And so ends the long journey. For 8 years, this series has picked up and expanded upon pieces of Stephen King’s Dark Tower Saga. Under the watchful eye of Robin Furth and Peter David, several great artists put together a stunning rendition of the murky, post-apocalyptic, future-(past?) of the descendants of some kind of twisted King Arthurian world. The tones and deep colors used were built from Jae Lee’s initial run. Richard Isanove and a number of alumni with similarly (Ross, Lark, Campbell, Maleev, Phillips) dark styles kept these themes alive – kept the familiar tone of the landscape. More important: these artists never “broke the story”. Meaning, they never stalled the vision, like happens so often when fill-in artists take over a story for a bit.

It’s a shame this series had to end – and yet, I knew the end was coming about a year ago. The stories seemed to be picking from smaller and more remote slivers of Stephen King’s original novels. They were less connected than the original runs.

As with “The Stand”, I’m never disappointed with anything King brings to the graphic novel format. Unlike several attempts to bring his stories to the screen, comics seem to give creators more space to paint the subtleties of his writing style – stuff that doesn’t seem to translate well to movies or tv. Like anyone will tell you, “The book was so much better than the movie,” it’s probably that the graphic novel format is only a small step departed from prose novels. Maybe it allows the reader to capture more of the imagination of the prose, albeit with a little visual direction from the artist. King’s stuff (and by the way, his son, Joe Hill is tearing it up with his own series that’s about to wind up) really resonates with the excited kid in me that wants more to read. Flashlight in hand. Under the covers.

Part of the reason why I’m writing this is to say something about this work. If we don’t take time to discuss the merits of these kinds of works, people won’t even know they exist, and we’ll loose opportunities in the future to rally interest in creators who might bring us more like it. This series, along with The Stand, never really got much attention from anybody (it seems). I want more Stephen King in this medium. I hope you will check out his stuff. And, I hope you’ll agree with me.