*sigh*
This was a little bit of a let-down. I had hoped for an exciting build-up to the end of The Gunslinger, but it was just more of a methodical plod. There's quite a lot that happens in the final pages of The Gunslinger, including that trek through the mountain, Jake's sacrifice, and everything that the Man in Black shows Roland in the vision, but I didn't get any of that sense of scale here.
It was just a lot of the same for page after page. Jake undecided as to whether to continue on with Roland or leave him. Roland hedging and hoping that things won't come to pass as they've been laid out. It's important, and it's true to the book, but in this format, it's just tedious. I can only take the same thing repeated so many times.
The trek through the mountain wasn't exciting or scary at all, and it was over far too quickly to really feel that it was life-threatening. I guess that was time better spent on the "Will-he?/Won't-he?" conundrum again.
And then the climax of the book, Roland having finally caught up to the Man in Black, was just... uninspired. I remember the first time that I read that scene in the book, and really FEELING the scope of the vision. That's the power of King's words, and I was really looking forward to seeing them translated into art here. But it fell extremely flat to me. Don't show me THIS solar system and talk to me about the epicness of the universe. That's such a tiny, infinitesimal speck of the vastness of space. Don't show me molecules of a pencil lead and then say they could all have their own universes. I wanted to SEE it. I want two-page spreads of blackness with a tiny dot to represent the galaxy. I wanted to watch that blade of grass grow in Roland's sight, until it swallowed everything else. I want to zoom down into those molecules and see the universes contained therein.
I want to feel the scale, and I'm extremely disappointed with how it was handled. Such a shame, and such a wasted opportunity to really pull out all the stops and bring the infinite vastness of scale to table.
In addition to that, the artwork in this volume was quite different than the last. Jake and Roland both were drawn completely differently, which was distracting. I liked the way they were drawn better, but still - there should be a consistency, and I've noticed that over the course of this series that's been slightly lacking.
Otherwise, I can't really complain. The adaptation was good, and the tone remained, which I like. It's just such a shame that the one thing that really could have translated wonderfully to this format (artistically representing Roland's vision) was handled so poorly.