| Title | : | The Journey Begins (Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, #1) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0785147098 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780785147091 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 120 |
| Publication | : | First published January 26, 2011 |
A BOLD NEW CHAPTER IN STEPHEN KING'S THE DARK TOWER SAGA! Twelve years have passed since the fateful Battle of Jericho Hill and the fall of the gunslingers. Since the Affiliation's resistance against John Farson became little more than a faint memory. Since the friends that stood by young Roland Deschain burned to ash in the Good Man's razing of Gilead. But Roland survived...and now he stalks the desert, hunting the spectral Man in Black in his quest for the Dark Tower. Join Robin Furth, Peter David and Richard Isanove as they welcome superstar artist Sean Phillips (INCOGNITO) into the ka-tet of creators entrusted by Stephen King himself to bring the adult adventures of his most personal creation to life!
COLLECTING:
Dark Tower: The Gunslinger #1-5
The Journey Begins (Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, #1) Reviews
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In which we see the aftermath of the Battle of Jericho and the final fate of Roland's first Ka-tet!; In which over a decade has passed.. and in which we get to the part, that moment, that opening --> 'The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed' as we join Roland in his pursuit and meet some old, and some new faces.
Sean Phillips takes over the artist duties, and does all he can, but he's no
Jae Lee, who has so strongly defined the artwork for this series. 8 out of 12.
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This is a dark and hopeless transitional graphic novel in the Dark Tower series. It is the beginning of the journey from the time before the novel series to the storyline in the novels. While the series has always been dark and foreboding, this one is particularly bleak.
Because it is a transitional volume, there is only a little bit of a story. Mainly just some scenes after the battle of Jericho Hill as Roland begins his journey to the Dark Tower. Not that transitional volumes like this are a bad thing, it just didn’t quite pull me in as much as the other volumes did.
I heard that along the way the artists change and the illustrations become not quite as good. That appears to have started with this volume. I was not quite as captivated as I was with the previous volumes. The artwork is not quite as clean and some of it even ends up looking a little silly. So, if the art is what has drawn you into the series so far, be warned.
So far, I see no reason that I would stop reading the series. This was still a pretty decent volume. But, I have been warned by others and I am starting to see it slip, so I may be reconsidering this a few volumes down the line. -
It's one thing to have a bunch of Dark Tower graphic novels that fill in the spaces left empty in the original books, but it's another thing to start changing the original Gunslinger text. It might seem appropriate and deliver a bit of pathos, but it takes away from the original pathos of Susan Delgado.
Other than that, I appreciated getting these somewhat random glimpses into Roland's long solitary tale that goes beyond what we know in the first book.
Mostly.
The cook? The hanging? Meh. Roland's original Coming Of Age with Cort was stark and brilliant and really shouldn't be overlaid with these milder shades.
BUT since I really enjoy the worldbuilding and all these added details, I'm not complaining too much. It's still pretty wonderful, all told. -
The first five graphic novels based on Stephen Kings Dark Tower series delve into Roland's youth, from his elevation to the youngest gunslinger and the story of the love of his life Susan Delgado, to the end of the gunslingers with The fall of Gilead & Battle of Jericho Hill.
The journey begins, opens years later with Roland on the trail of the man in black, stopping at a shack in the desert he tells a story of his past to its inhabitant a solitary man alone in the desert.
Of the five issues of this volume only the first deals with Roland's time from the first book the Gunslinger, the remainder of the story returns to the aftermath of the battle at Jericho Hill and the eventual outcome of his friend Aileen, who asks to be buried with her father back at Gilead.
Within this story we have a second flashback when Roland is confronted by the ghost of Hax, a traitorous cook. The story then travels even further back in time to Roland as a small boy, who discovers Hax to be a traitor in league with John Farson and tells his father, the cook is then hanged.
The story at this point was lost and it was almost a cardinal sin to waylay the tale in such a manner, travelling to two such distance parts of the past.
