Lilja's Library (51 page)

As earlier, the illustrations, the coloring, the scripting and the story are very well done and a lot of work is put into this issue, as with the previous five. It’s great to see that everyone involved in the comic seems to be as enthusiastic and inspired now, six issues into the series, as they were when issue 1 was released. 

Robin is getting very comfortable with the Gunslinger saga, and the history lessons are so good that I hope one day they will all be released as a “real” history book.  

Lilja’s final words about
The Gunslinger Born
6
 

Issue 6 is, as I have said, as good as the previous five issues and keeps the story moving. Now there is one issue left, and after that we’ll get to see what the team can do with Roland without King’s books to lean on. Personally, I think they’ll keep making magic!
 

**** 

The Gunslinger Born 7 

Posted: July 27, 2007  

So, the end is here… 

Well, not forever. This is just the end of the first story arc, but there will be at least four more. In fact, at the end of issue 7 we get to know the title and the release date of the second arc. Marvel has asked me not to reveal that information, though, until the issue is released on August 1st, so…sorry. 

Since most of you probably know how the story ends (being it has already been told in
Wizard and Glass
), I will talk about it in my review (if you don’t want to know what happens, please come back after you have read the issue). But, even when you know what’s going to happen it’s very intense to see it illustrated in the comic. Jae Lee and Richard Isanove have really managed to translate King’s written text brilliantly in the comic. Susan’s death is very gruesome to see in print. 

Also, their interpretation of the thinny and the faith of the people Roland and his gang lead into it is very effectively illustrated. The coloring and the mood is different from the rest of the issue and very fitting for the occasion. 

Finally, we also get to see Susan’s aunt, Cordelia Delgado, in issue 7. She looks very much like I interpreted her from King’s text—very stiff and not very kind. While she is being manipulated by Rhea we also, once again, get to see how evil Rhea is, and I love every second of it. 

The history lesson this time is part two about the Charyou Tree and is called
Come Reap!
It tells the story of when King Arthur Eld tried to ban the reaptide burnings (Charyou Tree), but instead got to see his only love Emmanuell burn and his wife, Queen Rowena, give birth to a crimson, eight-legged spider. 

We also get two pages of Jae’s uncolored pencils for this issue and, as usual, it’s very nice to see the difference between uncolored and colored pages…  

Lilja’s final words about
The Gunslinger Born
7
 

With the very intense ending, the best cover yet and the hard work put in by Jae Lee, Richard Isanove, Robin Furth, Peter David and Chris Eliopoulos, we have a superb issue in our hands. Issue 7 is, so far, the best issue of the
Gunslinger Born
series, if you ask me. Everything falls into place, and I can only bow my head and say thank you for the ride. Now I’m looking forward to the second story arc. 

**** 

The Gunslinger’s Guidebook 

Posted: July 27, 2007  

The Gunslinger’s Guidebook
has had a lot of release dates, but now it’s finally landed on August 1, the same date that issue 7 of
Gunslinger Born
is released. After reading the guidebook I’m glad that they didn’t release it earlier. There are a lot of spoilers in it about what happens in the last issues of
Gunslinger Born
, and for those of you who don’t know how the story ends it would have been unfortunate to read
The Gunslinger’s Guidebook
in advance. 

The Gunslinger’s Guidebook
is very much an illustrated version of Robin Furth’s
The Dark Tower Concordance
. Every important character has his or her own section in which we get to learn the basic facts about that particular character. We get his or her aliases, nicknames, place of birth, occupation, known relatives, education, history, special skills and equipment. We also get information like height, weight, hair color and eye color of that character. 

In addition to that, we also get information about the affiliation, gunslingers, Gilead, Hambry, Eyebolt Canyon, horsemen’s association, reaptide festival, End-World and Maerlyn’s rainbow. Those of you who have read
The Dark Tower Concordance
will recognize a lot of this. At the end we also get a Mid-World glossary. 

So, is this something you should invest in even if you have
The Dark Tower Concordance
? I definitely think so.
The Gunslinger’s Guidebook
is a very good complement to
The Concordance
. This guidebook is sort of a light version of
The Concordance
that only covers the
Gunslinger Born
saga. It’s something that you read from cover to cover while
The Concordance
is more of a dictionary that you use to look things up when you need it. 

My advice is to get the guidebook as a complement to
The Concordance
. If you do, you will definitely be set with all the info you could ever need about
The Dark Tower
series.  

Lilja’s final words about
The Gunslinger’s Guidebook
 

I enjoyed
The Gunslinger’s Guidebook
very much and it was nice to get the series covered both with all the information we need as well as pictures of (almost) everyone. So, make sure you get this. It will not only give you a good time while reading it, but it will also give more depth to the story about Roland’s early adventures. 

