This week on Cyber Mondays: The Dark Tower. Stephen King's masterpiece series, hit the digital market with in the last two weeks and... Oh boy! This series is ten times of awesome. First of all, the series was a smash hit when it came out in single issue form and its easy to say that this book was made for comics . Now the series is on the comixology app and is obvious that this comic was made for the digital medium.
From the start, the story is great but anybody that has read the the books knows that. King is a master storyteller. But King is only a supervisor in this graphic adaptation. We have to give major props to Peter David and Robin Furth for an excellent adaptation. It is their collaborative effort that makes this book feel like King himself was writing this, while at the same time the adaptation has enough room for David and Furth to spin their own magic. The story is based on Dark Tower: The Gunslinger and the comic book focus more on flashbacks or the early days of the books. one of the obvious reasons the comic book is named the Gunslinger is Born.
Now the story starts with Roland, challenging his mentor to a duel for the right to be a gunslinger. Roland's choice of weapon is a hawk. His hawk serves as a great weapon against Cort (Roland's mentor). Roland wins the duel but his hawk dies in the process. After that Roland becomes one of the youngest gunslingers. We see that Roland's mother is having an affair with Marten Broadcloack, magician to Roland's dad. Marten wants Roland out of the picture but since Roland is successful in obtaining the title of gunlslinger, he is able to move forward.
As request by his father, Roland is sent on a secret mission with his friends better known as his Kat-tet. On his mission Roland discovers a plot to use an oil-powered weapons of mass destruction weapons. Although he faced danger and he is almost discover by the bad guys, Roland manages to fall in love with one of the mayor's newly acquired virgin comcubine named Susan. She falls in love with Roland and gives away her virginity to him. After Roland is victorious, in sabotaging the oil tankers and killing almost all of the bad guys, Susan, gets captured and she is burned alive for her affair with Roland.
The first mini series ends there. The comic is pretty straight forward and although the Dark Tower deals with magic, mutants, monsters, portals and dimensions we don't see this in this mini. In fact this book reads more like a western than anything else. Now the book offers supplemental material that helps introduce new readers to the complex world of the dark tower. So it is safe to say that this mini is only a tease of the real thing. But over all it is a very entertaining story and most of the time it felt like I was reading a epic book than a comic adaptation. David's choices in the script are really responsible for that.
The art of this book should be put in a art museum. Jae Lee's art has never looked this beautiful, it is simply a delight to see every panel of this book. Jae Lee's pencils are masterfully enhance by Richard Isanove's digital painting. Together they have crafted one of comics most extraordinary modern pieces of neo art. It is their work here that have cemented the Dark Tower to be one of comics' iconic milestones.
This adaptation is further proof that comics have moved forward as an art form than just a children's medium. It is our privilege to see this book in digital form an HD resolution makes this a pleasure to enjoy. It would be a crime for a book like this to be tainted by the sweat of our finger tips. I hope that all the DT mini series are publish in digital form. There is also news of a omnibus version coming out this year so be on the look out for that one as well.