The Dark Man Hardcover – July 30, 2013

One of the few Stephen King books that was missing from my collection. Nice artwork, very small book, but awesome bc it’s SK! The seller was awesome! The book is in nearly perfect condition. Price was fair. Seller was very nice, sent extra pics upon my requests & was honest about the book! Great service all around.

This is a great book for collectors and fans of Stephen King! Glenn Campbell’s art is one of a kind. I got my copy signed by Glenn in Bangor at a book signing. 😁

This is lovely hardcover book, based on the poem from which Stephen King eventually created his man character in The Stand, Randolph. The artwork is exceptional and goes beautiful with the written work. This was a perfect gift for our artist/photographer daughter who is also a major Stephen King fan. Having most of his written works, this was a nice and unusual addition to her collections.

Love anything written by Stephen King.

Being a collector of 1st edition 1st printings I am a bit disappointed that what I got was a 1st Edition, 2cnd printing. After closer inspection of the product description I see there is really nothing there guaranteeing a 1st printing, & I did receive a 1st edition. Unfortunately for collectors this makes a huge difference. The poem itself has more value as a novelty than a great work of poetry & the artwork is stylized & somewhat lacking in technical dexterity & proportion, but none the less manages to evoke emotion making it successful art indeed. Perhaps my critique of this poem is slanted because I didn't get a 1st printing & my review should be taken with this fact in mind. It is my understanding that this poem is the "birth" of "The Dark Man" who has weaved his way as the villain in many a Stephen King story under many names. I have no doubts that this little poem will gain in value very quickly for those fortunate enough to have scored a 1st printing.

Item was received as advertised and in a timely manner

YES YOU EITHER RELISH EVERYTHING KING WRITES OR YOU DONT SIMPLE AS THAT, I WOULDNT HAVE BOUGHT THIS IF I DIDNT COLLECT EVERYTHING HE WRITES AND IT IS THE TIE IN FOR RANDALL FLAGG SO I HAD TO HAVE IT GOOD PEOM GREAT ART WORK, VERY ENJOYABLE IF YOUR A KING GEEK

With the exception of "Paranoid: A Chant", I've never been a big fan of Stephen King's poetry, and reading THE DARK MAN: An Illustrated Poem hasn't changed that."The Dark Man" was originally written when King was in college in an effort to figure out more about this mysterious "man in black" character he had visualized. Years before The Dark Tower or Randall Flagg were born, there was just this image of a mysterious man in jeans and a denim jacket wandering the earth. The resulting poem was nothing more than an exercise in developing this character. The poem first saw print that year, then again a year later, then in the early 2000s Cemetery Dance published the poem in a collection called THE DEVIL'S HARVEST.Now, artist Glenn Chadbourne has attempted to delve even further into the mystery of the dark man by illustrating his sinister trek.When I first discovered this book on Amazon, I had no idea what it was. What I got was certainly not what I expected. "An Illustrated Poem" the subtitle claims. Yes, technically, that is accurate. But 70 pages to convey what is, at most, a 200-word poem seems a little excessive. I guess I was thinking there would be whole stanzas with illustrated pages between then in groups, but the finished product isn't even close.First, Chadbourne's art is black and white, ink sketches that look, at first glance, like so much chicken scratch across the pages. Further inspection reveals a ton of detail in the drawings and a considerable amount of talent, but only in the inanimate objects; the figures are still pretty rough.Chadbourne was obviously trying to convey a broken down bleak world, and in that regard he succeeded like a champ, but there's nothing in here I'd be moved to spend too much time studying.Then there's the text. Over those 70 pages of illustrations, the text of the poem is worked into the pictures, but not in groups, not even in sentences. More often than not we get a word here, a phrase there. Most lines in the poem get two pages of illustrations. Very few get one page, but the effect is that it makes it very difficult to discern the sense of the lines. For example "and a sign to those who creep in / fixed ways" is split among two pages, but the first half of the phrase is on the right hand page, so you're reading along, "and a sign to those who creep in" . . . makes sense, pause, breath, turn the page, "fixed ways."DAMN! It was supposed to be read "to those who creep in fixed ways." Now you've lost the rhythm.I think the biggest disappoint here is the price. I paid $20 for this book, which took me exactly 4 minutes and 11 seconds to read--and that includes reading the entire poem printed at the back of the book as well, so I basically read the thing twice.THE DARK MAN: An Illustrated Poem is not for the casual reader; this is for serious fans and collectors only. I can't say, as a fan, that I feel I wasted my money on this book, but I do wish it had been more substantive. Possibly an introduction or an afterward from King on the writing of it, maybe a piece by Chadbourne discussing how he came up with the illustrations based on the descriptions in the poem. How about color illustrations? You can buy a trade paperback collection for the same price as this, and those have the equivalent of 6-8 issues. This needed SOMETHING to justify the high price tag. I mean, I paid $32 for the GHOST BROTHERS OF DARKLAND COUNTY and it had the entire script of the play plus 2 CDs. Now THAT was worth the price.I will most likely read this one again--hey, it takes less than 5 minutes--and I'll be proud to include it in my Stephen King collection, but there's nothing that's going to convince me it's worth $20 (and that's a discount; the cover price is $25). So if you're not one the serious collectors who grabs almost everything with King's name on it, you're not missing anything in skipping this one.