THE DRIVE IN, a graphic novel by Joe Lansdale
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: with myself
Topic: Book Review

As you might have figured out from reading this book blog, I'm an unabashed fan of Joe Lansdale, the best damn shitkicking author to emerge from East Texas. I didn't post a review of THE DRIVE IN (the book) here because, frankly, I've been flooding the blog with Lansdale stuff. I did read it, and frankly thought it was one of his best (certainly his creepiest) story ever.

Unfortunately, the graphic novel based upon the story (and fairly faithfully; the story is retold in almost exact detail, just more visually and less verbose) published by Avatar comics, failed to inspire me. The drawings (aside from the cover and a couple of inserts, almost entirely black and white line drawings) are too damned intricate and the lack of color washes most of the story away.

It's a pity; I wanted to like this one because I liked its parent novel quite a bit. I can't fault the guys at Avatar for the idea, which is stellar; DRIVE IN was a spectacularly visual mindfuck of a book. However, I do fault them for execution. The art was poor to mediocre at best. The story was topnotch, but Lansdale gave them a big hand with that one.

Good effort, but I wouldn't recommend it.