Lansdale and Klaw to chat at the Texas Book Festival

In one of my more difficult assignments, I'm interviewing Joe R. Lansdale at the Texas Book Festival on Saturday, October 31 @ 3:30 in Capitol Extension Room E2.016 of the Texas State Capitol. That's right, I'm having a sit down with one of the top 20 horror writers of all time on Halloween day!


As many of you know (and if you don't, you should), Joe is one chatty fella so I wouldn't expect to hear a lot out of me once he gets going.

If you're at the Festival, be sure and drop by. You won't regret it. I fully expect this to be the kind of happening you won't wanna miss.

Joe engaging in two of his favorite past times: chattin' & signin'

From the Cutting Room Floor: Joe R. Lansdale Part II

A month or so back, I interviewed Joe R. Lansdale for the San Antonio Current ("Crazy sort of folk" July 1, 2009). As is common with interviews, a lot of it didn't end up in the final publication. This won't be a big surprise to anyone who has interviewed Joe, but I had enough left over for two blog posts.

In this second and final installment, Joe discusses story collections, young adult fiction, and other things Lansdale.


How does the recent Chicken Fried and Sanctified: The Portable Lansdale differ from the forthcoming Best of Joe R. Lansdale?

Instead of calling it The Best, I think they're gonna call it Selected Stories. They will differ dramatically. Probably, two or three stories will overlap, but it will have a lot of stories.



What other collections are forthcoming?

The next independent collection will contain stories that will never be reprinted again because I got the rights to reprint a Hellboy and couple of other things I don't own.

People say, “I kinda resent you having these short story collections that have the same stories.” My answer to that is “Go [filk] yourself.” The reason for that is very simple: Just because you bought it doesn't make you have to buy the next one. Also. every two or three years there is a whole new group of readers and those books are no longer available. I'm not just trying to appeal to the people who already enjoy the work. I'm trying to appeal to the people who have not had the opportunity. A lot of new readers are just starting to be interested in my work. They'll go to buy a collection and you won't find Writer of the Purple Rage or By Bizarre Hands. A lot of these things were small printings to begin with and some of them are way out of print or nearly out of print. So every few years, [the stories] are valid to be re-released.


What's next for you?

I just sold a young adult novel to Delacorte. It's set in the 1930s and called All the Earth Thrown To the Sky. Same [time] period as The Boar and The Bottoms. The novels takes place in Oklahoma for a large part and moves toward East Texas.

Also, Keith [Lansdale, Joe's son] and I edited the Son of Retro Pulp Tales. It's suppose to be out at the end of July.


Do you find it difficult to write for young adults in terms of violence?

No. I always see them as different. It's not that I can't write without violence, but I don't want. Depends on the book. When I wrote The Bottoms, there is violence in it but there's almost a young adult feel to that novel. And The Boar is an example of what I can do. A lot more of the modern young adult books isn't like See Spot Run or the Hardy Boys. I'm getting an opportunity to do something I've wanted to do for a really long time. If this goes well, I'm planning on doing more.


More in Part I.

From the Cutting Room Floor: Joe R. Lansdale Part I

A month or so back, I interviewed Joe R. Lansdale for the San Antonio Current ("Crazy sort of folk" July 1, 2009). As is common with interviews, a lot of it didn't end up in the final publication. This won't be a big surprise to anyone who has interviewed Joe, but I had enough left over for two blog posts.

This first entry focuses on the unpublished questions pertaining to Hap & Leonard.


Why did Vanilla Ride first appear in Italy?

There are two reasons. First of all, Italy has been very good to me, so my last three books have appeared there first. I purposely wanted that to happen. I'm a bestseller over there. This book is a bestseller over there. I made an effort to give them that little bit extra. The other reason is their publishing schedule works much quicker than ours. I will probably go back to America first then Italy second depending on publication. But the last three I purposely did that.

Is Black Lizard planning to reprint all of the Hap & Leonards?

They are. They've reprinted four of them and the other two are due this fall.

What about the shorter stories such as “Veil's Visit”?

