Books: Stephen King's N

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Stephen King's N
Written by Marc Guggenheim
Art by Alex Maleev
2011




Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
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Damn it - maybe I shouldn't have read this on my lunch break? Spooky atmospheric horror is never that effective when you're sitting around eating crisps and sandwiches and listening to your ipod (even if it was playing scary mood music: Penderecki, Ben Frost and the Essential John Carpenter film music collection). Based on a short story by Stephen King (collected in Just After Sunset) this is a story that deals with the nature of obsession and the terrifying possibilities found in the places where reality is at it's weakest. With very tasty artwork from Alex Maleev (best known for his stint working on Bendis' Daredevil) - although (should I say this now?) his depiction of the end of times didn't scare me as much as some of the stuff in B.P.R.D. Vol 5: The Black Flame (I love that book!) this is a genuinely creepy tale told in a convincing fashion - although I couldn't help the feeling that there was something missing... Reading the introduction after finishing the rest of the book (something I've done ever since the introduction to The Sandman: The Kindly Ones completely spoiled the ending for me) I realised what that thing was: the original story was completely made up out of different documents - newspaper articles, psychiatric reports, letters, emails etc (which sounds - for reasons I won't get into too deeply here - way cooler than having those documents playing over the scenes of those things happening (which is what the comic does). To put it as simply as I can: if a story is written to take advantage of a particular medium then it doesn't really make that much sense to adapt it to another one - and (sadly) this book comes across like The Blair Witch Project: The Novel or Watchmen: The Movie (ho ho ho). I'm not knocking the idea of adaptation. And there's plenty of things that get it right (in fact - check out Alan Moore's The Courtyard for an nice little horror comic based on a short story (that's great in it's own right too) that does loads of things the prose piece it's based on can't). And - again I'm getting this from the introduction - it doesn't seems like the main reason this comic was written was as a promotional tie-in to the Stephen King book that spawned it (something about 'mobisodes'? sounds well weapon...). Although maybe all this sounds like I hated it - but I didn't - it's good. It's just... well. What I said: it just feels... unnecessary.

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Links: Comic Book Resources Review of #1, PopMatters Review.

Further reading: The Stand, The Dark Tower, Alan Moore's The Courtyard, Locke & Key, Cradlegrave.

All comments welcome.