The Gunslinger Born

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"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."

I was going into the bookstore for something else entirely the other week and happened to see Marvel’s The Gunslinger Born, hard cover and featuring all 7 chapters, sitting on a shelf right at the entrance with an offer of 40% off with my Border’s card.

I never finished reading Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, but I plan to some day, despite hearing of the abysmal ending. I sort of lost track of the books when Mr. King was out of commission, having been hit by a car, and then one day saw the 7th book sitting on the shelves of the bookstore. Despite all that, and despite that I had read the first four books many years ago and my recollection is fuzzy, I remember liking The Gunslinger. So this deal was naturally too good to pass up.

Turns out it opens to the same scene as the first Dark Tower book, The Gunslinger, but then draws the rest of its material from the fourth book, Wizard and Glass, in which the readers finally find out about Roland’s past. So really, the entire miniseries focuses on Roland’s youth. This, however, is not a bad thing but it may be dissapointing to anyone who assumed the comics would cover the entire Dark Tower saga, or the first book The Gunslinger.

For my thoughts on this graphic novel I’m going to focus mainly on the presentation of the comic itself, as my recollection of the first four books is a bit fuzzy, as I’ve said (though I have to say certain parts of them have always stuck prominently in my mind), but I’ll try to compare to the books what I can for the sake of any fans out there.

For one I have to say it’s a good adaption. Abridged, of course, like when a book is adapted to film, but good nonetheless. The story flows well and at a steady pace, it never seems to go too slow or too fast. The adaption of the cultural speech and phrases of the Mid-Worlders is also handled well, although that sort of thing can get a little annoying if you’re not into it (if you had a hard time paying attention to the dialog in say, the Lord of the Rings films.) I should note that the use of the word "sai" as an honorific in High Speech (as the dialect invented by King is called) was perhaps the largest influence on my own online moniker, though I usually say it was the weapon (which is also a factor) as it takes too long to explain its use in The Dark Tower, and of course explaining The Dark Tower itself is kind of difficult.

The artwork, naturally, is gorgeous, as it should be for the time and the collaborative effort that went into it. The color is the most striking feature here, always balanced, vibrant yet subtle in its own way. Despite being entirely digital the backgrounds resemble oil paintings at times, and objects in the distance seem to fade into a dreamy, multi-hued haze. The structure of the backgrounds themselves is rather abstract giving the entire thing a rather surreal look, which is very fitting considering the novels give off an overall surreal impression. The panel composition is extremely cinematic and could easily be directly adapted as a film storyboard.

As a bonus the end of the hard cover collection features a letter from Stephen King, maps of the cities in the story, gorgeous sketches, concept art, pencils, all of the individual issue covers and more.

I, however, do have a few criticisms, and I have to admit they may be biased by my personal taste. It’s obvious to anyone with two eyes and half a brain that I’m biased toward Japanese comics. I didn’t have much of a taste for American comics even before I knew what Japanese comics were, the occasional few slipping in to catch my eye, and my sensibilities.

I feel I should reiterate that the art in The Gunslinger Born is very beautiful, but that perfect, excruciating detail came with a price. The character’s faces don’t seem very expressive to me, even in times of anger and charged emotions of any kind their expressions come across as inappropriately subdued. I realize these are gritty, hard-worn people living in a tough society and an unforgiving environment, but it just left a bad taste in my mouth.

My other problem with the art was that between the cut of the panels and the deep black shading you hardly ever saw a character’s full face. To me, this was rather frustrating, and it presented the problem that I didn’t really relate to any of the characters or feel that close to them. I realize they were intending to be artsy, but to me it was like squinting at someone in the dark.

My final criticism is not with the art but with the more or less omission of the more sexually charged scenes of this slice of the novels. Many  of them are suggested, certainly, but that’s about it. I’m not asking that the Marvel artists draw hardcore pornography, but perhaps a more sensual indication of these happenings. Sure they’ll spot the dialog with obscenities, and depict the graphic violence, but the extreme dulling down of these scenes seems patronizing. It also indicates to me that the American comics industry is still somewhat under the thumb of the antiquated "comics code", even if its in a manner of self-censorship or habit.

However, despite these shortcomings (that one would consider them shortcomings is pretty relative) this book is definitely worth picking up, and the sequel next year likely will be too, I’d set my watch and warrant on it.