Jonah Hex - Riders of the Worm and Such

by Joe R. Lansdale, Timothy Truman (Illustrator)

Joe R. Lansdale, the acclaimed horror novelist of such titles as EDGE OF DARK WATER and DEAD AIM, takes on DC's famed bounty hunter Jonah Hex with twisted tales of the Old West featuring Buffalo Will's Wild West Show, a demonic baby, an ancient race of man-eating worms, and more.

Collects JONAH TWO-GUN MOJO #1-5, JONAH SHADOWS WEST #1-3 and JONAH RIDERS OF THE WORM AND SUCH #1-5.

Genres: Comics, Westerns, Graphic Novels, Horror, Fiction, Comic Book, Weird West

First published January 1, 1995

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

[Malum · Rating 2 out of 5]

Take cowboys and mix them with Lovecraft, Laurel and Hardy, and grade school poop jokes and you have some idea of what you are getting with this volume.

If, like me, your only experience with Jonah Hex is the original stories from back in the day, then be prepared for a Jonah Hex that's a little less The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and a little more Groucho Marx. In this book, Jonah is cracking (really bad) jokes left and right. In fact, there are more jokes than action. You get one big action scene at the beginning of the first issue, and one at the end of the last issue. Everything else in the middle is jokes about having sex with farm animals (there is an entire page and a half devoted to the discussion of sex with a pig), people smelling like poop, people talking about poop, scenes of actual poop, Jonah coming up with new explanations of how his face got that way ("my mama kissed me too hard"), singing and dancing cowboys, tentacle rape, a flashback involving Oscar Wilde, people killing other people because they used their pooping pot, people being told that their fly is down, and Jonah staring at a painting of naked women.

I like poop jokes as much as the next fella, but five issues straight is a bit much. Plus, most (all?) of the jokes just fall really flat.

I did like the artwork, though (it was cartoony but it fit with the type of story they were telling), and the action scenes that were there were pretty good.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Filthy humor blended with western horror.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

My son gave this mini-series for my most recent birthday. He and I often talk about comics from back in my day. The subject of Jonah Hex came up and the next thing I know he has these 20 year-old books in pristeen condition. Hmm...he must have already bought them and was hoping I'd be interested. Fortunately I was, even though these were well past the Jonah Hex of the late 1970s that I remember. I recall Hex being one of the edgier characters in main-stream comics back then, but this series cast him in a much more adult scenario than in that tame era. Interesting how things had evolved to that point and makes me curious how they've evolved since. Some things haven't changed though. Hex is still as entertaining as ever: lots of action and non-stop smart ass repartee. And while I did get some hints that this series may have somewhat run afoul of the continuity of the Jonah Hex timeline from the mid-90s, taken on its own, this is a fun read with some excellent artwork. And for me of course, it was pleasantly nostalgic as well. Thanks Nick, ya done good!

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought "Two-Gun Mojo" was twisted, here Lansdale and Truman turn it up to 11.

[Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ultimate bad-ass cowboy gets caught in the middle of a range war between singing cowboys and the monsters from 'tremors', with some of the greatest action scenes and bits of wise guy dialogue.
Truman's art is rough, gritty and perfect for this story.

The Jonah Hex minis that Lansdale and Truman did were some of the best Hex stories. There were some good stories after these, but they tend to pale in comparison.

[Gonzalo Oyanedel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lansdale lleva el periplo de Hex en el Weird Western al límite. Balazos a raudales, humor brutal y el acertado dibujo de Truman para un relato recomendable para los verdaderos fans.