I certainly remember Hax the cook from the Dark Tower series, although not from which book but was he really worth 'screen time' in the graphic novel, in my opinion definitely not. After this incident Roland continues on from Gilead and encounters John Farsons men in Kingstown, picking up a companion along the way in a Billy Bumbler, a significant parallel to the books set a good few years earlier.
The gunslingers younger days have been told and told well but this was just an annoying delay in furthering the story, the past has been dealt with adequately enough and doesn't need to be dwelt on anymore. How long will it take to get to the Dark Tower, hopefully not the twenty two years it took for the initial seven books of the saga to be completed but you never know. The artwork is not as good as the previous books, however the dark atmosphere has been preserved and that is one positive point. I will certainly stick with the series and hopefully the next book remains entirely in the present. -
I adore Roland and everything Dark Tower and I’m not ashamed to say that I squeed with delight (in true fangirl fashion) when I heard that Marvel and Robin Furth would be spearheading a graphic novel adaptation. Things started out well enough – I was so charmed by the first installment –
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born. Essentially a re-telling of
Wizard and Glass (Book 4 of the series), the colors were magnificent, the dialect spot-on, and I got shivers just reading that awesome line one more time: the man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed. By the second installment however –
The Dark Tower: The Long Road Home – my enthusiasm had waned considerably. I still enjoyed the art, but there was something truly missing, which I tried to articulate here in
my rambling but well-intentioned review.
Rather than read on in the series, I stopped while I was ahead. That Roland – while admittedly still the last gunslinger from Gilead – wasn’t my Roland. Then comes along this sixth installment in the next cycle of the series – The Gunslinger: The Journey Begins. It seemed like a good place to pick up the story again. Roland’s young battles are behind him, all has been lost, and he is now on the road to the Dark Tower as a solitary traveler, embittered, battle-weary, with no tears left to shed. This is worlds closer to my Roland and I was only too happy to walk beside him once again. As Robin Furth explains in the introduction: "I would have to show how a boy so completely devoted to his ka-tet could become the bitter, lonely, and dangerous drifter we meet in the first of the Dark Tower novels".
I love that idea, and I think this next cycle is going to be outstanding by comparison because of it. Roland has begun to manifest his "long, tall and ugly" grizzled forbearance. His ruthlessness is apparent, as is his integrity and courage. It goes without saying that the artwork is outstanding and it felt so good to be absorbed back into this time and place once again with a character I love above all others. Here’s to more long days and pleasant nights! -
Okay so as usual I say one thing and end up reading another - Yes I had the next series laying here waiting to be read and in the process of moving them to the side I would up starting to read them, thats me all over.
Well the start of the next cycle is here (and I have recently learned that even though they thought it was all over there will be a third as well) anyway the story starts some years after the events that happened at the end of the last book (if you want to find out go read it or at least read someone elses review) suffice to say that even though they were pretty final there is still one final story to tell.
That said we are now starting to see the rise of the gunslinger we know and recognise from the books, there is still a long way to go but that we already know otherwise why the graphic novels?
the story is just as tight and the artwork just as evocative as always the action starts literally from the first page although as a result the larger story is somewhat obscured but really I didn't mind, the real question is what does this series have to say that does not conflict with the books and yet still has something to add. I am intrigued. -
"The Journey Begins" is a really good start to the gunslinger, as it gets you ready and all excited about older Roland but also refreshes your memory a bit with flashbacks. Those flashbacks are really elegantly done, instead of just showing old panels, they went with a continuation of what happened in the past. In comics thats not necessarily a given!
So far this series has yet to dissappoint me, and minor issues like the changing art or the bleakness at points still don't drag my rating below a 4.
Actually its a great read, 4.5 out of 5 stars for me. -
The Journey Begins was a strange addition to the continuity of the Gunslinger series. It seems to be from a time far into the future, since The Man in Black is fleeing an obviously older Roland, yet that seems to be a vehicle to finish off some of the stories from the previous volumes.
