Back in August Showtime announced that they would be airing a new dramatic series produced by Dreamworks Television based on Under the Dome, Stephen King‘s epic novel about the citizens of a Maine vacation hamlet forced to do battle with supernatural forces when their town becomes enclosed by a mysterious dome.

Now comes the news that comic book writer and Lost scribe Brian K. Vaughan has been hired to adapt the novel for the small screen.

Vaughan’s credits in the four-color realm include creating the acclaimed comic series Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina, and writing for Batman, Runaways, and Ultimate X-Men. He was also one of the principal writers on seasons three through five of the ABC series Lost. A movie version of Y: The Last Man has been kicking around Tinseltown for several years with D.J. Caurso attached to direct and Shia LaBeouf looking to headline, but little has been heard of that project lately.

Stephen King’s work is no stranger to television; his novels and short stories have inspired countless miniseries in the decades after Hollywood movie studios cooled on snapping up the big-screen rights to every single word King wrote. His longer books often get adapted into miniseries, but this is the first time a King novel has been turned into a regular series, unless you count that SyFy show Haven (loosely based on King’s mystery novel The Colorado Kid), which I don’t think anyone does.

No target air date has been set for Showtime’s Under the Dome, but don’t expect to see it for a while if the production has just hired its writer.

[Source: Deadline]