REVIEW

The Long Road Home #1

Posted: March 3, 2008
Category: Comics
The first issue of Long Road Home is finally here. This is the story arc that isn’t based on something King has previously written and I can imagine that Jae, Richard, Robin, Peter and the rest of the team is a bit nervous to how this once is going to be received by the fans. I’m sure King likes it or he would have told them so but the fans? You can really never know until the issue is out there and then it’s to late do to anything about it, right?

Well, let me tell you. Jae, Richard, Robin, Peter and all the others can relax. The first issue of The Long Road Home is good, very good in fact. It continues right where the last issue of The Gunslinger Born ends and we get to see how Roland is caught in Maerlyn’s Grapefruit and his friends Alan and Bert has to carry him along with the only surviving Big Coffin Hunters, Clay Reynolds on their tail.

The issue is very intense and also contain some rather gruesome images of a burned Susan Delgado but after reading it I feel very comfortable that team behind it will succeed in bringing the story of Roland to the next level and by doing so also tell us about the events that King hasn’t already written about in the books.

As usual the illustrations, the text and the story itself feels very true to The Dark Tower world(s) and I actually feel that this is the road King could have taken if he had written about this in any of the books.

As with The Gunslinger Born we also get to read about historical events in Long Road Home and this time we get something called Welcome to the Dogan part 1: The Ghostly Queen. This is a continuation of the one in the last issue of The Gunslinger Born called Come Reap! And I must say that this history lesson is one of the best, including the once in The Gunslinger Born. It also got me wonder if this Dogan has anything to do with the one in Wolves of the Calla


As if this wasn’t enough we also get to see Jae’s original drafts for one page and a spread and then how they ended up looking when he finished them. There aren’t that big differences in the versions but you can definitely see that he has worked on the second one a little and it’s interesting to see how it has developed.

Lilja's final words about The Long Road Home #1:

It feels very good that the second story arc now has started and even better that I, after reading it, is left with a very good feeling. A feeling that tells me that the remaining issues will be true to King’s story and tell us about the new events in a correct way, just like we it would.

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