Joe R. Lansdale, Writer -- Avatar Press

A highly-regarded Mojo storyteller from Texas, Joe R. Lansdale has written hundreds of horror, western, mystery, and suspense stories that have appeared in a variety of mediums including books, film, television, and comics.

Lansdale has been a prolific author since beginning his professional career around 1980. He has written some 26+ Novels and Novel-length series installments, and 200 short stories which have been gathered into 16 collections. Three of his stories have been adapted for film, including the recently-made feature-length Bubba Ho-tep starring Bruce Campbell, and he has also written for both Superman: The Animated Series and Batman: The Animated Series. About 10 comics projects have been written by Lansdale or adapted from his stories.

These efforts have garnered him wide critical and popular acclaim: Lansdale has won 5 Bram Stoker awards, a New York Times Notable Book award, a British Fantasy Award, the American Mystery Award, the Horror Critics Award, the Booklist Editor's Award, and the Critic's Choice Award. He has garnered award nominations numerous additional times, including World Fantasy Awards.

The author is also a martial artist of note, holding belts in Aikido, Daito Ryu Aikijujutsu, Combat Hapkido, American Combat Kempo, and Shen Chuan. Lansdale owns and teaches at his own martial arts studio, and is a two time inductee into the International Martial Arts Hall of Fame.

Lansdale began his exploration of the realm of comic books via Warner Books in 1991 with a Batman novel called Batman: Captured Engines. He followed that up with a second Batman novel the next year. It was in 1993 that Lansdale began to try his hand at comic books themselves, with no fewer than three projects released that year. The writer teamed with frequent collaborator Tim Truman for Jonah Hex: Two Gun Mojo, a now legendary mini-series featuring Lansdale's unique horror/western chops on DC's anti-hero gunslinger. Lansdale also did The Lone Ranger and Tonto (also with Truman) for Topps, and Dead in the West for Dark Horse that year.

Lansdale has kept his hand in the comics field since that time, with such diverse efforts from a follow-up Jonah Hex series called Riders of the Worm and Such, to a Supergirl Annual.

At Avatar, Lansdale has teamed once again with frequent collaborator Timothy Truman for Lansdale and Truman's Dead Folks, a comic book adaptation of his Brahm-Stoker award-winning story On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks.

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