KING: MARVEL TO ADAPT THE STAND AS GRAPHIC NOVEL

[MattBrady]

Author Stephen King appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation interview program last week, and apparently let a cat out of the bag.

In responding to a question about his involvement in future adventures of Roland in The Dark Tower series (King said that he no longer has the same "imaginative channel" into the world of Roland that he used to, so no more novels from him are likely on the Dark Tower front or, of Roland's next "go around"), the best-selling author announced that Marvel would be adapting his apocalyptic novel The Stand as a graphic novel.

King said: “I did go to Marvel and asked them…if they would have any interest in adapting The Stand as a graphic novel, and they are going to do that – Marvel is going to do The Stand as a graphic novel.”

Regular Newsarama readers will of course recall at last year’s New York Comic-Con Dark Tower panel, King said that he and Marvel Editor in Chief Joe Quesada had spoken just prior to the panel about bringing The Stand to comics. At the time King said that The Eyes of the Dragon and his collaboration with Peter Straub, The Talisman would be good candidates as well.

King also praised Brain K. Vaughan's Y: The Last Man in the interview.

Marvel has not offered any comment or confirmation on King’s announcement.

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born miniseries and subsequent collection was one of the publisher best-selling titles of 2007 (it hit #1 on many online seller lists on its debut). The first issue of the second Dark Tower miniseries, The Long Road Home shipped earlier this month, with issue #2 scheduled to be in stores on April 2nd.

In the interview, King also alluded to the possibility of the short Dark Tower story, "Little Sisters of Eluria" (first published in Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy) being worked in to the larger Dark Tower comic adaptation.

A Brief History of The Stand

Quite possibly Stephen King’s most popular individual book, The Stand first saw publication in 1978 from Doubleday. The lengthy novel detailed a struggle between two groups of survivors in a plague-ravaged America. Pieces of the story first began to germinate in the short story, “Night Surf”, which was collected in King’s anthology Night Shift.

In terms of the writing of The Stand, King described the initiation of the process in some detail in his non-fiction book, Danse Macabre. Originally intending to write a fictionalized version of the Patty Hearst saga, King found himself at loggerheads over the direction of the book; a combination of a radio preacher, thoughts of the novel Earth Abides, and a shadowy photo of SLA head Donald DeFreeze all coalesced in King’s head. What emerged after two years of writing was the tale of a weaponized plague that kills most of humankind; the survivors fall into two camps, followers of either the angelic Mother Abigail or The Dark Man, Randall Flagg.

King also attributes some of the genesis of the book to J.R.R. Tolkien. On his official website, www.stephenking.com, he relates, “Only instead of a hobbit, my hero was a Texan named Stu Redman, and instead of a Dark Lord, my villain was a ruthless drifter and supernatural madman named Randall Flagg. The land of Mordor ("where the shadows lie, according to Tolkien) was played by Las Vegas.”

King originally had to cut the book significantly. In 1990, he released The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition, which both restored lost material and added new parts (particularly a new ending). Later, the novel was adapted in a four-part ABC mini-series in 1994; it starred Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Rob Lowe, and Jamey Sheridan.

Reverberations of The Stand have echoed in pop culture since its release. The Alarm’s single, “The Stand”, as well as Anthrax’s “Among the Living” were inspired by the book. The producers of Lost have repeatedly indicated that King, especially The Stand, are primary influences on their material.

As far as King’s own work, characters, themes and locations from The Stand continued to appear in his work. Long-time readers know the eventual significance of Flagg in a number of stories, including The Dark Tower. The world itself would briefly be revisited in The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass.

[Predabot1]

Well now, this sounds pretty cool wouldn't ya'll say?

Glad to hear, that the little get together just prior to coming up on the stage, in NYCC have led to a real project.

[bigdaddyhub]

Wow. This is great news! I wonder who Marvel will put on the art for this work. Do you think they will be able to put one of their top tier guys on it or will they give it to someone who is relatively unknown?

[BUMP]

An amazing novel, and fantastic news. As long as they give it the same love and care they gave The Dark Tower, of course.

The Walking Dude is on his way...

[LostAndFoundFan]

The Stand is probably my favorite of King's longer novels, so I'm happy to see this coming. "Duma Key" has excellent graphic novel possibilities as well, as it's centered around an artist. I hope that Marvel looks into this as well.

[defjoe]

M.O.O.N spells Graphic novel

[trazadone]

Well, just as long as Marvel doesn't have Mephisto fix everything at the end.

[vbartilucci]

As a graphic novel? No.

As a several-issue mini collected in a really big (Like Moonshadow-sized) TPB? Yes.

You'd need at least 200 pages to adapt The Stand properly. Especially if you're talking about the revised edition.

