MARVEL GRAPHIC NOVELS: GUIDES AND ALMANACS

THE DARK TOWER SKETCHBOOK

Original release date: December 13, 2006

Credits:

Artists: Jae Lee and Richard Isanove

Two months before the launch of The Gunslinger Born, Marvel released this free sketchbook featuring character designs, penciled pages, commentary and a look at the painting process by which one of Jae Lee’s pencils became the final color art.

GUNSLINGER’S GUIDEBOOK

Original release date: August 8, 2007

Credits:

Writer: Anthony Flamini

Editor and Creative Consultant: Robin Furth

Art: Jae Lee and Richard Isanove

Series Scripter: Peter David

The Gunslinger’s Guidebook was released shortly after the final installment in The Gunslinger Born. It details the major characters, concepts and locations that have appeared in the series to date. For each character, the following information is listed: aliases, nicknames, occupation, affiliation, known relatives, education, history, physical description, special skills, equipment. Not all of the information is correct—Gabrielle Deschain is said to come from Debaria instead of Arten, for example—and other data, like the names of Aileen Ritter’s parents, seems fabricated. The book concludes with a one-page Mid-World glossary.

People: the Great Old Ones, Arthur Eld, gunslingers, Cuthbert Allgood, Cort, Jamie DeCurry, Gabrielle Deschain, Roland Deschain, Steven Deschain, Alain Johns, Aileen Ritter, Vannay, Thomas Whitman, Herk Avery, Eldred Jonas, Clay Reynolds, Roy Depape, Pat Delgado, Susan Delgado, Cordelia Delgado, Rhea of the Cöos, Kimba Rimer, Sheemie Ruiz, Coral Thorin, Hart Thorin, Olive Thorin, Walter o’Dim, John Farson, James Farson, George Latigo.

Places: Gilead, Hambry, Eyebolt Canyon, End-World.

Things: The Affiliation, Reaptide Festival, Horsemen’s Association, Big Coffin Hunters, Maerlyn’s Rainbow.

END-WORLD ALMANAC

Original release date: July 2, 2008

Credits:

Writer: Anthony Flamini

Editor and Creative Consultant: Robin Furth

Art: David Yardin and Val Staples; Jae Lee and Richard Isanove

Series Scripter: Peter David

The End-World Almanac was released shortly after the final installment of The Long Road Home. It begins with a map of End-World, the territory closest to the Dark Tower, which contains some of its most luxurious regions and some of its most horrific terrains. Information from The Wind Through the Keyhole placing the western (major) branch of the Whye River far west of any of the Callas wasn’t available to the cartographer.

The almanac contains detailed descriptions and illustrations of the Guardians of the Beam, the demon elementals, billy-bumblers, boom-flurries, the low men (aka the can toi), mutants, taheen, vampires, Wolves, the Calla region and Calla Bryn Sturgis, Lady Oriza, the Manni, Thunderclap, the Discordia Badlands, Fedic, North Central Positronics, the Dogans, the Devil’s Arse, Le Casse Roi Russe, the White Lands of Empathica and the Dark Tower.

Though much of the information is derived from the graphic novels or King’s books, some of it is fanciful—like the temperature observed in Empathica during certain moons.

GUIDE TO GILEAD

Original release date: April 8, 2009

Credits:

Writer: Anthony Flamini

Editor and Creative Consultant: Robin Furth

Art: David Yardin and Val Staples; Jae Lee and Richard Isanove

Series Scripter: Peter David

Guide to Gilead was released shortly after the final installment in Treachery. As with the other books of this type, some of the information is incorrect (the name of Gabrielle Deschain’s mother, for example) and much of it is fanciful, providing details of places that are mentioned only by name in King’s novels and the Marvel comics. The nature of not-men is negated by an incident from later in the Marvel comics.

People: Stephen Deschain, Robert Allgood, Christopher Johns, Charles Champignon, Chloe and S’Mana, Selena and Morphia, Queen o’ Green Days, Raf, Lord Perth, Hax, Grissom’s Blue-Faced Barbarians, Kuvian night-soldiers, not-men.

Places: Barony of New Canaan, Hemphill, Hendrickson, Kingstown, Taunton, Pennilton, Jericho Hill, Debaria, Gilead.

Things: Gan and Bessa, Buffalo Star, Lesser Demons of the Prim, Nis.