Del Rey has announced the acquisition of the comic book and graphic novel rights to The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub.  Originally published in 1984, The Talisman spent more than 12 weeks at the top of The New York Times bestseller list.  The teenage hero of The Talisman, Jack Sawyer, can save his dying mother by finding a magical talisman that can only be obtained by crossing back and forth between our world and the frightening and dangerous landscape of its “twinner” counterpart.

 

For the first time Del Rey, which has published numerous graphic novels and manga, will be publishing a monthly comic. Del Rey Editor-in-Chief Betsy Mitchell indicated that it will probably take 24 monthly comic book issues to adapt The Talisman.  The success that Marvel has had with its monthly comics based on Stephen King’s Dark Tower has obviously inspired Del Rey to attempt the same “comics first, then graphic novels,” model with The Talisman.

 

Graphic novel adaptations of popular works of fiction such as The Dark Tower or Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter have done well in both the bookstore and comic shop markets, scoring the kind of successes that leads publishers to consider expanding their graphic novel offerings based on the works of popular genre fiction writers.