Welcome back to StarWarp Spotlight, a series of posts that runs each week to shine a spotlight on one of our titles, as a reminder of the awesome books and comics we publish and to introduce new SWC fans to our backlist.
Normally, we do this on Mondays, but with this past Monday having been Memorial Day—a holiday in the United States, so we closed ’Warp Central so everyone could enjoy a nice three-day weekend for the unofficial start of summer—and yesterday being what would have been the 107th birthday of horror acting icon Peter Cushing (who figures prominently in our nonfiction comic-history tome From the Stars…a Vampiress: An unauthorized Guide to Vampirella’s Classic Horror Adventures), we shifted this week’s Spotlight to today.
So now that that’s explained, this time around we look at another of our Illustrated Classics—a dark-fantasy novel known to generations of monster kids and monster fans around the world, about a supersized ape who’s getting ready to return to the big screen this fall…
King Kong is an e-book-only republication of the 1932 novelization of the original movie classic. Written by Delos W. Lovelace, based on the story by Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper and the screenplay by James A. Creelman and Ruth Rose, it includes scenes that didn’t appear in the final cut of the film—including the notorious “spider pit” sequence in which Kong’s human pursuers are attacked by horrific arachnids and insects. Our version features six original black-and-white illustrations by comics artist Paul Tuma, whose pulp-influenced style has appeared in the pages of The Twilight Avenger, Flare, and Dan Turner: Hollywood Detective.
Not familiar with the beauty-and-the-beast story of Kong and his “love interest,” Ann Darrow (who was played in the 1933 original by the queen of the scream queens, Fay Wray)? Well, here’s our edition’s back-cover copy to bring you up-to-date:
Ann Darrow was a down-on-her-luck actress struggling to survive in Depression-era New York when she met moviemaker Carl Denham. He offered her the starring role in his latest film: a documentary about a long-lost island—and the godlike ape named Kong rumored to live there. Denham needed a beauty as a counterpart to the beast he hoped to find, and Ann was the answer to his prayers.
Mystery, romance, a chance to turn her life around, even the possibility of stardom—to Ann, it sounded like the adventure of a lifetime! But what she didn’t count on were the horrific dangers that awaited her on Skull Island—including the affections of a love-struck monster…
It’s a story that not only inspired a host of knockoffs and remakes over Kong’s 87-year history—from Konga and Queen Kong to Mighty Joe Young and Peter Jackon’s King Kong—but the big guy’s popularity was reinvigorated with the 2017 release of Kong: Skull Island, which set the stage for this year’s big-screen monster clash, Godzilla vs. Kong, coming in November. (Not a remake of, or to be confused with, Toho Studios’ fairly comedic King Kong vs. Godzilla from 1962.)
Not only that, but critics have enjoyed Lovelace’s approach to the original movie:
“Lovelace was given a script and told to have at it. And that’s what makes this book so fun. It’s a testament to what the original Kong was both supposed to have been and what might have been.”—The Thunder Child
“Lovelace’s novelization is an interesting read and moves with a breezy pace. Fascinating for fans of the film.”—Library Thing
“Recommended for hard-core Kongites.”—Sci-Fi Dimensions
King Kong is a digital exclusive available directly from the SWC webstore, so visit its product page for ordering information.
Be sure to check out the other StarWarp Spotlight titles we’ve featured so far: the writers and gamers creative how-to Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination, the nonfiction comic history From the Stars…a Vampiress: An Unauthorized Guide to Vampirella’s Classic Horror Adventures, the classic vampiric love story Carmilla, the young adult dark-fantasy novel Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1, and the dark-fantasy noir collection Chasing Danger: The Case Files of Theron Chase—all available from the SWC webstore and online retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon UK.
