John Picacio — Illustrator

The question isn’t whether Joe R. Lansdale is the author of the funniest book I own; it’s a question of WHICH Lansdale book is the funniest I own. He’s one of the first authors I ever cover-illustrated and that goes way back to the mid ’90s. I’ve known him ever since. I would have to say FREEZER BURN is the funniest Lansdale book I own. Don’t get me wrong — this is a DARK book and not exactly the kind that Joe could’ve kept writing to capture the mainstream audiences he now enjoys. How dark, you ask? Try this out for the book’s first line: “Bill Roberts decided to rob the firecracker stand on account he didn’t have a job and not a nickel’s worth of money and his mother was dead and kind of freeze-dried in her bedroom.” And the book only gets darker from there. Freeze-dried relatives, losers, and circus freaks aren’t necessarily high comedy in the hands of another author, but with Lansdale, I nearly hurt myself laughing so hard. Joe can do that to you.

Honorable mention for funniest sf/f/h book: this one’s not a novel, but it’s MAD Magazine’s 1981 issue that parodies THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. I was 11 when I pulled this off the newsstand and took it home. It’s hard for me to recall when my sister and I laughed harder. We both loved STAR WARS as kids, and the cover art alone is enough to start me up all over again. Ballantine/Del Rey has collected this STAR WARS parody and many more into a book called MAD ABOUT STAR WARS: THIRTY YEARS OF CLASSIC PARODIES, written by Jonathan Bresman and with a foreword by George Lucas himself. I may have to gift this one to myself for Christmas.

R.L. Ugolini — Author

Humor can humanize the fantastical by convincing readers that they share the same conventions of irony, sarcasm and wit as do fairy kings, magicians, undead maidens, and Napoleon.   Using her own brand of dry, sometimes subversive humor, Susanna Clarke draws us into the historical fantasy of JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL. The texture of the narrative has been likened to Austen, Conan Doyle and Dickens, but the humor is uniquely of her own making, often found hiding in the delicious British subtext of the satirized footnotes. I particularly enjoy this work as an example of humor in fantasy because not only do the lighter elements add to the richness of the story, but also because I believe in some subtle way, the author is having her own little fun with us.

Bill Crider — Author

There are really so many great humorous SF books that I hate to name just one, but I’ll go with THE SNARKOUT BOYS AND THE AVOCADO OF DEATH by Daniel Pinkwater. The title alone is reason enough for me to choose it, and the character names are also good for a smile (Osgood Sigerson, Winston Bongo, Uncle Hades Terwilliger, Genghis Khan High School, etc.). There’s no use to try to explain any plot that involves a computer made from and avacado and called the Alligatron (a name I have a great fondness for), so let’s just say that it involves a master detective, a master criminal and his gang of trained orangutans, snarking out, old movies, underground streets, secret warehouses, and space-realtors. It’s hilarious from the first page and proves that Daniel Pinkwater is some kind of mad genius. Read the book and see if you don’t agree.

Scott A. Cupp — Author

My favorite humorous SFF is always a loaded question. As I thought about it, I went down the list – RA Lafferty short stories, De Camp and Pratt’s Harold Shea stories, Philip Jose Farmer, P.K. Dick’s GALACTIC POT HEALER, Harry Harrison’s STAR SMASHRS OF THE GALAXY RANGERS. They were all on the initial short list. But it came down to two works which I think pretty much tied for a variety of reasons. Robert Sheckley’s DIMENSION OF MIRACLES and Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson’s Hoka stories (most notably the collection EARTHMAN’S BURDEN).

DIMENSION OF MIRACLES blew me away the first time I read it (and the similarly themed MINDSWAP) those many years ago. The story is basic enough: an Earthman, Carmody, wins a prize in the galactic lottery that he did not know he had entered. Which in fact, he had not entered. The computer supervising the lottery was accurate to 1 in 5 billion transactions. The computer explains that Carmody won because it was time to make that error. The real prizewinner wants the prize and Carmody is about to oblige him when the prize itself tells him not to do it. Together, they cross the universe is absurdist fashion while the prize winner pursues them. The book is full of wonderful bureaucratic humor. And I love the cover by Paul Lehr, which will be mine next year when I finish paying it off.

