Stephen King brings vampires to America’s Old West in a newly published comic book. Unfortunately, probably the most prolific author working today displays a penchant for clichéd dialog and a theme near and dear to Michael Moore.
Stephen King’s properties have been adapted to comics before with The Gunslinger Born, The Long Road Home, The Stand Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 and others. American Vampire, however, is the first time King produces his own comic book script.
In an interview with King, The Daily Beast reports that the American Vampire’s
arc will trace the origins of the first American vampire, Skinner Sweet, as he goes fang-to-fang with even nastier vamps, a group out to get rich by damming up a river to create a new town.
If you’re still uncertain about the approach he’ll take, King make the book’s ideology perfectly clear:
“It’s really the vampire as American capitalist gone totally wild.”
And it takes “a real, undomesticated animal,” as King refers to his main character, to stop them.
Not only is the theme a cliché in comics, but sadly so is King’s writing. That, however, should not be a surprise. In his Commentary magazine review of King’s latest doorstop novel, Under the Dome, Sam Sacks writes,
Nobody since Sancho Panza has relied on clichés as much as King does [in Under the Dome]. Characters get out in one piece, are prepared for the worst, and watch each other like hawks; they get egg on their faces, see stars, find laughter to be the best medicine, and greet good news as music to their ears; hearts are chilled, drop, and rise in throats; dust settles, cats are out of bags, -other fish are fried. “Big Jim was exultant,” we’re told, and why? “He had them exactly where he wanted them: in the palm of his hand.”
It appears that American Vampire continues King’s reliance, in his writing, on cliché. By the first issue’s second page we get this scintillating bit of dialog:
James Book, Pinkerton Agent: How about you shut up and take a nap?
Swisher Sweet: I’ll sleep when I’m DEAD. …
Book: … Where’s Ronnie Jeeks and the Blackmouth Twins? …
Sweet: That’s for me to know, and you to find out!
Well, color me unimpressed. King has received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, won the O. Henry Award for best short story, and is compared to Victor Hugo and James Joyce by the New York Times. And this is the best he can come up with?
The sad thing is, the comic buying crowd will probably eat up this Left-wing anti-capitalist agitprop because “it’s Stephen frickin’ King, man!” As history has made fully clear, that’s actually good reason to avoid it.
Sack notes, in his review, that King was once extremely successful in creating stories that “visit the macabre upon the ordinary.” Over time, however,
a shorthand had emerged in King’s writing, in which massaged clichés (a garden of fear, suffocating fear), redundancies (utter loathing and contempt), laundry-list sentences, italics, and, elsewhere, the CAPS LOCK key do all the work on the writer’s behalf. In these books even the dialogue, once original and often comic, begins to parody itself, exaggerating the New England dialects and salt-of-the-earth aphorisms. King’s small-town backdrops feel increasingly like movie sets that he can trundle from one book to the next.
The Daily Beast interview shows that we may not see a return to King’s glory days any time soon. It seems that a conversation with Mr. King is as cliché-ridden as is his writing. When asked about how comics have changed since he was reading “Caspar, the Friendly Ghost,” King states, “They used to be kind of the fallen woman of literature, but they’ve really been spiffed up, and they’ve got a lot of their reputation back.”
Massaging clichés might just be what Stephen King is all about.
Actually, Andrew, I would not argue with your comment that King’s not Shakespeare or Joyce, his book On Writing is a book with which any aspiring writer should spend time, and understands the rules of the genre within which he writes.
My problem is that King is lauded by the literary world as the equivalent to Shakespeare and James Joyce. Literary and academic elites have given King awards they would never think to give Michael Crichton, Dean Koontz, Tom Clancy, or numerous others who are almost as sure a bestseller as is most of King’s work. But since others have pushed King up to the level of Shakespeare, Joyce, Faulkner, O’Connor, etc. then it is only fair to require his prose stand up to this higher standard. And King’s does not.
The reason I respect Stephen King as an author is because he understands the rules and requirements of writing but also makes his own mistakes. He isn’t Shakespeare or James Joyce but his autobiography On Writing only proves how much he knows about writing and how much he has to offer to aspiring writers.
To hand pick one or two hackneyed sentences and words is a little unfair considering the majority of sizzling dialogue you can usually find in any number of his stories. If the guy drops an adverb every now and then or a cliche, can’t we overlook it and take a look at his pieces as wholes.
I don’t expect anyone who is writing for comics “to write like Shakespeare.” The standard, however, does go up when said writer is feted by the American literary community: “National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, [winner of] the O. Henry Award for best short story, and … compared to Victor Hugo and James Joyce by the New York Times.” That establishes a very high bar for anyone, in any medium. Could it be that King is winning these awards, as Sam Sacks implies, for some reason other than his scintillating prose?
It is interesting to note that Dean Koontz is just as prolific and just as big a seller as Stephen King (and tackles subjects in a far more serious manner than does King, in my opinion). The number of volumes of these two writers’ works are almost identical in any bookstore. But Dean Koontz has never been compared to Hugo & Joyce by Times, nor, to the best of my knowledge, has he been lauded with awards intended for writers of “serious” fiction. He’s won in the genre categories, but I do believe that Koontz award shelf is still missing an O.Henry (in fact, a quick search of Koontz’ website leaves me wondering if he’s won any awards at all – besides the most important for a writer, which is hitting the top of the NYTimes bestseller list – 11 times). It also just so happens that Stephen King approaches topics from the secular Left, while Koontz comes from an orthodox Catholic and relatively conservative perspective.
To summarize: Stephen King – Lefty and lauded with literary awards. Dean Koontz – traditional Catholic and ignored by the literary community. Coincidence?
I strongly disagree. King is a fine writer and does write brilliant prose (Bag of Bones, Lisey’s Story, etc.). You can’t expect him or anyone else to write like Shakespeare when writing for comics. King’s story in American Vampire is great (at least so far) and has the right “language” as is expected for this kind of thing.
And the negative comments regarding Under the Dome (not King’s best, but a very good novel nevertheless) strikes me as another typical sneer at King and his work.
King has always had a tin ear for prose, in my view, and never wrote attractively. He is a born storyteller, but he is not a writer. The ability to tolerate King’s prose may well be inversely proportional to one’s appreciation for good writing.
Something terrible happened to Stephen King on his way to literary stardom – critics took him seriously and he, in return, took himself seriously too. You may know the old saying about Victor Hugo being a dangerous madman fancying himself Victor Hugo; it might quite well be updated with King taking Victor’s place.
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Scott, thanks for the comment. I greatly appreciate the contribution, and would be glad to take a look at the first issue. Concerning your book’s artwork, I will tell you that I like its grittiness. I really appreciate that in books telling stories set in the Old West.
In general, in fact, I have a greater appreciation for sequential art that has a ‘rougher’ appearance in contrast to the polished work of most superhero books. I really like Ben Templesmith’s work on “30 Days of Night,” for example.
In fact, I discovered at EC3 a guy named Daniel Crosier, who creates panels by sketching then burning the images into wood. The comics are produced by scanning the finished boards, with the wood grain clearly visible on the finished page. I find very unique, giving the page a rougher and, at risk of being cliche myself, organic feel. Unfortunately, Daniel and I didn’t have time to chat, as he was networking among the publishers.
Hey guys – thanks for mentioning the comic. But I do wish you’d read issue, and not just the preview, before going after Steve – his story really is great here. Either way, love to hear what you think if you want to send me thoughts. Happy to send a copy of #1 along. Take care. S