Can't Wait for... The Complete Drive-In

I'm pretty sure I first read about Joe R. Lansdale's The Drive-In in Fangoria magazine back in 1988. The review made The Drive-In sound like the greatest and weirdest horror novel ever, so of course I raced to my local bookshop (the much-missed Marlo Books, in the Roosevelt Mall) to snag a copy. Only, Marlo didn't have it in stock. So for the first time ever, I placed a special order for a book. This was pre-Internet, pre 1-Click ordering, pre-everything easy. This was the mean old days, when you had to actually wait for something you wanted. So I waited. And waited. The anticipation was unreal. I started to build this novel up in my mind as the greatest and weirdest horror story I would ever read. Finally, at long last, I received a call from Marlo: The Drive-In was in! For $3.50, this slender Bantam paperback would be mine! And when I finally got it home and read it, I was stunned to discover that...

Yeah. It pretty much was the greatest and weirdest horror novel I'd ever read.

How could it not, with a subtitle like A B-Movie With Blood and Popcorn, Made in Texas? The follow-up (The Drive-In 2: Not Just One of Them Sequels) was just as fantastic, and made me a Lansdale man for life. Inventive, grisly, funny, fast-paced... this double-barrel assault of Texas-style grindhouse pulp set an impossible standard in my mind. You want a crack at the title of "greatest and weirdest"? Here are the books to beat. (If you ask me, Champion Joe still holds the title.)

And now, Underland Press is bringing out not just the first two Drive-In novels... but the hard-to-find third installment as well, in one sweet omnibus edition. Along with an intro by Don Coscarelli (Phantasm, Bubba Ho Tep) and art from a never-made film adaptation of The Drive-In. No special ordering, no waiting for the guy from Marlo Books (hi, Curt!) to finally call you. You, too, can enjoy the twisted majesty of The Drive-In...

... on May 1st.

(Hey, trust me. The anticipation is half the fun.)

Secret Dead Blog Recommends: Pigeons From Hell

Yesterday's event at Brave New Worlds was a blast; thanks to everyone who stopped by to say hello pick up their free copies of Cable #1. And thanks to George, Joe, Brian and Doug for being supercool hosts. The only downside: I totally missed the Stormtroopers. (They were at the store in the morning, and drew an insane crowd, from what I hear, causing mass chaos along 2nd Street.)

Right after the signing I made a quick sweep of the racks and picked up this gem: Joe R. Lansdale's adaptation of Robert E. Howard's "Pigeons From Hell," just out from Dark Horse. (It's the first of four issues in a limited series, with art by Nathan Fox and colors by Dave Stewart.) Lansdale's one of my heroes, so I buy anything with his name on it. But even if you're a casual fan, you've gotta check this out. It's a modern retelling of Howard's classic pulp horror shocker that's full of whip-smart Lansdale-isms such as:

CLAIRE: Janet, do you remember what Grandma used to say about pigeons?

JANET: Was it... four of them and a potato make a good lunch?

Ah, so much damn fun. The back of issue #1 includes a short essay by Champion Joe about Howard's influence on his own career:

In the introduction, [Howard] talked about being a writer, how it was work of his choosing and he didn't have some son-of-a-bitch standing over him telling him what to do, and he had been able to make a living doing exactly what he wanted to do. Words to that effect. In this respect I understood Howard, and since I had already, at my young age, had jobs with some son-of-a-bitch standing over me telling me what to do while I had plans to be a writer, this was an exciting statement.

Right on, Joe.

3 Cool Things That Happened When I Turned 36

1. Today's mail brought a vital missing piece of my Joe R. Lansdale library: Texas Night Riders, an early western pulp novel written under the pen name of "Ray Slater." I open up the package, and... bonus! It was signed by Mr. Lansdale hisownself. (This same happy accident happened with a copy of Richard Laymon's The Cellar I ordered last year.) Sometimes, the book gods really do smile upon me.

2. I spent the morning of my birthday writing a comic script about a character celebrating his birthday. I swear, it was a total coincidence. One major difference: I'll most likely end this day with my family, chilling out. This character will most likely end his day getting the shit beat out of him.

3. The Bride and Brood gave me one of the awesomest presents I've received in a long, long time: a plane ticket to Edinburgh. Remember the craziness of Allan Guthrie Week last year? Prepare for the sequel, my friends.

Return to the Cadillac Desert

Three reasons to pick up the latest edition (Feb/Mar 07) of Weird Tales magazine: 1.) It will be the last one with the classic "Weird Tales" logo on the cover. 2.) It features an interview with Joe R. Lansdale, who talks about morality, religion and country music, among other topics. And last, but good God, not least: 3.) It contains a reprint of Lansdale's classic zombie novella, "On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks." Which comes highly, highly recommended. I first read this story in John Skipp and Craig Spector's zombie-thology, The Book of the Dead, and it stunned my 18-year-old self into submission. Here's a sample:

"The last bounty hunter had been the famous Pink Lady McGuire--one mean mama--three hundred pounds of rolling, ugly meat that carried a twelve-gauge Remington pump and a bad attitude. Story was, Calhoun jumped her from behind, cut her throat, and as a joke, fucked her before she bled to death. This not only proved to Wayne that Calhoun was a dangerous sonofabitch, it also proved he had bad taste."

And that's just the second paragraph, people. I re-read "Cadillac Desert" yesterday on the way to work, and it hasn't lost a single bit of muscle.