The Hoka stories are absurd in a totally different way. The Hokas are an alien race of sentient teddy bears with big imaginations and an insatiable desire to absorb earthly things. They hear of an earthly idea and the race tries to relive the experience. This may mean they all want to be Sherlock Holmes and Moriarity, or Cowboys and Indians, or Napoleon, or pirates, or something else. The Hokas are aided (or restricted) by Ensign Alexander Jones of the Interstellar Survey Service, who often unwittingly introduces the Hokas to some new concept.  There are several collections of Hoka stories, of which EARTHMAN’S BURDEN is the first, and it sets up the tableau for all future adventures. My copy also includes wonderful illustrations from the delightful Edd Cartier and a cover from Vaughn Bode.

Joe McKinney — Author

For me, the funniest SF story has to be Cyril M. Kornbluth’s THE MARCHING MORONS. At first, I was tempted to say something by William Tenn, because his stuff was consistently funny, but THE MARCHING MORONS takes first place. I guess what does it for me is the layers of frustration built into the narrative. We’ve all felt this. Everybody is frustrated with everybody else, and few people are willing to feel frustrated with themselves. Sometimes the only sufficient response is to laugh, and this story provides that in spades.

Sanford Allen — Author and Musician

Since John Picacio already staked a claim on Joe R. Lansdale’s FREEZER BURN, I decided to take a different approach and select what may be the funniest, darkest, weirdest and all-around greatest graphic novel ever published: Chester Brown’s ED THE HAPPY CLOWN.

Brown’s elaborate absurdist fantasy gets underway with childlike Ed finding a severed hand under his bed. Assuming the Tooth Fairy inadvertently left it behind, he turns it in to the police — and Ed’s world being a dystopian one — the good deed earns him a trip to the pokey. And that’s just where things start getting weird. Before it’s all over, the discovery leads Ed down a rabbit hole of midnight-black comedy, scatological nightmares, bizarre sexual compulsions and enough body horror to fill a China Mieville novel (with some left over for the next David Cronenberg flick).

During the course of the book, Ed learns just how inhumane humanity is capable of being, but he also discovers that, amid life’s cruel absurdities, there is at least one thing that makes it worth living. How strange do his travels get? One key character is a man who, for unexplained reasons, cannot stop shitting — even after he dies. The poor sap’s asshole even turns out to be a portal to another dimension.

If unexplained crapping conditions and trans-dimensional assholes sound offensive, this book obviously isn’t for you. But if you’ve ever been entertained by the absurdist leanings of David Lynch, Monty Python or some of the more extreme writers in the New Weird literary movement, ED THE HAPPY CLOWN may take you on a bizarre journey you won’t soon forget.

Pete Barnstrom — Left Foot Red Video

Twin political satire with science fiction? What???

Well, yeah, that’s probably not all that uncommon, really.  Hell, most space opera is political satire, intentional or not. But surprisingly sophisticated political satire? From an insider’s point of view? With a sly and cutting sense of humor? That’s worth another look.

Author Keith Laumer served in the US Foreign Service in the late ’50s as vice consul in Burma: a diplomat. And he brought that experience with him in his few dozen stories and novels featuring JAME RETIEF, pride of the CDT — which stands for the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne. If like me, you don’t speak French, know that means he’s part of Earth’s diplomatic outreach to other planets. And, more often than not, that puts him in the position of swindling warring alien cultures into becoming grudging allies, and more often than that, pits him against his superiors in the Corps, who resent his unorthodox methods and politely politic insubordination.

My introduction to (and still favorite version of) the Retief stories are the Mad Dog Comics adaptations written by Jan Strnad and elegantly illustrated by Dennis Fujitake.

Gilder McCarroll — Fan

I can answer immediately. It was a self-published novel, a gift from a well-meaning relative.

The author, a third party who shall remain nameless, did not have a good grasp on English mechanics. That was initially annoying, but I eventually decided to treat his errors as ironic comedy and continue reading.

Bottom line: I remember the book not for its deliberately preposterous plot but for the fact that it was apparently neither proofread nor edited.

Poor guy.

Paul Vaughn — Ding.us Design

Having just taken a flashback tour of high school favorite National Lampoon’s BORED OF THE RINGS and their much less successful DOON, I left recalling that other book I read around the same time, one that holds up much better over the years, Douglas Adams’ THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. My first exposure to this series, and I’m sure I’m not alone here, was through the BBC’s radio play (rebroadcast on NPR) as that was how it was first conceived in 1978. Adams then novelized the adventures of Arthur Dent, the last human to escape the Earth before it was obliterated to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Arthur is accompanied on his adventures by Ford Prefect, a human-looking alien researcher helping to compile entries for the galaxy’s most popular and useful travel guide; rogue galactic president Zaphod Beeblebrox, Marvin the paranoid android with a brain the size of a planet and Trillian, the only other survivor of the destruction of Earth.

