3 NO 7 enjoys Joe R. Lansdale’s THE BIG BOOK OF HAP AND LEONARD.

“The Big Book of Hap and Leonard” is a special e-book collection that includes short stories and the text of a graphic novel by Joe Lansdale as well as comments, reminiscences, and an Interview of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. Fans might find the extra material almost more interesting than the stories.

Of course, the stars of the book are Hap and Leonard. In West Texas, Hap Collins, a white good old boy, Vietnam War draft-dodger, and Leonard Pine, a black, gay, Republican, Vietnam veteran seem a mismatched pair. Terrible things are happening, with even worse things to come, but it is still very funny. As always, they are rude, crude, and politically incorrect.

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I recommend it for all Hap and Leonard fans. As you read, you might hate yourself for laughing, you might wish you had not laughed, but you are going to laugh. As Lansdale says, “This is more fun than rolling down a hill with a bunch of armadillos.”

Photo: Ulf Anderson

Mike Fleming Jr for DEADLINE reports on the film version of Lansdale’s “The Big Blow,” which is included in THE BEST OF JOE R. LANSDALE.

Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion who recently was pardoned by President Donald Trump from his conviction for violating the Mann Act in 1910 at the height of the Jim Crow era, has suddenly become a prized film property. Reinaldo Marcus Green, who wrote and directed the Sundance film Monsters and Men, will helm The Big Blow, which Oren Moverman adapted from a Joe Landsdale novella that is inspired by Johnson’s own story. Giannina Scott and Ridley Scott are producing at Scott Free.

The Big Blow is set against the backdrop of a giant hurricane that flattened Galveston, Texas in 1900. Local black champion Little Arthur must go head-to-head not only against prejudiced social and relational divides, but with a ringer from Chicago – Jim McBride – a dirty-fighting racist hired by the local Sporting Club to do one thing: Kill Little Arthur and restore the championship to a white fighter. As with the real Jack Johnson, Little Arthur further defies social constructs by being in a forbidden relationship with a white woman.

The film is ready to go. Giannina Scott brought Landsdale’s novella to Ridley Scott and she enlisted Moverman to write the script. They then engaged Green, whose Monsters and Men won the Special Jury Prize for Outstanding First Feature and will be released by NEON in October.

For more info on THE BIG BOOK OF HAP AND LEONARD, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover design by Elizabeth Story

For more info about THE BEST OF JOE R. LANSDALE, visit the Tachyon page.

Cover by John Picacio