Gilead has fallen. As Roland seeks The Man in Black, he comes across a man named Brown, who tells him that Marten has passed through. Roland tells Brown a story about the end of the Battle of Jericho Hill, wherein he and Aileen manage to survive Farson's massacre. This tells the story of how Roland and Aileen's story ends. It also introduces a cool Billy-Bumbler and I was rather sad to see its demise.
The story about Hax, the poisoner, from when Roland was a child was also interesting. While these stories add to the background of the lore, they seemed a bit extra. The artwork is not as good, compared to Lee's art.
All in all, this was an interesting addition to the lore, but not necessary. It does a good job of rounding out the Battle of Jericho story and finishes Aileen's story as well. The background stories about Hax and the aftermath of the Battle of Jericho are the key points and the Billy Bumbler is a poignant character.
Not the strongest addition to this series, but by no mean bad. Let us see where the next volume takes us and hope for Jim Lee to return as the artist. -
meh...
i was into the first miniseries, in and of itself, without ever having read king's original novels. it was so good, it made me seek out the dark tower novels, and follow them through to the bitter end. the art was beautiful, the story interesting and compelling, drawing on what seemed to be volumes and volumes of mythology.
then, it seemed like the cash cow started milking over at marvel. maybe it was the idea all along, but it kind of felt like they said "hey, that was pretty successful. let's do AS MANY DARK TOWER PREQUELS AS WE CAN POSSIBLY SQUEEZE OUT." and none of them are BAD, really. just... it gets a bit tiring. and the further you go, the more tired you get. like poor old roland himself, trudging on and on and on through the bleak scenery, with the hope of someday coming to the point. really, they suffer in a similar manner to the original books: king starts off strong, creative and clever. but after a couple books, he sinks into a bit of a rut, at least in his delivery of the tale. it's the curse of the mind: becoming mechanical, living from a concept out of the past - the opposite of creation, living out of the spark of the now.
i like sean phillips' art, in general. i like it a lot, actually. but this is not his best or most consistent work, in my opinion. i can say the same thing about peter david actually.
i'll probably keep reading them (but not buying them, thankee). -
The quality of the Dark Tower graphic novel adaptations is rapidly going downhill. The illustrations, which were so gorgeously rendered in the first few, are now cartoonish and sloppy. There is no consistancy in the characters' appearances and Roland (who, in the early books, looked exactly as I'd imagined him) now looks like a buffoonish meathead. It's like the creators of the series took such care with the beginning books to get fans hooked and now they're just phoning it in, certain that we'll buy them anyway. I resent that. I'll read the rest of them, but all they're doing at this point is making me want to revisit the original novels to wash the bad taste of the graphic novels from my mouth.
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(This review was originally published by GraphicNovelReporter.com on Jan. 26, 2011)
Over the course of 20 years and seven The Dark Tower novels, horror writer Stephen King wove an incredibly rich narrative that blended high fantasy and sci-fi elements with a spaghetti western. Influenced by literature and cinema, from Robert Browning's poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" to The Wizard of Oz and Clint Eastwood's cowboy films, the story of Roland Deschain was an epic undertaking. Taking inspiration from such a wide swath of stories and popular culture, the books evolved into a far-reaching meta-narrative, seeding themselves into many of King's other novels and short stories. In hindsight, it seems only natural that the series would so casually, so naturally lend itself to the comic book medium and carry on the engrossing tale of Mid-World's last gunslinger.
In their previous five volumes, writers Robin Furth and Peter David chronicled the origins of Roland Deschain and his rise from boyhood to gunslinger. The Gunslinger-The Journey Begins marks the start of a new story-arc, which plans to show how the boy introduced in their first volume becomes the deadly wanderer introduced in King's The Gunslinger.