These books are a perfect blend of zany British comedy and planet-hopping, time-traveling space opera that has captured the imagination of millions. The story intersperses the narrative with excerpts from the Guide that envelopes the reader in Adams’ smart, crazy galaxy.

While starting life as a radio program, the series has spawned a 1981 BBC TV series, video games, comic books, a 2005 Hollywood movie, additional radio plays and stage productions. Adams expanded the original Hitchhiker’s Guide into a five-book trilogy, all of which are worth reading. Eoin Colfer (author of the Artemis Fowl series) wrote a sixth book to the series in 2009. If your only exposure to this comic masterpiece is through the 2005 movie stop reading right now, grab your towel and head to the bookstore for the funniest book you will read all year.

Bill Crider — Author

There are several SF novels that that I like to go back to, but probably the one I’ve read the most is Bester’s THE STARS MY DESTINATION.  When I was a kid, this one really got me with the full “sense of wonder” blast.  I didn’t know that it was a retelling of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, and I didn’t care.  It had everything, adventure, romance, the blue jaunte and really cool writing pyrotechnics.   It still seems fresh to me today.  I don’t even have to reread it now.  All I need to do is think, “Gully Foyle is my name, and Terra is my nation.  Deep space is my dwelling place, and death’s my destination.”  After that the whole book comes back to me.  But darn it, after writing this, I still want to read it again.  Quant suff!  On the other hand, maybe I’ve read Matheson’s I AM LEGEND more often.  The best “last man on earth” book ever, and one of the best titles.  Or maybe it’s Simak’s CITY, or . . . .

Scott A. Cupp — Author

So, the question is what science fiction/fantasy/horror title do I keep returning to, over and over?  Rather than give one title, I will go with one of each category.

For science fiction, I would normally discuss NOVA by Samuel R. Delany or THE LAST STARSHIP FROM EARTH but I have discussed those at some length in the Forgotten Books segment recently enough that, while acknowledging them, I will mention another great title.  WAY STATION by Clifford Simak features the pastoral science fiction setting which I have mentioned on more than one occasion.  In this title, our hero Enoch Wallace, a Civil War veteran, is a caretaker of a galactic way station, a spot where many races have to pass on their way to other places.  As a result, Enoch is kept perpetually young which means he can have little human interaction, which generally suits him fine.  Much of the action in the book takes place when people begin to notice that someone has lived in the same place for a very long time and begin to investigate.  I first read this book in 1966 and I loved it then.  I have probably read it 7 or 8 times and each time it reminds me what a craftsman Clifford Simak was.

For Fantasy, I’ve read THE LORD OF THE RINGS more times than I care to count, but that was mainly in the 1960′s.  Passing that title, I would like to mention John Crowley’s LITTLE, BIG.  This is the story of Smoky Barnable and his one true love Daily Alice Drinkwater and the great sweeping house called Edgewood which is larger inside than out and crosses between our world and Faeire.  The book is a slow laconic look at their life in this magic place and even features a Special Guest Villain!  I love this book and much of Crowley’s work.   In a similar vein is Charles deLint’s MOONHEART which ranks a very close second here.

For Horror, I am tempted to list DRACULA by Bram Stoker or THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson.  But, again, these are easy titles to list so I will go with a favorite – THE MONK by Matthew Gregory Lewis, a classic of the Gothic period that is more a stew than a single novel.  So much goes on, it’s hard to keep track of it all.  There is blasphemy, rape, murder, Satanic rituals, and more adventure than one man should ever have.

Jeff DeCuir — Musician, Hyperbubble

I keep coming back to LOGAN’S RUN.  It could be a book about pop music: Everyone lives in a giant bio-dome shopping mall with top 40 hits by beautiful young bands constantly being pumped into the food court.  Non-contact cyber sex and recreational drugs are encouraged, however smoking is banned. Pop stars wear stylish crystal implants in their palms which display their age, blinking red hot while they’re in their prime, and turning black at age 21. Once their shelf life expires, they drop from the charts,  play a reunion concert and are killed by the laser show.

