The San Jose, Calif., Mercury-News looks to the release this week of The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born, which Marvel and others hope will bring Stephen King fans into comics shops in droves:

The comics project has literary buzz because of King’s involvement, but it also could broaden the audience for the pop culture that Marvel epitomizes. With luck and smart marketing by comics shop managers, people buying The Dark Tower series will notice the breadth of subject matter in the rest of Marvel’s comics and graphic novels.

Marvel Entertainment’s editor in chief, Joe Quesada, says issue No. 1 of The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born is a comic the company is intent on getting “in the hands of people who have never read a comic before or are lapsed fans who stopped reading years ago.”

King fans make up a huge portion of that potential audience, so the comics face the standard challenge of adapted material — satisfying the preconceptions of readers.

Related: The Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger on the release

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