Authors: Hans-Ake Lilja
Lilja:
She’s doing a very good job so far.
Ralph Macchio:
She’s doing an excellent job. She is, as I have said many times, the lynchpin of the whole thing. She is the go-between between us and Stephen and
The Dark Tower
itself. She has the knowledge of the story, she knows more about it than anybody and she is the one that really is putting the building blocks together for each individual story arc.
Lilja:
How much did you know about
The Dark Tower
before this? Were you a fan already or did you have to…
Ralph Macchio:
Oh, yes, going all the way back to the beginning. I had picked up the books as they came out. We all know there is a great time lag in between various books, but I had certainly picked them up from the first book right on down to the last one. It’s funny. I was just getting into the last book as this project came up at Marvel. So, it was a terrific thing. I was able to read that last fantastic book just as we were about to jump in and begin the series here.
Lilja:
It must have been wonderful when they asked you if you wanted to edit it.
Ralph Macchio:
Yes, there are not many projects that I would jump up and down about, but this one, when I heard we were going to get it, was one of the few times that I actually spoke to Dan Buckley, our publisher, and Joe Quesada, the editor-in-chief, and asked if I could have this project. I wanted it very much.
Lilja:
Yeah, I can understand that. I wouldn’t mind trading with you. Are you going to continue to turn other King books into comics?
Ralph Macchio:
That really depends on Stephen and upper management. I think in this office we would do anything that he wanted. Anything that he has written we would do in an illustrated format if he was interested. But then again, those are for discussion between him and upper management. I remember going back several decades when I worked on one of our black-and-white magazines,
Bizarre Adventures
, and back then the editor on that, I was the assistant editor, Denny O’Neil I think had been friends with Stephen King’s agent at the time, Kirby McCauly, and somehow they had gotten together and spoken to Stephen about us adapting “The Lawnmower Man,” which was a short story from
Night Shift
. And that worked out beautiful because we were able to get Walt Simonson, top guy then and now, to do the art on it and then we sent the art boards, Xerox of the art boards, to Stephen and he had never scripted a comic before, but he turned it back in after a few days and the scripting was as if he had written comics for years. A beautiful piece of work.
Lilja:
Yeah, I read that one. It’s not as good as
The Dark Tower
, but it’s good.
Ralph Macchio:
Well, you’re dealing with…you know, one’s a short story and one’s a novel, but I thought it was handled brilliantly visually, and as I said, Stephen’s scripting was superb on it. I can still remember the individual panels and the whole thing. I was very happy with it even though I wasn’t the editor on it. I was the assistant on it and it came out beautifully, so I think we can do any of Stephen’s dozens and dozens of short stories or any of the novels. Anything that would lend itself to a visual flair we would take it on.
Lilja:
I’m hoping you’ll do a Stephen King original—that he will do something for you that hasn’t been published before.
Ralph Macchio:
That would be something that would be a huge feather in everybody’s cap if he wanted to write an original story and we would get it illustrated by Jae or some other top-notch penciler. That would be fantastic. Everybody in the world would go crazy about that one.
Lilja:
He seems very open to try different publishing styles.
Ralph Macchio:
Yes, I felt that if we were going to develop a long-lasting relationship with him and Chuck Verrill, I know that we needed to really hit the ground running. We needed to make sure that the books we were putting out were the best we could give them because if they were going to be inclined to wanna pursue a relationship with Marvel where we would do other books, other projects, we had to show what we had with this first one and, again, I’m pleased that I think we have put the very best into it that we could and I’m happy that both Chuck and Steve are happy and that they want to pursue a relationship with Marvel.
Lilja:
As far as I have heard everybody is happy with it. I haven’t heard anyone say something bad about it.
Ralph Macchio:
Right, and you know, at some point, as people get more and more issues under their belt, there will be criticism and there will be room for criticism too; we accept that. This is not going to be a perfect project from beginning to end, but I’m confident that with the time that we had and the creative personnel and the level of energy and commitment that went into this that we are giving it the very best that we can, so even if there are critics later on I’m still confident and satisfied that we’ve given it the very best we could.
Lilja:
It shows that you gave it your best.
Ralph Macchio:
Thanks. We, as you, have an enormous respect for the source material on this, and you can’t give it other than your best because you have so much respect for where it’s coming from.
Lilja:
So, time is running out. Is there any scoop you can leave me with?
Ralph Macchio:
I don’t have a revelation for you. I can just tell you that I believe that the level of quality increases for each issue because all the participants get more and more used to working with the material and with each other. The synergy gets better and better with every single issue and anyone who enjoyed the first issue will enjoy the second and keep coming back for the third, fourth, etc. I don’t think we are going to disappoint you.
Lilja:
OK, thanks for talking to me.
Ralph Macchio:
My pleasure.
****
Robin Furth
Posted: April 18, 2007
Lilja:
For those out there who don’t know about you and your
Dark Tower Concordances
, can you tell me a little about yourself and how you ended up working with Stephen King?
