Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born

Shortly after graduating high school (too many years ago to admit to), I read my second Stephen King novel. I decided to take on King's 800+ page epic called The Stand (updated in the 90s to 1100+ pages!)...this after finishing his awesome story about young Ms. Charlie McGee called Firestarter . After those two novels I was hooked on anything King...couldn't wait for his next release. In 1982 King brought back the main antagonist (albeit under a different name) of The Stand for the beginning of what turned into an awesome seven-part series called The Dark Tower. Flash-forward to 2007 and here we are with a new beginning to The Dark Tower series, a prequel, a graphic novel called The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born. King worked closely with Marvel, his personal assistant of several years (Robin Furth) and an experienced comic book writer (Peter David) in order to deliver this inaugural graphic novel adaptation of his work. Jae Lee (another experienced comic booker) did the amazing artwork. And the result?...the beginning of what will hopefully go on for many years...a neverending adaptation to a neverending story one can only hope. Unlike a King novel that takes a guy like me days (sometimes weeks) to finish, The Gunslinger Born takes about an hour. And readers are rewarded with King's signature prose and stunning images to accompany every word. The story starts with Roland Deschain's Gunslinger School "graduation test" (rest assured this ain't no written test), then follows Roland and friends as they embark on their fisrt assignment by the elders. Another chapter in the series titled Dark Tower: The Long Road Home is slated for release in October 2008, and I'm pretty excited about it. But I can say that I'd look forward much more to taking The Dark Tower novels and converting them with this writing/artistic crew into graphic novels for an amazing, refreshing re-read. After all...it's been 25 years since I read the first Dark Tower novel, and the way my memory has been working lately, a graphic novel adaptation would be like reading it for the first time. Regardless, whether you've ever read a comic book, graphic novel, Dark Tower or Stephen King story for that matter, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born is a great place to escape into a world that goes on forever. Do ya kennit? Add it to your cart.

I have to start this by saying I never intended to buy this graphic novel. This may sound a bit odd because I am a huge fan of Stephen King, most notably the Dark Tower series. The reason I wasn't going to check out this book is because it is based on a flashback which occured in the 4th novel, "Wizard and Glass". The extensive flashback is the main reason I did not like this particular book. A lot of people love the story because it gives us insight into Roland's past and shows some of the events that shaped his personality. When I read the novel I became aggravated by the mind boggling length of the flashback which in my mind was interrupting the real story. Like I said I wasn't going to buy this graphic novel but the price was too good to pass on. I'm big enough to admit what a mistake this would have been. Peter David does an amazing job bringing the story to life. If I didn't know better I would think King had written this himself. Granted, the material is from King's writings, but David does a marvelous job filling the holes between events that occured in the novel. As for the pencils Jae Lee was an excellent choice. I first became familiar with his work about a decade ago. Since then his technique has become quite refined. Several of the pages in "The Gunslinger Born" should be counted as art, they are that good. I have seen cover art look clean but never have I seen so many panels within a book look this good. In closing I would say that I haven't been this moved by a graphic novel since catching up on the collected "Sandman" stories. As a reference I would place "The Gunslinger Born" right up there next to "Season of Mists" and "Brief Lives". I cannot give a graphic novel any higher praise. This material is so good that it has made me rethink my previous opinion of "Wizard and Glass", so much so, that I am planning on re-reading the enire Dark Tower series very soon. I won't rush through the "boring" flashback in book 4 this time.

For fans of King's popular Dark Tower series, and most especially for those who truly loved the forth installment, Wizard and Glass (WAG), this graphic novel is a real treat! In reality it is a carbon copy of WAG yet it is dappled with additional (detailed) insights not found in the series. The artwork is totally out-of-this-world! Beautiful illustrations throughout make it a real joy to experience from cover to cover. The hardback volume includes all of the seven previously released graphic additions of the novel. For me the graphic novel was more of a review of WAG...but to see the graphics made me glad to discover that my mental imagery of the original story translated nicely with the illustrations in the book. Overall it was a thrill to read this special edition. I totally recommend it to all fans of the Dark Tower series. For those unfamiliar with the series, I would recommend reading at least through the fourth book in the series. If you have read the first four novels and are not hooked...well, you're missing out on a very entraining tale from the mind of Stephen King. I give Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born 4/5 stars.

Just got my hardcover copies yesterday, thankee sai, and have really enjoyed it so far. Missed out on the first edition comics simply because they sold out way too quickly and I never knew their street dates and I bought two copies simply because I'm going to read the crap out of it and I need a backup. To the content: The illustrations are lush but somewhat secretive, I was sort of eager to clearly see what Roland's father looked like but has usually been shrouded largely in shadow, and Cort came out appearing pretty much how I pictured him when I first read the Tower series. Not to mention that each and every image easily captures a similar style to my favorite DT illustraror, Michael Whelan, but also captures the design asthtetics of the other illustrators as well. It is basically a retelling of the bulk of Wizard and Glass, so if you've read that book you know how this is going to end. However, the last I heard out of the production camp is that this is simply the beginning. We will see another series that follows Roland after his ordeals in Hambry even all the way to Jericho Hill and possibly beyond. My final feeling is: It is a retelling of familiar ground, but a lushly done one. If you're a Tower fan it's well worth the price, and then some, and If you are new to The Dark Tower series it's an excellent place to start.

This was even better than I thought it would be! A tale of young (teenage) Roland and his ka-tet before he starts his quest to the Dark Tower! Excellent story and excellent artwork! Five stars!

I have read the main Dark Tower series 3 times, and each time I read it I catch things that I miss the previous times. Excellent book series. The "Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born", chronicles part of the 4th book in the Dark Tower series. Showing Roland as a teenager after beating Cort and becoming a Gunslinger. The illustrations are superb. It helps put some images to the original book. I would recommend reading the original 7 Dark Tower books prior to jumping into this illustrated series. Much more is explained in the original Dark Tower books than what can be put in this illustrated series. It has been a fun read.

