7 Free Stephen King Stories: Presented in Text, Audio, Web Comic & a Graphic Novel Video

In Stephen King’s first tele­vised inter­view from way back in 1982, the hor­ror writer revealed that he sleeps with the lights on. He may have grown out of the habit by now, but it’s no won­der if he hasn’t. A macabre imag­i­na­tion like his prob­a­bly sees all sorts of creepy things lurk­ing in the dark. In any case, King has cer­tain­ly learned a thing or two since then about mak­ing his fears more mar­ketable. In the past sev­er­al years he’s been pro­mot­ing his work on the Inter­net to reach new audi­ences.

In 2000, his novel­la Rid­ing the Bul­let debuted exclu­sive­ly online, and in 2008 he part­nered with Mar­vel Comics to pro­mote his first col­lec­tion of short sto­ries in six years, releas­ing one short graph­ic video episode at a time adapt­ed from the 56-page novel­la “N.” See all 25 episodes above. It’s a sto­ry, writes Time, “about a psy­chol­o­gist whose obses­sive-com­pul­sive patient is entranced by a mys­te­ri­ous plot of land.” King calls the adap­ta­tion “kind of a video com­ic book,” and while the “point of the exer­cise,” says his edi­tor Susan Moldow,” is to stim­u­late book sales,” I think you’ll agree it’s a pret­ty nifty bit of sto­ry­telling on its own.

On King’s web­site, you’ll find links to all sorts of mul­ti­me­dia prod­ucts, includ­ing a Life­time orig­i­nal movie, Big Dri­ver, a film titled A Good Mar­riage, now out on video-on-demand, and the lat­est from graph­ic nov­el series Dark Tow­er. You’ll also find a com­ic adap­ta­tion of the short sto­ry “Lit­tle Green God of Agony.” See the first pan­el above, and read the full sto­ry here.

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Long before Youtube and online comics, there was the audio­book. King has nar­rat­ed his own work for years, and it’s also been read by such big names as Kathy Bates, Sis­sy Spacek, Willem Defoe, Anne Heche, Eli Wal­lach, and many more. Just above, hear char­ac­ter actor John Glover—a name you may not know, but a face you’d recognize—read “One for the Road,” a sto­ry from King’s first, 1978, col­lec­tion Night Shift. It’s a vam­pire sto­ry, but a par­tic­u­lar­ly deft one, writes Noah Char­ney at New Haven Review, one that “deals in arche­types that are the heart of good hor­ror fic­tion.” King’s sto­ries, Char­ney asserts, are “beau­ti­ful­ly-writ­ten, high­ly intel­li­gent. They hap­pen to fea­ture mon­sters of all sorts, from nat­ur­al to preter­nat­ur­al, but that is sec­ondary to their core as great sto­ries, well-told.”

King has long defend­ed pop­u­lar fic­tion to the literati—in his accep­tance speech for the Nation­al Book Award, for example—and lashed out at “the keep­ers of the idea of seri­ous lit­er­a­ture,” whom he says “have a short list of authors who are going to be allowed inside.” It may have tak­en a few years, but King got in, even­tu­al­ly pub­lish­ing in such august out­lets as The Atlantic and The New York­er. Read four sto­ries from those pub­li­ca­tions at the links below. And if you’re still in need of a good scare in the days lead­ing up to Hal­loween, make sure to check out “The Man in the Black Suit,” a short film adap­ta­tion of anoth­er sto­ry pub­lished in The New York­er in 1994.

“A Death” (The New York­er, March 2015)

“Her­man Wouk Is Still Alive” (The Atlantic, May 2011)

“Pre­mi­um Har­mo­ny” (The New York­er, Novem­ber, 2009)

“Harvey’s Dream” (The New York­er, June 2003)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen King Reveals in His First TV Inter­view Whether He Sleeps With the Lights On (1982)

Stephen King’s Top 20 Rules for Writ­ers

Stephen King Cre­ates a List of 96 Books for Aspir­ing Writ­ers to Read

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.