News From The Dead Zone #52

Breaking News from the Dead Zone

Lilja reports that Scribner will publish Duma Key in January 2008. In the third and final section of his interview, King talks about Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, books in cellphones and limited editions.

In addition to the graphic story we’ve been expecting, issue 1 of Gunslinger Born will contain a map of New Canaan, a preview of issue #2 and an exclusive prose short story by Robin Furth telling the tale of Roland and his friends as they learn how their worlds came into being—all accompanied with spot-illustrations by Jim Calafiore and June Chung. The 48-page issue is all content—no outside advertising.

A note regarding the signed books being offered at the Haven Foundation storefront: there is a one-per-household limit for signed books. If you bought a copy of The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon or Secret Windows, you are not eligible to purchase any future signed offerings. This policy ensures that signed books will be available to more people. This restriction does not apply to the unsigned books the charity is also offering.

News From The Dead Zone #48

Breaking News from the Dead Zone

If you subscribe to the newsletter from Stephen King’s official web site, you received a notice late last week concerning a chance to buy a signed copy of The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon or John Irving’s Until I Found You from a special store set up at The Haven Foundation website. Though the King books aren’t first editions, $40 for a signed hardcover with unequivocal provenance is a great deal in today’s market. The approximately 200 copies sold out very fast, but subscribe to the newsletter or check the Haven web site for future offers throughout the winter. Haven is the replacement for the Wavedancer Foundation, an organization designed to support people in the book and publishing industry who have little or no financial cushion in the event of a sudden catastrophic accident. All proceeds from the sale of these books goes to Haven.

Both Stephen King and Robin Furth will be attending New York Comic Con at the end of February. King will be a Guest of Honor and will appear with Furth on a special panel hosted by Joe Quesada, Editor In Chief of Marvel Entertainment, Inc. on Saturday, February 24. Marvel is beginning a full-court press to support the Dark Tower comic series. One of the series associate editors has established a Dark Tower Blog at the Marvel web site. There’s also an article in today’s USA Today (Dark Tower looms in graphic form) and the newspaper’s website has the e-mail Q&A that gave rise to the article. Both links have sample artwork from the first issue.

CaféFX Plus (Pan’s Labyrinth, Eragon, Ghost Rider) will be doing special effects for Frank Darabont’s The Mist, starring Thomas Jane, who describes the script as “12 Angry Men with monsters.” The movie will be shooting in Shreveport, LA at the end of February for a couple of months.See the interview with Jane here. (Windows Media).

Here are King’s three top-ten lists for 2006: Books, Music, Movies.

News From The Dead Zone #16

Breaking News from the Dead Zone

John Mellencamp reports that he and King are still looking for a director for their musical The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County. “What we will do is take it to Chicago or the equivalent and workshop it — get the kinks out before we try to take it to Broadway,” Mellencamp told the Bloomington Herald-Times. “Elton John opened his musical in San Francisco, and it lasted all of seven days before they closed it down and decided to rework it. When we hit Broadway, we want it ready from day one.”

Trisha McFarland is over her ordeal of being lost in the woods. However, according to an interview in the Philadelphia Daily News, “I had to go into counseling right around Christmas in 2003, when I was 14,” she said. “That’s when Tom Gordon signed as a free agent with the [censored] Yankees.” According to the parody, “She used a scatological modifier commonly used by all Red Sox fans over age 6 to describe their mortal baseball enemy.” For the record, Trish can breath easier now that Gordon plays for the Phillies.

Here is Scribner’s copy for Lisey’s Story. Read at your own peril!

Lisey Debusher Landon lost her husband Scott two years ago, after a twenty five year marriage of the most profound and sometimes frightening intimacy. Lisey knew there was a place Scott went—a place that both terrified and healed him, could eat him alive or give him the ideas he needed in order to live. Now it’s Lisey’s turn to face Scott’s demons, Lisey’s turn to go to Boo’ya Moon. What begins as a widow’s effort to sort through the papers of her celebrated husband becomes a nearly fatal journey into the darkness he inhabited.Perhaps King’s most personal and powerful novel ever, Lisey’s Story is about the wellspings of creativity, the temptations of madness, and the secret language of love.

Mick Garris talks to MovieHole about upcoming projects, including Desperation. I watched the movie last weekend and boy did Garris ever nail this one. It will be very interesting to see how it is received by the general public, because it doesn’t shy away at all from the religiousness of the novel, the debate between David Carver’s unflinching faith and Johnny Marinville’s lack thereof.

If there’s a star in the movie, it’s Tom Skerritt as Johnny. A terrific performance. The rest of the cast is decent: Charles Durning as the town drunk is another notable. Steven Weber is okay–he gets better as the movie progressess, Kelly Overton makes a good Cynthia Smith though she doesn’t match my visualization of the character, and Ron Perlman is a hoot as Collie Entragian, vacillating between lucidity and insanity. Matt Frewer is uncharacteristically restrained as David’s father. The actress who plays his mother is bitchy and strident and I wasn’t sorry when things didn’t work out so well for her.

The film doesn’t flinch from violence, either. There are shocking scenes and real gross out moments the likes of which I don’t think I’ve ever seen on broadcast TV. I’ll have more to say about Desperation in the near future, but let me close by saying it had me glued to the screen. Commercials will abound of course, which might dilute the impact (my screener DVD had brief blank gaps to show where they will come), but hold on for a heckuva ride.