Whereas previous volumes focused on the camaraderie between Roland and his band of gunslingers, with plots driven by a series of increasingly urgent events that led to war, the depth in this volume comes from Roland himself. Twelve years after The Battle of Jericho Hill, Roland, the last of the gunslingers, the last of the Line of Eld, is alone. What remains are ghosts—ghosts of the past, ghosts of the dead. Returning to Gilead to bury a dying gunslinger, Roland finds that what little remains of his home are haunted with memories and regrets. After the unrelenting grimness and violence of the previous two volumes, The Journey Begins takes a slower approach. Although there is still plenty of graphic violence, it is largely a psychological character study as readers are reintroduced and reoriented to Roland in the wake of his life's defining moment.
In a framed narrative, Roland relates his story to a farmer named Brown, recounting to him the events that followed the battle between Gilead's gunslingers and the war party of John Farson. In this fashion, the book is both a direct continuation of what has come before and also a path toward a new sequence of stories centered on an older, embittered Roland. Near the book's opening he describes his mule as a "Poor creature…at the end of its endurance, only living because it was a habit." It's a telling outlook that speaks exactly of where Roland is at in this point of his life, as he doggedly seeks the Dark Tower and the evil that lives there.
Peter David constructs a strong script from a story plotted out by Robin Furth, King's longtime research assistant and the definitive authority on all things Dark Tower. David writes in a unique, evocative fashion. His words are poetic in their rhythm, styled with an old-world twang of a time long since passed, which manages to be both distinct yet familiar.
The artwork is handled by Sean Phillips and Richard Isanove. While Isanove continues on as the series color artist, Phillips is a new contributor, taking over pencil duties from Jae Lee (who illustrated the majority of the previous volumes), and acquits himself well. Although his imagery is not quite as haunting or beautiful as Lee's, there is certainly nothing to detract from the man's work here, or the continuity established by the previous book's style. Phillips gets in some beautiful panels, giving plenty of heft and weight to the book's important moments, and he handles the more shocking moments of the script nicely without being gratuitously exploitative of the horror elements that exist in the overarching story.
Stephen King's The Dark Tower was a complex, layered series, and quite possibly the high-water mark of the vastly prolific author's career. By entrusting it to a group of artists who care about and love the material, who are as clearly enamored with Mid-World and Roland Deschain as King's most devout Constant Readers, Marvel's The Dark Tower have grown into a fascinating, consistently readable comic book series. Over the course of six volumes, readers have been thrust into a world rich with politics and warfare, romance and bloodshed, heartbreak and grotesqueness. It is every bit the equal of King's masterpiece, and has grown into essential reading for the fans of those prose novels. As time goes on and the illustrated series continues to grow, it may even eclipse the original work it is inspired by. -
This is the 6th book in the Dark Tower Graphic Novel series. I was super excited to read this installment in this series because it starts the story of Roland and his journey as the lone Gunslinger. It ended up being a well done story but jumps around quite a bit.
The story starts with Roland as an older Gunslinger, many years after the Battle of Jericho Hill. Then the story promptly jumps back to the events immediately following Jericho Hill. We also get to jump way back into the past when Roland was a young boy, this happens when older Roland stumbles upon an old man in a deserted hut and tells him some stories from his youth.
This book is the start of the long, lean, and ugly Gunslinger we are all familiar with from the Dark Tower series. We get to see him search the vast wastelands as he follows The Black Man in hopes of finally reaching The Tower. I was hoping we would see more of Roland as the aged Gunslinger in this book. However, we see more of flashbacks into his past than anything else.
The book was interesting and made me excited to see what future books hold for our grizzled old Gunslinger.
The illustration throughout was very well done; it’s full color, incredibly detailed, beautiful, and easy to follow. I enjoyed the illustration a lot.
The story continues to have a very dark and hopeless tone to it and is set in a desolate world. I would recommend for older young adults or adults.
