Once upon a time, Marvel Comics was set to turn Stephen King and George Romero’s Creepshow 2 into a comic book, a natural adaptation given the film was of course inspired by the horror comics put out by EC Comics decades prior. Kelley Jones was brought on board to adapt The Raft, but alas, rights issues got in the way and ultimately killed the project.
All these years later, Jones has taken to Facebook to share never-before-seen pages from his adaptation of The Raft, while also explaining what happened back in the mid-late 1980s.
“Creepshow for me started way way back in late 85 early 86 as Marvel Comics was going to do a adaptation of Creepshow II and for whatever reason asked me if I’d do the classic King story, the Raft. They didn’t know I was a fanatical King and Creepshow fan so the squealing like a girl from my end of the phone probably came as a shock to them,” Jones explained. “Over that summer I worked on the Raft (one of the most terrifying of Kings short stories ever in my opinion) and was really pleased to be doing a horror story, as with the exception of Swamp Thing, no horror comics were being produced then.”
He continued, “I was half way through the inking when Marvel called and said the project was shelved due to a rights fight. The film company didn’t have the publishing rights and the cost to get them was too high for Marvel so they cancelled it. In passing the editor said how much of a shame this was as Mr. King was delighted with my stuff and wanted me to do the rest of the book as well. I was destroyed and elated at the same time. Graciously Marvel sent me the boards back and I put them in a file and forgot about it.”
“So when Greg Nicotero and Brian Witten asked if I do one piece that turned into a bunch of pieces and then turned into more pieces, they could not of known the emotions they dug up! So forgive the crude artwork of a then fledging young comics artist who was trying to figure this out (I still am by the way). I hope you enjoy this unfinished story from 1986, which has never been seen anywhere as a tribute to the debut of the Creepshow TV series this Thursday on AMC’s Shudder network.”
For the first time ever, read Kelley Jones’ adaptation of The Raft below!
