Originally Posted by
Ari_Racing
Well, but that prototype looks awesome!!
Post more pictures, tell us more about it!!!
As mentioned earlier I think the limited of
'Salem's Lot is awesome but would have been even better had it included the original manuscript rather than the deleted scenes and related short stories from
Night Shift. That said when I found out Doubleday planned to release a trade edition of the Centipede SL I approached them about including the original manuscript but, according to the editor, they were too far along with production to consider a change.
I wasn't surprised and decided to take matters into my own hands. I have some small press publishing experience and figured it couldn't hurt to put together a proposal for a limited edition of
Second Coming . I submitted a sample chapter along with images and explained the reasoning as best I could. The reality is SL is my favorite book, period, and accordingly I have a strong interest in how it originated. I was less interested in a limited edition per se and more interested in the possibility of making the original manuscript available to SL enthusiasts like myself to read. Based on comments I've read from SK about limited editions and signatures I was careful with my approach and indicated to him that it wouldn't be necessary for him to sign any copies. I didn't care about the signature, I just wanted the story published.
Alas it wasn't meant to be. I received a polite thanks but no thanks from SK's mananger and that was it. From an objective standpoint it is easy to see why. The Centipede limited was published in 2004 followed by the Douleday trade edition a year later so it really didn't make sense to do anything else with the story. Of course that's the point!
Anyway it was an interesting and enjoyable experience. As I was working on design and trying to decide what I wanted to do with images I contacted Glenn Chadbourne about the possibility of doing illustrations. SL is one of his favorite SK books and Glenn is very familiar with the landscape around Cumberland where Jerusalem's Lot is supposed to be located. I also contacted the Durham Historical Society about getting a picture of the real Marsten House (named after its last occupants) that was located on The Deep Cut Road. It overlooked a section of town called Methodist Corners and it is this house, along with the Shiloh Church in Durham, that was the basis for the Marsten House in SL. In the end I went a different direction with images. For posterity I've a attached a picture of the real Marsten House (circa 1920s) along with the painting by Robert Addison that I had planned to use for the Marsten House part opener in
Second Coming ...