To avoid this fate, many hide their age with plastic surgery, but are ultimately caught.  Others become “Runners” and attempt to escape the dome, seeking a legendary club in San Antonio called Sanctuary, where musicians 21 and up are not only welcome, but on the guest list. Runners Logan 3 and Jessica 6, find Sanctuary, where they meet Keith Richards, who is smoking like a chimney, and Afrika Bambaataa who speaks telepathically with Bootsy Collins while programming a drum machine with the secrets of  the universe.  The song “Hyperdome” , from Hyperbubble’s second album is inspired by Logan’s Run. Neat book. Cool movie. Silly TV show. Awesome soundtrack.

John Picacio — Illustrator

My choice is George R.R. Martin’s A GAME OF THRONES (1st book of A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE series).

I can’t say that I’ve been a lifelong fan of this book and its series, but I can say I am now. I’m currently illustrating the 2012 calendar for George R.R. Martin’s A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE series, which will be published by Bantam and available sometime in latter 2011. I’ve been working on this project for the last year or so, and while doing it, my copies of A GAME OF THRONES, A CLASH OF KINGS, A STORM OF SWORDS, and A FEAST FOR CROWS have been marked up, dogeared and manhandled more than any other books I own. I know these books better than just about any novels I’ve ever read because I need to know them intimately to pull off the work I’m doing. Yes, there is a much-anticipated HBO TV series coming in 2011, but don’t get on board for that hype alone. Get on board because these books are as good as epic fantasy can be at the highest level. They’re emotional, infuriating, heart-pounding, heart-wrenching and worth every minute you invest with them. Start with A GAME OF THRONES, and when the fifth book, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, releases next year, you can thank me then.

Crystal Shedrock – Doctor Who Fans Unite

My choice is THE HUNGER GAMES Trilogy by Suzanne Collins. This trilogy is extremely new in the SciFi realm, but I love these books. Once I finished the final book in the series, I have yet to pick up another book because I felt nothing else could compare.

These three novels shall remain on my bookshelf forever, unless I am rereading them. It spoke to me on many levels. I understood the mindset of the main character. It is a dystopian novel that really makes a very bold statement about our society and the possible path we could head down in the future. Granted many dystopian novels make prevalent commentaries on society, but this one hits a little closer to home. Just scroll through the top tv shows or videos on youtube right now and ask yourself how far away are we from having our own Hunger Games?

Mike Fisher — Goofa Man Productions

As long as you mentioned fantasy, then I guess the most reread book for me is that staple of high school English classes, Orwell’s ANIMAL FARM. Has a more effective satire ever been written?

The evil allure of political power and its trappings is brilliantly and heart-breakingly portrayed. Strong-hearted Boxer gave every ounce of himself to the Rebellion, but those bastards didn’t give a damn about him…

Some of that crap they make you read in high school is pretty good!

Paul Vaughn — Techno-Geek

There are several books I have reread in recent years. I had to read THE LORD OF THE RINGS again when the movies came out. Susanna Clarke’s JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL was so good I had to reread it almost immediately, the same goes for Pynchon’s MASON & DIXON. The ILLUMINATUS TRILOGY with it’s connection to everything from Atlantis to Lovecraft to Rock-and-Roll also draws me in repeatedly.

But the series of books that will always bring me back are Frank Herbert’s original DUNE series. I originally read the first book, DUNE, as a teenager and it was easy to identify with protagonist Paul, the 15-year-old with complex messiah issues. The son of a planetary governor, Paul’s family is shipped to the desert planet Arrakis, know by the natives as Dune, that is the only source of Melange, the mind-altering spice that is the most valuable commodity in the universe. What follows is an incredible tale of politics, religion, ecology and culture that has spawned a movie, two SciFi Channel miniseries, video games and even an Iron Maiden song.

The original trilogy, DUNE, DUNE MESSIAH and CHILDREN OF DUNE, is classic enough, but the extension of the series through GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE, HERETICS OF DUNE and CHAPTERHOUSE DUNE is unlike anything you have read. The scope of the story, over thousands of years of societal manipulations, defines the word “epic.” I have not read the more recent sequels and prequels published since 1999 and don’t really intend to, the seminal six will always hold a special place in my mind and on my shelf. I’ll have to read these books, experience the grandeur and deceit all over again, at least once a decade.

