Atomic Chili

by Joe R. Lansdale, Timothy Truman (Introduction), Dan Lowry

For fans of Joe R. Lansdale, it's hard to think of a more delicious treat than a well-produced collection of 10 comic adaptations of his short stories. From the striking mixed-media color cover by Dave Dorman, to the biography and bibliography at the end, Atomic Chili: The Illustrated Joe R. Lansdale is a lovingly executed homage to the storyteller from East Texas. Included are top-notch versions, in a variety of artistic styles, of "By Bizarre Hands," "Night They Missed the Horror Show," "Dead in the West," "Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back," and "Steel Valentine." The New York Times places Lansdale in the tradition of "country-noir" pioneered by writers such as James M. Cain, Erskine Caldwell, and Jim Thompson: "They share a total trust in the straightforward power of a man's voice speaking when that man has a witch's brew of a tale to tell. No tricks, no stylish ennui, no somnambulant remoteness or pointless savagery are required, but a rare sort of gift is, and Joe Lansdale has his in bushel baskets."

Genres: Horror, Comics, Graphic Novels

304 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1997

About the author

Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over forty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in more than two dozen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Ho-Tep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtime's "Masters of Horror," and he adapted his short story "Christmas with the Dead" to film hisownself. The film adaptation of his novel Cold in July was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and the Sundance Channel has adapted his Hap & Leonard novels for television.

He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.

Reviews

[Evans Light · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love it, but wish it was in full color with glossy paper. For B&W on newsprint, it's not bad.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one better then the previous similar collection, Weird Business, but that one featured different authors while this one is all Lansdale. Some of the stories are incredibly dark (well, most of them) but I suppose that's what horror is all about. The art is mostly above average and the stories are good. This is a good collection, but be warned, it's dark and graphic. If you're familiar with Lansdale, however, you already know that.

[GD · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like the funny, dirty, ultraviolent world of Joe Lansdale, especially the horror stuff, this is for you. I'd read two of the stories in here in their original prose format, Dead in the West and "Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back," and they were done very well here. The other stories I'd never read, and all of them were great: a big slime monster living in a septic tank, alternate history where Japan has colonized the western US in the Old West days, fights on the highway at night between fucked up vigilantes and truck drivers, a noir story with man-eating dogs and revenge, etc. All told with Joe's authentic Texas language and sense of humor. Great comic book.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read through this graphic novel of Joe Lansdale stories in one afternoon. And I must say the stories are very GRAPHIC! I have read several of Lansdale's novels and short story collections including some of the Hap and Leonard series and have pretty much enjoyed them all. I was kind of mixed on this one, probably because of the comic book/graphic novel approach to the stories. I think I like Lansdale's prose and dialog better in his written novels and stories. To me, the stories in this collection seemed to jump around too fast with many pages having no dialog or descriptions at all. Anyway, I did enjoy some of these including The Grease Trap, Night They Missed the Horror Show, and especially Dead in the West which was a cross between The Walking Dead and Gunsmoke. The stories were very morbid and full of sex and violence in Lansdale's usual fashion. I just didn't care too much to the comic book approach.