NYCC Exclusive: New Stephen King & Dennis Calero Comic

King, who has already dipped his foot in the pool of comic books with Creepshow, The Lawnmower Man adaptation, and Scott Snyder’s American Vampire has shown his work has broad appeal in any medium, easily attracting the best talent in the industry.

“It’s terribly exciting,” says Calero. “It’s a dream come true getting to work with Stephen. I’ve been such a huge fan of his for such a long time”

While this is Calero’s first time working with King directly, he has worked with King’s longtime assistant Robin Furth on his film related projects. She suggested the story.

“I wasn’t familiar with it (the story),” says Calero. “It wasn’t in wide circulation. Frankly, it was one of the reasons it was interesting to me.”

The story, which was originally released as a short story in the collection A Book of Horrors, provides a challenge on numerous fronts for adaptation into a comic.

“It’s all a closed room story,” says Calero. “I had to figure out how to push and pull the story.”

There is also the challenge of making each installment work with a cliffhanger kind of ending to keep readers involved in the ongoing releases of the story. “I tried to make every page end on something different,” says Calero.

Despite the challenges of serializing a short story, Calero is up for the challenges and rewards of working on the story for King.

“Steve’s stories are interesting because each one has a hook,” Calero says. “To be the first to work with Stephen on an original project for his site is exciting.”