Overall this was a well done installment in the Dark Tower graphic novel series. I continue to enjoy the beautiful illustration and was excited to see Roland as the old grizzled Gunslinger who is on his eternal quest for the Dark Tower. I was a bit disappointed by how much the story jumps around...however it was nice to get some resolution around the battle of Jericho Hill and get some brief glimpses into a very young Roland’s life. I will definitely continue reading this series and recommend it to those who enjoy dark and gritty fantasy graphic novels. -
Ich liebe es, weiter in diesem Universum zu sein. Mit "Die Reise beginnt" gehen wir zurück an den Anfang der Dunklen Turm Reihe, zurück zu "Schwarz". Doch man wird nicht wirklich gespoilert. Rolands Abenteuer sind dann doch noch andere und kurze Zeit hat er einen Billy Bumbler. Oland.
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The journey begins! This is how I first expected the Dark Tower graphic novels to start, with the gunslinger chasing after the man in black. I realized after beginning this volume that I had missed the last volume of first arc (
The Dark Tower: Battle of Jericho Hill), but there was enough of a recap to get me on track. The fact that this is the beginning of a new story arc (The Gunslinger) made the loss of that volume less.
While at first this appeared to be picking up at book one of the novels, this volume is largely flashbacks to the beginning of Roland's journey, after the defeat at Jericho Hill. As a young man he finds a billy bumbler, and encounters some ghosts of his past. This arc looks like it will fill the sketchy history of Roland between his childhood learning the art of gunslinging and his current chase after the man in black.
I was a little disappointed in the artwork, and some of the dialogue felt unnatural, but it was still good. I have The Battle of Jericho Hill at home so I can catch up. The Little Sisters of Eluria is the next stop... I hope they are as creepy as they were in the books! -
Another great installment of the series. In this edition, we see a much older, much more haggard looking Roland journeying through the desert after the Man in Black, telling Brown of his trials so far. We see Roland briefly form a new ka-tet with Billy... ahh, Ka is a wheel. That bastard. :(
There's a nice mix of canon series info and new backstory in this edition, and I continue to enjoy these while they keep me going through my No Re-read year.
Again I'll just mention the artwork, specifically for this one making Roland look like Benicio del Toro at times. Which was weird. But otherwise the artwork was on par with the rest of the series. -
3.5 stars. After the loss at the battle of Jericho, some years later we find Roland alone walking the trail chasing the man in black and the Dark tower. He stops at a small hut with a single occupant who offers water and a place to rest. Here, Roland tells the man, Brown, of his experiences during his travel. Some decent adventures Roland got into with the Not-men, guys who have some tech that makes them invisible. Decent book.
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The First peice of The Dark Tower universe I have delved into other than the subpower film. The story has a great pace and by the climax I had become so attached to Roland's Billy-Bumbler companion I has sad at his valiant passing. I definitely wish to continue to explore Kings Multiverse and multimedia content. The art suites the tone of the story well.
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Talk about a cliffhanger!
The dark tower series is a series of cliffhangers. With no real direction and a scanty outline, Stephen cannot paint himself into a corner. As with any dream (nightmare) you just change the rules if you get stuck with some logic. And this is what it is, just one long dream. It has all the elements of Stephen King including his potty mouth.
Do not try to compare this loosely jointed series of encounters with works such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Jordan, and George Lucas, as they have no resemblance to the Joseph Campbell myth of someone challenged to become more than they are. This animal is in its own purely fantasy (don't look for depth) project. I say project because it is ongoing without a clear stopping point in mind. If you look at it this way then it can be a "five star" in its category.
"The Gunslinger" is over before it gets started no time to form an opinion.
"The Drawing of the Three" twice as long as the previous, leaves you with a dislike for lobster.
"The Waste Lands" twice as long as the previous, leave you with a dislike for Amtrak.
By now you have no opinion, dislike eating lobster on Amtrak, and cannot wait for the next installment (Wizard and glass.) -
Well, we're sort of "starting over" here. The "early stories" of Roland and his quest... The story proceeds across the apparent wastelands after the death of Gilead, the death of the gunfighters. The story plays pretty much along the lines of the Dark Tower novels (in it's spirit?)..