Robin Furth:
I started working for Steve King back in 2000—the year after his terrible accident. By that time Steve had already published
On Writing
and needed somebody to sort through the thousands of responses he’d gotten to the
On Writing
story competition. He wanted to help out a starving grad student, so he contacted Burt Hatlen—one of my professors at the University of Maine who also happened to be one of Steve’s old advisors. Burt knew that I was a writer, that I loved fantasy and sci-fi, and that I was a fan of Steve’s work. Hence, he recommended me for the job. (Lucky me!) At the end of that particular assignment I went into Steve’s office and met the man himself. At that point he asked me if I wanted more work. He was about to return to the
Dark Tower
series and needed someone to write up lists of characters and places and record the pages on which they could be found. (He wanted to be able to double-check for plot and character continuity—no small job in such a big body of work.) Anyway, when Steve asked whether I was interested in the job I said yes! Amazing how much that one yes has transformed my inner landscape.
Lilja:
Were you in on the comic from the start? I guess your involvement was essential to the entire project, right?
Robin Furth:
Yes, I was there at the original meeting between Steve, Chuck Verrill and Marvel. (Well, I wasn’t there in body. I was there via phone link.) I’d spent so long in the
Dark Tower
universe that Steve thought it would be a good idea to have me on board for the Marvel project. I’d never worked in comics before, but I loved graphic novels and illustrated books so was excited about the whole thing. I also wanted to see Roland and his friends take on that extra dimension—to have faces and bodies that moved through space.
Lilja:
A lot of fans feel that the comic is more your story than King’s. Just to get that notion out of people’s minds, can you shed some light over what your and King’s different roles are in creating the comic?
Robin Furth:
The story covered by the first seven comics is Steve’s story—the one he told in
Wizard and Glass
. My job has been to adapt that novel to a new format, which meant cutting some scenes and adapting others. (Occasionally I ended up adding and adapting bits from other
Dark Tower
books, such as the scene in issue 1 when Roland and his friends attend a falconry class.) Adapting a novel to the comic-book form is a bit like altering a novel and making it into a film. Everything has to be visual, and you have to tell your reader everything you can via action. Hence, my real goal has been to stay true to Steve’s vision—a vision recounted over the course of the seven-book series. I’ve tried hard to remember the face of my father, say thankya. All stories and story cycles go through Steve, so not only was he the original author but he’s also the final editor!
Lilja:
So you get a basic story line story from King that you work into a script for the comic. Then Peter David makes it fit in the comic itself, is that correct?
Robin Furth:
I guess the technical term for what I do is plotting. Basically, it’s my job to condense Steve’s novel down into seven comics of (roughly!) twenty-two pages each and somehow, despite the cuts, have the story and characters remain true to the original vision. Peter’s task is then to create dialogue—to make the characters sound like they do in the books, and to generally catch the rhythms of Mid-World.
Lilja:
Does it happen that King himself can’t keep track of things and writes in errors that you then have to catch? I mean, that was partly why you did the concordances, to avoid errors like that, right?
Robin Furth:
The amazing thing about creating such a large imaginative universe is that it’s almost impossible to keep track of every detail. (It’s kind of like trying to keep track of the life stories of every single person you’ve ever met, as well as the landscape of every state and country you’ve ever visited!) While Steve was writing the last three novels of the
Dark Tower
series, one of my jobs was to keep everybody (and every place) in order. To do that I had to create a mental database, where every person and location had an entry, where their histories/families/exciting events were recorded.
The Concordance
is the physical manifestation of that mental database. When I was a kid I really wanted to become a folklorist, so in a sense that’s exactly what I’ve done. Only the folklore (and history) I’ve specialized in belongs to Mid-World rather than our world.
Lilja:
How fresh was your memory about
The Dark Tower
from when you did the concordances? Did you have to get back and reread a lot, or has it been stuck in your head for good now?
Robin Furth:
It’s pretty much stuck in my head for good now! That really came home to me about a week ago when John Barber at Marvel asked me to describe the guns of Deschain as well as the guns used by apprentice gunslingers. I realized that I knew which scenes in which books contained vivid descriptions of both kinds of guns. I even knew where to find the kind of bullets Roland needed to load up! (And, by the way, if you want to know what kind of bullets he uses, go to the
Concordance
entry entitled CLEMENTS GUNS AND SPORTING GOODS in the OUR WORLD PLACES section. You’ll find the page refs you need!)
Lilja:
The first series is pretty much an adaptation of King’s book, and I guess you could take a lot from the book when you did the script for those issues, right?
Robin Furth:
I really tried to stick to the book and so did Peter. We both thought that was the best (and only) way to go.
Lilja:
Do you worry now that you won’t be able to do that with the following series, the one that deals important events that aren’t addressed in the books?
Robin Furth:
I definitely think about that a lot, especially because staying true to the novels is so important to me. Luckily, the
Dark Tower
novels are littered with tales about Roland’s youth and stories about his friends Alain and Cuthbert, so I had a lot to go on. I’ve also made friends with Roland’s ka-tet over the years, so when I need to know where to go next I ask them. (Hey, I know that sounds weird, but it’s true.)