**** 

The Gunslinger Born (omnibus) 

Posted: October 31, 2007  

In just a few days (Nov. 7), the hardback edition of
Gunslinger Born
is released. I got a chance to check it out a bit early and here is what you can expect. It’s a very nice book that we get. It’s a hardback in about the same size as the comics and it contains all seven issues. A chapter page separates them, though, so they are still like seven issues collected in one volume. I was kind of hoping that they would just have the pages go on as if in one book instead of seven. This isn’t a big problem, though, and the chapter pages are really cool, but still… 

Anyhow, it’s not something that I’ll lose sleep over. Is it very different from the separate issues then? Well, not that much. It’s in hardback, of course, and that is very nice. You can easily put it with the rest of your King books in the bookcase. That’s hard to do with comics. 

We also get all of the individual covers—all of the regular, the sketch and the variant covers. We also get the covers for later printings, and it’s nice to get all of those collected, and the ones here don’t have all the text on them, which makes it extra nice. You might even consider buying an extra copy of the hardback and cutting out the covers, framing them and hanging them on your wall. 

We also get a letter from King, a letter from Ralph Macchio, some sketches and some pencils by Jae Lee. Richard Isanove also shows us how the painting process goes. These things aren’t new, but it’s nice to have it all collected in one book. 

Oh, and whatever you do, don’t forget to remove the dustjacket. Underneath you’ll find a very beautiful cover. I’m not sure if it’s real leather (probably not), but it looks like it and has a blood red color. It also has The Dark Tower logo on the front. Very impressive!  

Lilja’s final words about
The Gunslinger Born
(omnibus)
 

So, who is this edition for? Well, it’s obviously for the fans of
The Dark Tower
comic. But, if you just like the series, like with any other comic, you might do well with the single issues and save your money for the coming ones instead of spending it on this hardback, since most of what’s in it you get in the single issues as well.  

With that said, I won’t deny that it looks extremely good in my bookcase or that it’s very nice to have all of the issues in one book. That alone is worth the money it costs to buy this edition and I know I would miss it if it weren’t in my bookcase. 

I do, however, miss the history lessons by Robin Furth, which aren’t included here… 

**** 

The Long Road Home 1 

Posted: March 3, 2008  

The first issue of
The Long Road Home
is finally here. This is the story arc that isn’t based on something King has previously written and I can imagine that Jae, Richard, Robin, Peter and the rest of the team are a bit nervous to see how this one is going to be received by the fans. I’m sure King likes it or he would have told them so, but the fans? You can never really know until the issue is out there, and then it’s too late to do anything about it, right? 

Well, let me tell you…Jae, Richard, Robin, Peter and all the others can relax. The first issue of
The Long Road Home
is good. Very good, in fact. It continues right where the last issue of
The Gunslinger Born
ends, and we get to see how Roland is caught in Maerlyn’s Grapefruit and his friends, Alain and Bert, have to carry him along with the only surviving Big Coffin Hunter, Clay Reynolds, on their tails. 

The issue is very intense and also contains some rather gruesome images of a burned Susan Delgado, but after reading it I feel very comfortable that the team behind it will succeed in bringing the story of Roland to the next level and, by doing so, also tell us about the events King hasn’t already written about in the books. 

As usual, the illustrations, the text and the story itself feel very true to
The Dark Tower
world(s), and I actually feel that this is the road King could have taken if he had written about this in any of the books. 

As with
The Gunslinger Born
, we also get to read about historical events in
The Long Road Home
, and this time we get something called
Welcome to the Dogan, Part 1: The Ghostly Queen
. This is a continuation of the one in the last issue of
The Gunslinger Born
called
Come Reap!
And I must say that this history lesson is one of the best, including the ones in
The Gunslinger Born
. It also got me wondering if this Dogan has anything to do with the one in
Wolves of the Calla
. 

As if that isn’t enough, we also get to see Jae’s original drafts for one page, then a spread and then how they ended up looking when he finished them. There aren’t any big differences in the versions, but you can definitely see that he has worked on the second one a little and it’s interesting to see how it has developed.  

Lilja’s final words about
The Long Road Home
1  

It feels very good to have the second story arc starting and even better that I, after reading it, am left with a very good feeling. A feeling that tells me the remaining issues will be true to King’s story and tell us about the new events in a correct way, just like we thought they would.
 

**** 

The Long Road Home 2 

Posted: April 2, 2008  

The second issue of
The Long Road Home
continues where the first ends. Roland is trapped in Maerlyn’s Grapefruit and his two friends are fleeing for their lives with the posse from Hambry on their heels.  

Inside the Grapefruit, Roland is fighting a battle against Marten that almost costs him his life and destroys the Grapefruit itself.