Sanford Allen — Author and Musician

I read Anthony Burgess’ dystopian A CLOCKWORK ORANGE more than a dozen times between age 14 and 18, making it my most reread book. Part of it, I suppose, is that I was a disaffected youth drawn to the protagonist’s delinquency. I also was eager to unlock the Burgess’ fictional Nadsat slang, in which the book is written. Most significantly, though, the book made me think about the nature of evil and free will in profound ways.

Point Blank | The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension | Robocop

Mistah Pete – Left Foot Red Productions

First things first, what “smart” in an action movie is not: Smart is not using big words in your endless dialogue. (Looking at you, Michael Mann.) Smart is not taking for-damned-ever to get to the fun parts. (And now a nation turns its tired eyes to you, Christopher Nolan.

So, with those two examples to contrast –

If you want a smart crime thriller to get Michael Mann’s Heat off your shoes, take a look at John Boorman’s 1967 classic, Point Blank. It’s not only got Lee Marvin at his Lee Marvinest (hard as flint, delivering perhaps the first filmed Roshambo in Hollywood history), and Angie Dickinson unclad (I should just stop here, you don’t need anymore reasons to watch this), but the story is one to keep you thinking long after the credits roll. It’s been forty-three years, and film geeks are still debating what really happened to Walker on Alcatraz. I watch it at least once a year, usually with the excellent commentary from director Boorman and his disciple, Steven Soderbergh (who has made some smart thrillers himself).

Now, if it’s the smell of Dark Knight you can’t get out of your clothes, it’s pretty slim pickings in the world of smart superhero movies. (Perhaps that’s why some people think Dark Knight is smart.) But two come to mind — neither of them adapted from funnybooks, which says something right there…

From 1984, W. D. Richter’s The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is one of those movies that’s so wonderful it was doomed from the start. Peter Weller (playing a dandified Doc Savage-type with a low-key charm that tiptoes just this side of Adam West) is a science-hero who — with his musical band of rock-and-roll PhDs, the Hong Kong Cavaliers — battles an all-star-before-they-were-stars cast to save the world from the Red Lectroids and Orson Wells. Sort of. It is chock-full of fun and science and adventure and a watermelon. Too bad it didn’t do well enough at the box-office to deliver the promised sequel, Buckaroo Banzai vs. the World Crime League.

And in 1987, Paul Verhoeven delivered the most subversive superhero movie of all, Robocop. Again with Peter Weller, this time he’s honest cop Murphy who gets killed in the line of violent, violent duty, and reborn as a robot version of himself. The movie explores a lot of what it means to be human in a robot body, but the truly thought-provoking moments are the satire of the near-future world seen through television clips and advertising. We have gotten damned close to that “near-future” now, and frankly, it’s scary!

Jeff from Hyperbubble

Vanishing Point from 1971, director by Richard C. Sarafian. (not to be confused at all with the Vanishing Point remake from 1997)

On a bet, ex-cop, ex-soldier, ex-racecar driver Kowalski (Barry Newman) agrees to deliver a Challenger muscle car from Denver to San Francisco within 15 hours. He’s got a long way to go and a short time to get there, but that’s where the Smokey and the Bandit comparisons end. In this particular high-speed tale, our amphetamine fueled hero blasts down the existential highway, symbolism at every turn, while being hipped to the whereabouts of the police force by his main man, DJ Supersoul (Cleavon Little), who almost steals the show with this spine-chilling transmission:

“And there goes the Challenger, being chased by the blue, Blue Meanies on wheels. The vicious traffic squad cars are after our lone driver, the last American hero, the Electric Centaur, the, the Demi-god, the Super Driver of the Golden West! Two nasty Nazi cars are close behind the beautiful lone driver. The police numbers are gettin’ closer, closer, closer to our soul hero, in his Soul Mobile, yeah baby! They’re about to strike. They’re gonna get him. Smash him. Rape… the last beautiful free soul on this planet”.

Keep your eyes on the road, and your hands upon the rewind button, ’cause this baby’s loaded.

There’s still a lot of action after the jump…

Vanishing Point | A Boy and his Dog | Le Dernier Combat

Pete Loxsom

When it came to the question of intelligent action films my brain did its usual turn toward the apocalypse. While these two films don’t pack the hyperkinetic thrills of modern actions films they deliver the goods where it counts. A Boy and His Dog (1975), based on a novella by Harlan Ellison, presents a post World War III America where a man will kill you over a can of beans and raider packs train their dogs to sniff out women. Here we find Vic (played by a very young Don Johnson) and his dog Blood, with whom he shares a telepathic connection, wandering the wastes looking for food and females. The gritty, brutal wasteland also serves as a great backdrop for the great dialogue between Vic and Blood. From the start it’s clear that dog is smart one who does his best to educate his boy and to steer them to greener pastures. Then you throw in Jason Robards as the leader of one creepy group of underground vault dwellers who have a nefarious eye on Vic and things just get stranger. It’s the greatest talking dog movie that is totally inappropriate for children ever.

