Joe R. Lansdale

Joe R. Lansdale is a wild card in the world of genre fiction—seriously, the dude’s written just about everything. Novels, comics, short stories, even a few chapbooks for the diehards. Most folks know him for “Bubba Ho-Tep,” that bonkers novella where a washed-up Elvis (yeah, he’s alive, deal with it) and a black JFK team up in a Texas rest home to fight a soul-sucking Egyptian mummy. The movie adaptation? Pure cult gold, especially with Bruce Campbell hamming it up as Elvis. But Lansdale’s not a one-trick pony. The “Hap and Leonard” series is classic Lansdale—two misfit buddies from East Texas (one straight, one gay, both trouble magnets) brawling their way through crime, racism, and all sorts of Southern mayhem. It’s noir, but with a punch and wisecracks. Then there’s his Drive-In trilogy—gory, weird, and loaded with B-movie nostalgia. Don’t even get me started on the Ned the Seal books; those are a trip. The guy kicked off with “Act of Love,” a nasty crime novel that landed him in the splatterpunk crowd, and he’s never really slowed down. Horror, westerns, thrillers, even comic books—Lansdale’s fingerprints are everywhere, from Batman cartoons to “Tales from the Crypt.” If you’re into stories that punch you in the gut and make you laugh out loud (sometimes at the same time), Lansdale’s your guy.