A behind the scenes photo from the movie Cujo (1983). I’ve been inching along with
A behind the scenes photo from the movie Cujo (1983). I’ve been inching along with Salem’s Lot, or just thinking a lot about Stephen King lately, generally, for some reason. I always mention how I think it’s going to be apocalyptic when he dies, in terms of the public reaction because of how many people have read his work, read his work at a formative age, worked on adaptations of his books, watched those, etc. The size of his pop culture impact, where I don’t think people have really truly grappled with it, and I think can’t until he passes, and it’s complete.But: 64 novels, 200 short stories, at least 48 movies and 30 TV shows that credit him one way or another? Sure, lots of hacks put up numbers, James Patterson or whoever– but King feels different. The work’s varied, at least: Carrie isn’t Gerald’s Game isn’t The Stand isn’t The Dark Tower isn’t, I don’t know, “1408″ or The Mist or “Strawberry Spring” or whatever. He just shits out real stories with such regularity…I’ve listened to a few episodes of Fangoria’s Kingcast podcast. I don’t love the podcast but they’ve had some okay guests. Bill Hader talks about the Stephen King impression him and Mulaney used to do, and how On Writing impacted his life, in an otherwise pretty bad episode. (Podcasters always try to force Hader to be a Funtime Wacky Guy– I think maybe he’s not that guy!!). Grady Hendrix makes a weirdly persuasive case as From a Buick 8 as being an important part of King’s career arc, which I’d never heard anyone say before– I’ve never heard that book come up at all. Rian Johnson talking about On Writing– pretty much nothing to say! Matt Fraction talks about the Dark Tower books as an addiction metaphor– but he has the apt comparison, which is Jack Kirby. You can talk about Agatha Christie in terms of– she was as big an author arguably for pop culture or whatever. But I think Kirby’s the comparison that feels the most right to me, just in terms of … Just constantly creating, a shark constantly in motion. The example of Jack Kirby no one lives up to, no one even tries, you can tear your hair out as a fan but you know: maybe it’s too big a thing to grapple with. Kirby had some terrible books, bad runs, bad characters– his Black Panther run is cute but you can definitely skip it, say, same as … I don’t know, King’s Eyes of the Dragon (my first King book). But just that… that thing of just being an engine of story… King grappling with addiction, Kirby grappling with seeing concentration camps up close, but both through these genres they deform around them through their passage. I mean, it’s not what every book should be or every author. King’s deficiencies are obvious– the weird shit in some of those books is not a secret, and you know: I have some of his books lying around his apartment that are really hard to get enthused about picking up, probably won’t ever read. And good lord, his tweets. Or I mean… There’s a lot going on over there! But just that thing he boils down in On Writing, of just “oh you have to read a lot and you have to write a lot”, like… His body of work becomes interesting beyond the work, as just theory in practice, I guess. I’m not articulating that well, but anyways, my lunch is over so I’m not going to try harder than that…Anyways: that fucking guy, huh? Yeah, geez, how about that guy… -- source link