The Kingcast

Thomas Jane has starred in multiple Stephen King movies, like The Mist, Dreamcatcher, and 1922. While he may not be a fan of shoes, he is a massive fan of Stephen King's work, so we talk about his love of King's novels as well as the multiple adaptations he's appeared in, all in front of a live audience at the very first KingCon in Las Vegas. You'll hear Jane's Stephen King origin story, as well as some insight into the making of all his King movies. Keep an ear out for his story about the very first cast table read of the script for Dreamcatcher and what he has to say about being considered to play Roland when Frank Darabont was toying with making The Dark Tower.

Joe R. Lansdale (Bubba Ho-tep, The Thicket, Cold In July) joins Vespe and special guest co-host Stephen Graham Jones (The Indian Lake Trilogy, Mongrels) to talk about Stephen King's Revival. Kinda. That was the intent, anyway, but when you get two wonderful and prolific genre authors together the talk will always turn to craft, so while there's plenty of King chatter here, don't expect a deep dive into Revival. You will hear some more insane animal encounter stories from Stephen Graham Jones as well as some real sharp insight from both men about their craft, where cosmic horror really shines, and the secret to writing regional genre so well.

Video Game Developer and designer Nate Purkeypile comes on The Kingcast to talk about his new game, The Axis Unseen, his years working at Bethesda on titles like Fallout and Elder Scrolls, how a particular Stephen King book helped him through the troubled launch of Fallout 76, and his love of Frank Darabont's adaptation of The Mist. The Axis Unseen, described as a heavy metal horror game, is available now on Steam and will be available down the line on consoles.

Screenwriter Ian McDonald (who penned this week's Netflix movie Woman of the Hour starring Anna Kendrick) joins Vespe to discuss one of King's odder short stories: Mrs. Todd's Shortcut. This weird one is about a woman who becomes obsessed with shortcuts who ends up disappearing on one and the old Mainer who was perhaps a little in love with her remembering her all these years later. We talk about this story, our own random short cuts we've found in our lives, King using monsters in varying and interesting ways, and just why On Writing is such a masterpiece.

Vespe digs deep into the Kingcast Archives and comes up with a 2021 interview Wampler and Vespe conducted with Michael Whelan, the man responsible for defining the look of Stephen King's The Dark Tower. This episode has lived the last 3 years behind a paywall and now you can hear it even if you're not a Patreon subscriber. Whelan is a renowned sci-fi and fantasy artist who was commissioned by King to provide all the artwork for the first and final Dark Tower books. We talk about his process there, why his vision of the titular tower and the main protagonist evolved over the years, who owns a good chunk of that original art now, his process, and his audio book addiction. WARNING: Dark Tower spoilers aplenty this episode!