings, which Steve King recounts in the Mordred versus Walter section of The Dark Tower. Walter makes it clear that the Crimson King is a separate being, and so is John Farson. Walter served each of them at different times, but he always, ultimately, served himself. The only explanation I can give is that some people believe that Marten is also Farson, but later on we (as readers) find out that this was a false assumption.

  Q: Though we learn that the Crimson King is also from the line of Eld and thus a distant relative of Roland in King’s novel, this case is made much more clearly in the graphic novels. What of Marten—is he also related to Roland?

  A: The question of Walter’s ancestry was one that really obsessed me while I was working on the one-shot comic called The Sorcerer (now the first chapter of the graphic novel Fall of Gilead). Hence, while I was working on The Sorcerer, I had a long e-mail conversation with Steve King about this very subject. I asked if it was possible that Walter was the offspring of Maerlyn. Steve said yes. He also told me that Walter’s mother was Selena, the goddess of the dark moon. All this meant that Walter was descended from at least one supernatural being. I think that Steve might be rethinking Marten/Walter’s background again, but all of that will become important in The Wind Through the Keyhole!

  Q: Roland appears to be at least middle-aged by the end of the series, but he’s more than a thousand years old. What does this mean to you?

  A: I’ve spent many, many hours pacing out Roland’s time line. While I was working on the Concordance, I created a Mid-World time line, which is in Appendix II of The Complete Concordance. Basically, I went through the novels and recorded absolutely every reference to time periods and dates that I could find, did some math, and came up with what you can see in Appendix II. Of course, this time line is up for debate! The way I look at it, Roland is an incarnation of the eternal hero. Hence, time doesn’t pass for him the way it passes for other people. He does live outside of time. Like the Ageless Stranger, Roland darkles and tincts—he lives in all times!

  Q: Are there stories from Roland’s past that you wanted to tell but the opportunity didn’t present itself?

  A: Oh yes, there are many! I really wanted to spend some time with Roland, Alain and Cuthbert as they wandered for years, searching for the Tower, but we just couldn’t do it! After Fall of Gilead, we really had to pick up steam and move forward to Battle of Jericho Hill!

  Q: Do you consider the graphic novels to be part of the Dark Tower canon?

  A: I suppose it depends on what you call canon. There is only one Stephen King, and his novels are great. Hence, that is the heart of the canon—or you could say it is the canon for purists! If you want to extend your definition a little bit, you c
ould add in the Dark Tower graphic novels. They exist in the same universe and are homage to Steve King’s magnum opus. They are written out of love and respect and they are written with Steve’s support (he has to give his approval to everything), but they are, as I said, an homage. The way I look at it, the Dark Tower has many levels and the many levels contain many parallel worlds. Steve King’s Dark Tower novels exist in Mid-World prime. The Dark Tower graphic novels exist in a spinoff world. Perhaps it’s the world where Eddie Dean and Jake Chambers are drawn together, and they are Eddie and Jake Toren!

  Q: Do you have a notion of what “perfection” means in terms of Roland’s journey? How does he break free from his trapped existence?

  A: I’ve always assumed that perfection meant traveling farther along the “spiritual” (for lack of a better term!) path that Roland travels in the later books of the series. He has to relearn his humanity. He has to move farther and farther from the man who mowed down every man, woman and child in Tull, farther from the man who let Jake Chambers drop into the abyss under the Cyclopean Mountains and closer to the man who will sacrifice everything to save the children of the Callas. Does that make sense?

  PETER DAVID

  Peter David says that he was born with laughter on his lips and a sense that the world was mad.

  He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from NYU, but he eventually decided journalism wasn’t for him, though he wanted to stay close to publishing. He worked in the sales department for various publishers, always intending to transition to writing. While writing an article about the now-defunct magazine Comics Scene, he met and interviewed Carol Kalish, who was the assistant direct sales manager at Marvel. She was about to be promoted to sales manager. When she learned the publisher David was working for at the time was about to go out of business, she offered him a job as her assistant.

  In that position, he became friends with several of Marvel’s editors and started looking for side jobs writing comics. He wrote for Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk, and eventually became a full-time freelancer. He has also worked on X-Factor, Supergirl, Young Justice and The Phantom.