I've actually thought that particular section with Veil could possibly go into one of the novels. I think that's a possibility. I also have another one “Blue to the Bone” that is often erroneously thought to be Vanilla Ride with a title change. It was one that I started that was farther into the series than I originally anticipated. I don't know if I'll do a novel or it'll become a novella or what. I feel certain that'll eventually come to pass.



Do you have Hap & Leonard's lives mapped out?

No, not really. I have ideas and I borrow things from my own life, but I also borrow from people I know. I have a general idea of where they are going, but it's a very general idea. I do some things on instinct. The stories come out of the characters— little revelations and little ideas. The little things will change the whole course of the novel. The characters themselves redirect my plans.

What's the status of a Hap & Leonard film?

There's been a lot of film interest in 'em. I've been offered two deals [recently], neither of which I've accepted. They just couldn't meet the terms I wanted.


The violence in Vanilla Ride seemed extreme even for you.

I never can tell. To me, I don't notice any difference between this one and the others. I really don't. When I look at Bad Chili, I think “Whoa! That was pretty violent.” I always think of it and Two Bear Mambo has the most violent of the Hap & Leonard series. Nightrunners and Waltz of Shadows, those are VERY violent. I never think about that. I never think that I'm going to make this scene violent or what. It just sort of arrives. I'll read these others books and this book is just a violent as my books. Why don't they talk about these people? As other people have told me: “But they don't write violence the same way. They don't have that kind of poetic description.” I appreciate that.


More in Part II.

Crazy sort of folk: Lansdale takes a 'Vanilla Ride'

My interview with Joe R. Lansdale appears in today's San Antonio Current.

“[The Hap and Leonard stories] are crazy sort of folk tales mixed with reality, but it’s always the social and cultural issues and the two characters that drive the series.”
— Joe R. Lansdale

“Vanilla Ride was written under the influence of the [G. W.] Bush period. I was probably a little bit harder on some of the things going on then,” said Lansdale. “Religion, I’m often very hard on. That doesn’t mean I believe everyone who is religious are evil people. You talk about the extremists.”

In March, the University of Texas Press issued Chicken Fried and Sanctified: The Portable Lansdale, which conferred upon him some literary cred.

“Rightly or wrongly, I seem to be transcending just this genre label and [am now] being thought of just as an American writer. I think it’s because my themes are so American, even if I’m writing something that has a more of a genre construct or feel to it. There is something to the way I do it that appeals to people who might not ordinarily read genre fiction,” he says.

Sanctified and Chicken-Fried: The Portable Lansdale

The prestigious University of Texas Press have announced one of the first "must have" 2009 publications Sanctified and Chicken-Fried: The Portable Lansdale.

Sanctified and Chicken-Fried is the first "true best of Lansdale" anthology. It brings together a unique mix of well-known short stories and excerpts from his acclaimed novels, along with new and previously unpublished material. In this collection of gothic tales that explore the dark and sometimes darkly humorous side of life and death, you'll meet traveling preachers with sinister agendas, towns lost to time, teenagers out for a good time who get more than they bargain for, and gangsters and strange goings-on at the end of the world. Out of the blender of Lansdale's imagination spew tall tales about men and mules, hogs and races, that are, in his words, "the equivalent of Aesop meets Flannery O'Connor on a date with William Faulkner, the events recorded by James M. Cain."

UT's rep goes all to hell in March, 2009.

Jonah Hex and Lone Ranger films announced

I'm as happy as the next guy about the announcements of both a Jonah Hex and Lone Ranger films. What puzzles me is that neither movie plans on involving Joe R. Lansdale with the script.

From ShockTillYouDrop:

In just a little over a month, powerhouse writing-directing team Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Game) begin shooting a sequel to their pumped-up, kinetic actioner Crank. Following that, it's Jonah Hex, the DC comics western steeped in the supernatural.

"I think it's the best script we've written," Taylor told me during a late-night soiree in Hollywood thrown in anticipation of Pathology, a film he co-penned with Neveldine. Warner Bros. apparently loves the script and understands the tone the pair have brought to this tale of true grit and blood - and if you've seen Crank and Pathology, you know all bets are off and you're in for a unpredictable, f'ed-up ride.

It may be the best script they've written, but no incarnation of Jonah Hex has ever matched Lansdale's interpretations. In his three DC/Vertigo mini-series, Lansdale (along with his frequent artistic cohort Tim Truman) re-imagined the scarred gunfighter's adventures with a supernatural bent.