Marvel put this hardcover together Great! It's a nicely done dust cover that slips off to reveal a beautiful brown leather looking ( not leather tho as far as I know) hard cover. 5 out of 5 stars for that. The art work is great, although most sections are backgroundless, so you get a different feel for the environments that the story should be depicting, most of the backgrounds are just smokey looking and changes the whole feel for the story ( as compared to Stephen Kings written story, which this volume covers Rolands Story of his past that he told his companions/ka-tet in the book Wizzard and Glass book 4 of the Dark Tower series.) so for art I would give it 4 out of 5 stars, it's amazingly done but I just don't like how it changes the environments by not having backgrounds. Now, the biggest problem with this that I found, which is the only reason I gave it 3 stars, was Robin Furth RUINS the whole story line. A lot of people say she knows more about Dark Tower than Stephen King himself, she wrote a great commentary for the novel series, but I wish she would of been kept off of this project for Gunslinger Born. She changes key parts of the story, she changes character personalities for the worst, she just over all ruins the story ( which was drawn out, and slow to start in the novel, but over all a great story in the Novel Wizzard and Glass by Stephen King) And aside from what ruinous changes Robbins Furth made to the story, Marvel cut it too short, they gave this story basically the same length as they gave the extremely short story of the battle of tull, found in the first book the Gunslinger by Stephen King. This story arc of gunslinger born deserved at least 5 volumes preferably 6 with 30-32 issues in order to fully tell the story with all its aspects of mystery suspense and it's large catalog of characters, as well as the love story aspect involved in this. Everything is rushed and massive parts of the story are skipped over. For the story I give it 2 out of 5 stars. ( almost went with 1 star :-/) . But over all, I am glad I bought it, and also glad I bought the omnibus set as well as the next volume The Long Road Home, and I still plan on collecting the rest of this series. I plan to buy the rest of the volumes as well as the second Omnibus and also hope they turn the 3rd set in this series, drawing of the 3, into another omnibus. If your a collector of Stephen King, or just Dark Tower it's nice to have. So far I've only read this volume and should be getting my Omnibus and the next volume tomorrow in the mail, I'm excited for that as well as the rest of the story in the Second Omnibus and it's volumes. I hope the story's following Gunslinger Born is better than this one, and I expect they will be, because their telling smaller stories in the volumes after this one. I know Marvel did an excellent series when they did the Stand ( but Robin Furth wasn't a part of that lol).

This is a graphic novel that pretty closely follows book IV of the Dark Tower series from King. If you haven't read Wizard and Glass, I would suggest doing so before picking this up. The Gunslinger Born is missing some very important plot points that, when taken out, doesn't make story stand up so well. The characters don't have much of a personality without the rest of the story, and overall, if I had read this first, would not be impressed. If you have read book IV however, this is an incredible experience. The artwork has a very dark tone and is well executed. It gives a vision of the book that is unexpectedly thrilling. Some of the panels in the book are simply breathtaking.

Due to poor packaging the book was full of creases since I like the book I tried to salvage it but to no avail hence I have to return it back

I was not prepared for the task it took to complete this series, moving onto book #2will be awesome, waste no time in the wasteland

Compre el comic pensando que venia la portada que anunciaban y me llego otra

Tolle grafische Umsetzung der Romanreihe vom dunklen Turm... Ich denke gerade für Neueinsteiger in diesen Epos eine gute Alternative, da hier - im Gegensatz zum Roman - mit Rolands Jugend angefangen wird und der Leser einen besseren Einblick bekommt, worum es eigentlich geht. Die Marvel Comics eignen sich daher auch wunderbar als Sekundär- Literartur zum Roman. Ich freue mich schon auf die restlichen Teile... gehört hier eigentlich nicht her aber trotzdem als wichtige Info für alle Dark Tower Fans: Ich habe kürzlich gelesen, dass J. J. Abrams (einer der Macher der genialen TV Serie "LOST") von Mr. King persönlich den Auftrag bekommen hat den dunklen Turm zu verfilmen! Wer LOST kennt, wird sicherlich gewisse Parallelen zu der Welt von Roland feststellen...in Internetforen werden Verbindungen zwischen LOST und DT intensiv diskutiert... von daher gibt es sicherlich keinen besseren für die Vefilmung als J. J. Abrams.

Ok first of all if you are reading the Dark Tower Seires and are thinking of perchasing these graphic novels for your own good WAIT UNITIL YOU FINISH THE BOOKS! There are sum serious spoilers here! I wanted to buy this whilst reading through Kings masterpiece series i was glad now i didnt!. After finishing the books i decided to buy the graphic novels...WOW Firstly the presentation is great: sturdy hard back graphic novels with a leather bound case which is covered by a slip cover,the glossy paper is of the finest quality and in total makes sure these novels will stand the test of time. Secondly the artwork in these seires by Lee and Isanove is flawless. It is very clear they have read the books and the project has been overseen by King. Probably the best artwork ive seen in any graphic novel or comic! These are great stand alone Graphic Novels for people who dont wish to read the dark tower series. For fans of the books such as myself it is with great pleasure to see Kings work litterlay come to life. The charicters and places look just how they are described as in the books and no stone is left unturned much of the dialoge between charicters is the same which makes the work even more authentic. The graphic novels stand there own aswell as they give you and even clearer insight to Kings world of the dark tower. As i said i am glad i read these after reading the books as they just add more to kings great story for people who have read the books. But as i have said these are a great comic seires for any serious comic/graphic novel fan who wants something different with great artwork and a great story. If you liked the Books and want more dont think about it just buy them well worth every penny!