[eltopo]

sounds like a great idea,Marvel's done a great job with the dark tower so far and the stand is one of the best King stories IMO

[TheJerkle]

Originally Posted by trazadone

Well, just as long as Marvel doesn't have Mephisto fix everything at the end.

The hand in the sky at the end has to belong to someone, y'know

[ryanrhome]

2 of my favorite things in literature are Stephen King and Marvel Comics (yes yes call me uncultured, but I enjoy them). The Stand is one of my very favorites! This news is exciting to me.

[EdKaye]

so no more novels from him are likely on the Dark Tower front or, of Roland's next "go around")

How about a spoiler alert here, or just cut that. That is not a good thing to put at all.

[surrogategod]

this is good news but i am personally more excited about the possibility of a talisman comic series. wolf, the agincourt hotel and sunlight gardener's school would be awesome to see on a comic's page. maybe it could even light a fire under king's ass to get going with the book that's supposed to follow black house.

[grphxkindaguy]

I had no interest in the Dark Tower comics (I even tried to read the book beforehand, no dice), but The Stand is my favorite book of all time, so I'll definitely get this!!!

most likely the eventual tpb...

[MattBrady]

Originally Posted by EdKaye

How about a spoiler alert here, or just cut that. That is not a good thing to put at all.

Generally speaking, four year old books fall out of "spoiler warning" range.

MattB

[Derek Ruiz]

Originally Posted by grphxkindaguy

I had no interest in the Dark Tower comics (I even tried to read the book beforehand, no dice), but The Stand is my favorite book of all time, so I'll definitely get this!!!

most likely the eventual tpb...

Yeah...that's how I felt. I so look forward to this adapt.

[Nobody]

So I'm imagining something in the size of the Bone collected edition and it will take Mark Bagely seven years to adapt (he'll be available to Marvel by the time the writer finishes the script).

[drastic_q]

Originally Posted by Nobody

So I'm imagining something in the size of the Bone collected edition and it will take Mark Bagely seven years to adapt (he'll be available to Marvel by the time the writer finishes the script).

No kidding. Off the top of my head, I'd think it would need to be roughly double of Watchmen's page count. The choice of artist will be make or break as well.

[Michael Heide]

Yes, I wouldn't mind an adaptation of the Stand.
But what I'd prefer would be completely new material in comic book form, like his "JFK assassination" alternate history story.
The Stand is a cool novel, but it's a story already told. Why tell a story twice when you could create something entirely new?

[pop monkey]

Originally Posted by vbartilucci

As a graphic novel? No.

As a several-issue mini collected in a really big (Like Moonshadow-sized) TPB? Yes.

You'd need at least 200 pages to adapt The Stand properly. Especially if you're talking about the revised edition.

200 pages would be doing The Stand a grave injustice. It needs much more than that to be even halfway fleshed out. It needs at least a 12-issue miniseries with much less condensed art and writing than was on display in the way-too-abridged Dark Tower mini.

[BoCelts034]

*(Fingers crossed... muttering to self) Please let Bernie Wrightson illustrate... please let Bernie Wrightson illustrate.*

[RichJohnston]

Originally Posted by MattBrady

Generally speaking, four year old books fall out of "spoiler warning" range.

MattB

I'm still smarting from the Dead Tara spoiler Newsarama put on the front page...

[BamaRainbow]

Originally Posted by vbartilucci

As a graphic novel? No.

As a several-issue mini collected in a really big (Like Moonshadow-sized) TPB? Yes.

You'd need at least 200 pages to adapt The Stand properly. Especially if you're talking about the revised edition.

You brought up something that I was thinking about when King used the term "graphic novel". I know that, in a prose novel, there's a lot of information that, when translated to a visual medium, is there to see but even with that caveat, it would seem that "The Stand" would need somewhere in the neighborhood of 300-350 pages of multi-panel artwork (depending on the number of full-page panels--splash pages and such--are used).
(According to the trivia page at IMDb.com for the TV mini-series adaptation, that script was 460 pages, and that not even King could come up with a way to turn it into a theatrical film without making it a minimum of two parts. Given that, I can't see the "graphic novel" being released as a single volume unless we're looking at an "Essential"-style TPB--of course, the paper quality would have to be much better, but that would lead to a much higher price point.)

[Kurt Busiek]

Originally Posted by pop monkey

200 pages would be doing The Stand a grave injustice. It needs much more than that to be even halfway fleshed out. It needs at least a 12-issue miniseries with much less condensed art and writing than was on display in the way-too-abridged Dark Tower mini.

A 12-issue mini-series would be 264 pages. THE STAND itself is 1153 pages long.

I'd love to adapt THE STAND to comics, myself. But to do it the way I'd want to do it, it wouldn't end up in a single volume. I think you'd be looking at 75 issues at least.

I don't expect Marvel will do it that way, but boy, it'd be fun...!

kdb

[Charlie Hustle]

oh ____ this is great news, this is gonna be long as hell though