From Lansdale's intro to Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo:

I remembered reading the Hex stories as being somewhat spooky, supernatural. But when I began rereading those written by Hex's creator, John Albano, I was astonished to discover they were good, tough Western stories, but they weren't any supernatural elements. Nary a one. [...] This surprised me. My memory had play tricks on me.

[...]The old comics were great, but I decided I wanted to bring in the elements of my false memory, tie them to Albano's creation, and let the good times roll.

I wrote my story to reflect the old Hex,[...] but I gave the story an echo of what I thought had been in the early Hex stories, but wasn't. I decided to keep it subtle however, so that the reader could, to some extent, read it either way-- as real supernatural business, or as real-life weird business.

Course the reason for not including Lansdale may have had to do with the 1996 lawsuit surrounding the second Lansdale-Truman Hex series, Riders of the Worm and Such.

The Winter brothers sued DC, as well as writer Joe Lansdale and artists TimTruman and Sam Glanzman, on the basis of two unsavory characters introduced into the Jonah Hex storyline as the Autumn brothers, which the Winters argued constituted a defamatory representation and a misappropriation of the musicians' likenesses. Like the Winters, the Autumn brothers were albinos from the South named Johnny and Edgar. The fourth issue of the miniseries was entitled "The Autumns of Our Discontent," replacing "Autumns" for "Winter" in the famous phrase from the first line of Shakespeare's Richard III. Though singing cowboys figured in the story, the Autumn brothers were anti-singing. They were also dim-witted,murdering, pig-humping, inbred offspring of raped humans and supernatural worms.

The case worked its way through the legal system, finally being resolved in 2003, when the California Supreme Court sided with DC.

Thought DC never collected Riders of the Worm and Such, the duo returned to Hex in 1999 with Shadows West (also never collected. Imagine an Absolute Jonah Hex collecting the three Lansdale-Truman series?). Lansdale also scripted the Jonah Hex appearance on The Adventures of Batman and Robin.

Typical Hollywood b.s. probably has more to do with why Lansdale isn't writing the upcoming movie, but one never knows. Still, I'd be much more eager if he was involved.



And then this announcement from Disney via Hollywood Reporter:

Writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio are going from "shiver me timbers!" to "Hi-ho Silver!"

The writing duo, best known for their work on the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films, are in final negotiations to write a live-action big-screen adaptation of "The Lone Ranger" for Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

Soon after the success of their first Jonah Hex series, Lansdale and Truman tackled the iconic Western characters The Lone Ranger and Tonto. Their controversial take started with Tonto decking the Lone Ranger. This humanized Tonto grew the ire of Rush Limbaugh, who cited it as an example of what is wrong with America, and applauded by Native American groups. This one had some weirdness and supernatural as well, but it was one of the finest portrayals of the Lone Ranger. And yet, Lansdale is not working on this script either.


Lansdale has become a sought after screenwriter over the past several years with a half a dozen productions in their early stages. So having him work on two characters that he clearly understands might make sense, but this is Hollywood, where sense need not apply.

Happy Anniversary

September marked the 7th anniversary of the Dark Forces Book Group. From the very humble beginnings when Peggy and I were the only ones there to Regina being our first new member to the present where we are going strong with our very own blog, this group shows no sign of ending any time soon.

For the curious our first book selection was Tim Powers' Anubis Gates.

The most popular authors:

• Joe R. Lansdale 4 selections (The Bottoms, Bumper Crop, High Cotton, Lost Echoes)
• Alan Moore 4 selections (From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 2, V For Vendetta)
• Neil Gaiman 3 selections (American Gods, Good Omens, Sandman: Doll's House)
• Philip Pullman 3 selections (The Amber Spyglass, The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife)
• Jeff Vandermeer 3 selections (City of Saints & Madmen, The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, Veniss Underground)

Next month's Stir of Echoes makes the third Richard Matheson selection (Hell House, I Am Legend)

Of the 84 selections, we've read nine graphic novels, nine 19th century publications, and two anthologies.

Thanks to everyone who has participated over the past seven years. It's been a blast and I look forward to our next anniversary.