And for sure, this graphic novel has King's predilection for coming up with sympathetic characters and then killing them off (in really nasty ways of course) down pat.
Not a bad story, nothing new here for those who'd like to fill in any story blanks from the novel...it's more of "a totally different story" approach, but readable if it's your thing. We see another survivor (at least for a while) from the death of the Gunslingers and an odd Susan, but I close in on a spoiler here. Enjoy (as I said, if it's your thing). -
King's original series might have made one killer graphic novel, so I was curious about the comics and what they would be.
So far, it's good enough to make me want to come back for the next volume, but there's just something about them that doesn't sit quite right. Maybe it's simply the fact that I enjoyed the DARK TOWER series, had the story finish in my mind, and it doesn't seem right to read of Roland on his "lost" adventures--or some such.
It's an interesting read, and the art works well enough; there are simply a few writing techniques that I take issue with--most of them having to do with the "voiceover" narration.
But if you're a fan of the novels and still want more, this seems like a good place to go. -
29th book read in 2012.
Number 165 out of 261 on my all time book list.
Follow the link below to see my video review:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhQrIR... -
3.5 Stars
Not as crazy as the first 4-5 books; but definitely worth-while. -
This one really felt like a filler. A reminder that years have passed and everyone seems to have died. Thanks. I got that from the last book
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The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - The Journey Begins charts the origins of Roland Deschain and his origins and picks up after the fall of The Barony of Gilead! :D Through the The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - The Journey Begins we see Roland tracking towards the Dark Tower hunting old Walter who keep managing to hop skip and keep away from Roland unless he want a confrontation! :D Along the way Roland encounters a diverse range of people from whom still being a Gunslinger still cuts the mustard! :D The cast of the books is diverse with Roland encountering billy-bumblers and townsfolk in equal measure! :D We also get flashbacks to the fall of the Barony of Gilead and see what happened and why he has such an axe to grind! :D The story neatly dovetails into the later books but as the same time answers plot points and sets up new ones! :D
At the same time the world building is immense with the locations shifting all over the place for example from Gilead to Kingstown where they encounter more no-men! :D The combination of cultures is brilliantly handled and realised on the page with the scrip being backed up brilliantly with the portrayal of the more advanced tech base of the land! :D You can see throughout where the cultures have come from and where they are developing! :D This brilliantly piles on the world building from the beginning! :D At the same time the The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - The Journey Begins is full of action as Roland lives up to his profession! :D
The storyline is tense and action packed from the beginning with great visuals really dovetailing brilliantly with the script and the world building on page equals works brilliantly with the script! :D The framing of the scenes really marries brilliantly with the script and everything works on multiple levels! :D
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - The Journey Begins is fast paced and full of easter eggs everywhere! :D The world building is intense and the character limitless every scene throws up something different in an unguessable way! :D The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger - The Journey Begins is full of action, cunning, daring do, flashbacks, plot points, easter eggs, relentless pace and adventure throughout! :D Brilliant Crisp High Five! :D Get it if You Can! :D -
I'm a total novice when it comes to The Darktower and the Gunslinger, so I really didn't know what I was in for...but this was damn good!
I've read about the Man in Black (Randal Flagg) in a few other Stephen King books but I don't know much about any of these characters. I felt really out of it when I initially started reading this but honestly it's pretty easy to pick up for newbie readers like me!
Great artwork and a very dark, strange, cool comic! -
Slow at first but really picks up the pace towards the end. There are aspects of original storytelling and plenty of pages retread from The Gunslinger. The stakes are lower here and the characters are limited to mostly Roland after the loss of many in the previous volume, but by this time being solo with Roland is welcome.
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Now we're at the "beginning" of the story, at least as far as the original novel publishing order goes. The artist has changed, but to me the art is just as good, or at least close to it. Dark story, but still very good.
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2022 #5 trippy set of stories from the gunslinger universe
