Knowing Darkness - Artists Inspired By Stephen King
                                             (2009 - Centipede Press)  

     (by George Beahm)   Consider, for instance, the epic quest related in Stephen King's Dark Tower series - in all, the story is over 4,000 pages.  Nobody packages it as a 4,000-page tome for the reader to partake - The story, in its final form, is broken into 7 manageable volumes.  'Manageability' being a key word here, because otherwise the handling of one huge book would take away from the reader's enjoyment.  The producers of KNOWING DARKNESS absolutely failed to learn this lesson.  The book is just a bit smaller than the biggest book on The List.  It cannot be enjoyed in the fashion one might want to relax with an art book.  A real shame, because the book is internally broken into three sections which could have served as natural divisions for three volumes.  Those three volumes might have also distributed, a bit, the single large cost this huge collection carries.  Anyway, the book has 447 numbered pages and another 16 bound-in sheets that fold out to display a double-page-spread on each side.  You will find here an amazing 178 pages that each show their large reproduction as a full-bleed or framed in a non-white fashion.  Then another 112 pages display their featured paintings & drawings in a more traditional white-framing (some sharing the page with text) and finally another 46 pages gather together multiple images together.  Note that 57 more pages are reserved for the photo-collage/photo-manipulation work of J.K. Potter and Dave McKean.  Some of the captions are grouped in slightly confusing ways, but they all try to be comprehensive in listing the artists' names, the titles, media, size and the use they were put to.  While being a huge project, unfortunately, a small number of errors, mis-typesetting and poor proofreading crept into the text & captions.  There are regular photographs, sequential art and pieces turned sideways that accompany another nearly 60 pages of text.  The writing is commentary on the collected art, as well as many overviews of featured artists' careers.  Everything is very informative, but for the favored artists, the narrative can wend far, far away from any intersection with the author King and the genres he populates.  The 'well-presented' works here break out for the following artists:  Gino Acevedo, Aeron Alfrey, Darrel Anderson (9), Jill Bauman (3), Rick Berry (18), Don Brautigam (10), Thomas Canty (7), John Cayea (2), Glenn Chadbourne (2), Dave Christensen (4), Alan M. Clark, Kinuko Y. Craft, Steve Crisp (2), Joann Daley, Ned Dameron (18), Comert Dogru (3), Jason Eckhardt, Les Edwards (8), Bob Eggleton, Linda Fennimore, Gabriel (3), Stephen Gervais (16), Mark Geyer (3), Robert Giusti (2), Phil Hale (18), Rick Harrison (2), Christian Heinrich (7), David Ho (2), Lynnai Irving, Hank Jankus, Jeffrey Catherine Jones**, Jack Kamen, Allen Koszowski (2), R.J. Krupowicz (2), Kenneth R. Linkhauser (4), Matt Mahurin (2), Don Maitz (7), Zach McCain (2), Alex McVey (3), Rowena Morrill, Harry O. Morris, John Jude Palencar (4), David Palladini, John Picacio, Alex Preuss (2), Don Ivan Punchatz, Mark Ryden, Walt Simonson, Douglas Smith (2), Peter Stanimirov (6), John Stewart (2), Roger Stine (2), Steve Stone (8), Steven Stroud (2), Drew Struzan (7)*, David Voight, Pete VonSholly, Michael Whelan (37)***, Erik Wilson (2), Rob Wood (6), Bernie Wrightson (49), and UNKNOWN (3).  Even if it was affordable, the unwieldy size would keep this book from being wholeheartedly recommended.

* - Note that Struzan's 'well-presented' pieces here can additionally be found so in his own collections on The List.

** - Note that the 'well-presented' piece here by Jones cannot additionally be found so in her own collections on The List.

*** - Note that in regards to Whelan's 'well-presented' pieces here, some, but not most, additionally appear so in his collections on The List.

other author-related collections

  Bradbury - An Illustrated Life

  Master Storyteller - An Illustrated Tour Of The Fiction Of L. Ron Hubbard

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