My problem is that King is lauded by the literary world as the equivalent to Shakespeare and James Joyce. Literary and academic elites have given King awards they would never think to give Michael Crichton, Dean Koontz, Tom Clancy, or numerous others who are almost as sure a bestseller as is most of King’s work. But since others have pushed King up to the level of Shakespeare, Joyce, Faulkner, O’Connor, etc. then it is only fair to require his prose stand up to this higher standard. And King’s does not.

To hand pick one or two hackneyed sentences and words is a little unfair considering the majority of sizzling dialogue you can usually find in any number of his stories. If the guy drops an adverb every now and then or a cliche, can’t we overlook it and take a look at his pieces as wholes.

It is interesting to note that Dean Koontz is just as prolific and just as big a seller as Stephen King (and tackles subjects in a far more serious manner than does King, in my opinion). The number of volumes of these two writers’ works are almost identical in any bookstore. But Dean Koontz has never been compared to Hugo & Joyce by Times, nor, to the best of my knowledge, has he been lauded with awards intended for writers of “serious” fiction. He’s won in the genre categories, but I do believe that Koontz award shelf is still missing an O.Henry (in fact, a quick search of Koontz’ website leaves me wondering if he’s won any awards at all – besides the most important for a writer, which is hitting the top of the NYTimes bestseller list – 11 times). It also just so happens that Stephen King approaches topics from the secular Left, while Koontz comes from an orthodox Catholic and relatively conservative perspective.

To summarize: Stephen King – Lefty and lauded with literary awards. Dean Koontz – traditional Catholic and ignored by the literary community. Coincidence?

In general, in fact, I have a greater appreciation for sequential art that has a ‘rougher’ appearance in contrast to the polished work of most superhero books. I really like Ben Templesmith’s work on “30 Days of Night,” for example.

In fact, I discovered at EC3 a guy named Daniel Crosier, who creates panels by sketching then burning the images into wood. The comics are produced by scanning the finished boards, with the wood grain clearly visible on the finished page. I find very unique, giving the page a rougher and, at risk of being cliche myself, organic feel. Unfortunately, Daniel and I didn’t have time to chat, as he was networking among the publishers.