The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born is a seven-issue comic book miniseries spinoff of Stephen King's Dark Tower novel series, which explores the childhood/young adulthood of the main character, Roland Deschain. It's written by Peter David and illustrated by artist Jae Lee, whose stark black-and-white style is highly reminiscent (and perhaps influenced by) Patrick Nagel. (In case the name "Jae Lee" sounds familiar to you Lost fans out there, it should. It's the name of Sun's lover, and since Lost co-creator/writer Damon Lindeloff is both a comic book fan and writer—I've wondered about the similarities between Sawyer and Wolverine—it might've been intentional.)

I went bought my copy and had it signed by both Peter and Jae at the midnight signing of the book in Times Square, NY on Feb. 7th. I read most of the book in line, and it was pretty d@mn good. Although I've heard great things about Stephen King, and although I've enjoyed some of the movies based on his works (The Shawshank Redemption is one of my all-time favorite films), I had never jumped on the bandwagon book-wise, since the time I have to read is limited, and I already have a huge backlog of books to read. Hell, I'm currently in the middle of seven different books now! But reading this comic, I was intrigued by the character, and by the fictional culture that King has weaved out sci-fi, fantasy and westerns. Most of the made-up sci-fi/fantasy jargon was easy to grasp, and Jae's artwork was simply beautiful. Jae is one of the few artists who gained stardom in the 90's whose artwork has either remained solid or gotten even better.

To see a more detailed account of the signing, see my latest MySpace blog entry.

To see an interview with Peter David on the series, go here.

Never finished that series.

Tried, but couldn't get into it.