Cemetery Dance has announced the release of "The Dark Man: An Illustrated Poem"
"Randall Flagg came to me when I wrote a poem called 'The Dark Man' when I was a junior or senior in college. It came to me out of nowhere, this guy in cowboy boots who moved around on the roads, mostly hitchhiking at night, always wore jeans and a denim jacket. I wrote the poem in the college restaurant on the back of a placemat, but that guy never left my mind."
— Stephen King
The Cemetery Dance website gives this info:
About the Book:Stephen King first wrote about the Dark Man in college after he envisioned a faceless man in cowboy boots and jeans and a denim jacket forever walking the roads. Later this dark man would come to be known around the world as one of King's greatest villains, Randall Flagg, but at the time King only had simple questions on his mind: where was this man going? What had he seen and done? What terrible things...?
i have ridden rails...
More than forty years after Stephen King first wrote his breathtaking poem "The Dark Man," Glenn Chadbourne set out to answer those questions in this World's First Edition hardcover featuring more than 70 full-page illustrations from the talented artist behind The Secretary of Dreams.
i have slept in glaring swamps...
This Cemetery Dance Publications hardcover is a true marriage of words and art, with Chadbourne pulling the images from King's imagination and illustrating them in magnificent detail. This incredible blending of King's words with Chadbourne's art creates a unique page turning experience you can return to again and again, always finding new details hidden on every page. You'll discover hidden layers and mysterious secrets for years to come.
i am a dark man...
So who is the Dark Man and why is he traveling the country? The answers are terrifying....
Check it out at www.cemeterydance.com
Both signed editions now sold out.
ReplyDeleteShould definitely check this out. This is big!
ReplyDeleteKing once said somewhere, "All the good stories seem to wait." I guess the character in the poem is the best proof of that.
ReplyDeleteTechnically, I'm willing to say this poem is the closest King ever got a to T.S. Eliot, sort of a walking, living Wasteland, or Hollow Man if you prefer.
Here's a reading of the Hollow Men by the author. His voice sounds just like Boris Karloff, almost:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fu8awT5Jzs
ChrisC
I enjoy King's poetry relatively well, and would be excited if a big collection of the (supposedly) hundreds of unpublished poems he's written, plus the relatively few published ones, were to come out. But personally, I don't think "The Dark Man" is much of a poem, and not necessarily deserving of deluxe treatment like this.
ReplyDeleteBut for a mere $25, yeah, sure, I bought one. The art will probably make it worthwhile for that price.
Man oh man, this has been a rough year on the wallets of people who collect signed King limited editions!
You said it, Bryant! My credit card is on fire.
ReplyDelete