Le Dernier Combat (The Last Battle) (1983): French filmmaker Luc Besson’s first feature film is a gritty black and white visual narrative where the world is in such ruins that the air is no longer even fit to allow speech, except for a few gasping words spoken around an oxygen tank. So there are no subtitles to deal with, we just follow The Man along on his odyssey from a wasteland of buildings swallowed by sands into the ruins of a city with only a few inhabitants. Here he finds what could be a friend in the form of The Doctor, a resourceful man who saves the protagonists life after an encounter with The Brute. The character of The Brute is superbly handled by Jean Reno (from The Professional which is another kick-ass action film from Luc Besson) who blends in just enough comedy with the menace of his character to make him feel believable. The movie having no dialogue really requires you to pay close attention to what the characters are doing and how they express themselves and for the viewer to figure out what they are thinking and feeling. That might not be what everyone is looking for, but it is a movie that really wants you to engage with it.

Equilibrium | Night Watch | Day Watch

Chris Holm – Chris Holm Comics

Equilibrium: This film is often compared to the Matrix for it’s visual style and highly choreographed fight sequences. What makes it smart is it is more of an Anti-Matrix. In that the main character isn’t struggling to be a one dimensional machine like Neo, but is covertly learning to cope with being a human being. Although, the audience, at first, might not get why such things like listening to classical music or petting a puppy might be revolutionary actions to the main character. In the context of the film, where “feeling” is chemically desensitized, those actions are enough to warrant a revolution. And the action scenes are way cool too.

Night Watch/Day Watch: This is a film series about the supernatural side of Russia’s secret society of “Others.” Here, a series of somewhat random and unrelated events end being setups in a race against time by the forces of Darkness and Light. And we see these events unfold discovering that they were planned centuries ago. And it is fun watching the Overlord of Darkness practice his attack on a PlayStation 2. This film reinvents the modern witch into something almost like a superhero. What’s smart is we see the main character try to have a relationship with his estranged son while destiny throws everyone around like pawns in a chess game since the fate of the world is always in the balance. The good guys aren’t always so good. And even a bad girl regrets her actions in a love lost.

Casshern | Paprika | Ultraviolet

Casshern: This film is full of killer robots and supermutants. Science and divine intervention clash in one doctor’s struggle to save his dying wife. His son becomes a soldier against his wishes and is killed in war. But once his research is literally struck the lightning of god(s). His wife is stolen away by super mutants born in the accident, while his son’s body is brought to his complex for a funeral. Using the same pool of life that birthed the super humans that now wage war on humanity, the doctor resurrects his son, giving him superpowers, to rescue his wife. The son, now Casshern, struggle with his sins and all the torment he saw in the previous war. Lots of action and emotional insight. In one scene, the Dictator’s son, after staging a coup, examines the pool of life. He scoffs at it, saying that is everyone has a second chance, then why live life to the fullest at all? Each character is haunted by their pasts in one form or another.

Paprika: An adventure about a dream warrior know as Paprika. Think Freddy Kruger as a cute anime chick. The characters in this film deal with their emotional baggage literally as they try to unravel a mystery about stolen dream technology that could drive the world mad. It’s surreal action will always keep you guessing, and on your toes as reality will sometimes slip from out under your feet.

Ultraviolet: A vampire movie that reinvents the vampire condition. Instead of a curse that makes everyone beautiful and glittery, Vampirism in Ultraviolet is treated as a disease. Society has evolved into a paranoid germophobic locked down society. There are a few scenes where advanced technology is used but not really explained. Like, a ball that can affect one’s gravitational pull or a dimensional portal in your pocket used for storage. Aside from that, seeing the new black plague with vampires and outrageous action only Milla Jovovich can deliver is refreshingly entertaining.

Raiders of the Lost Ark | North By Northwest | Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

Rene A. Guzman – Geek Speak

Raiders of the Lost Ark (sorry, I just can’t bring myself to call it Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark)
: 

You want smart action? How about an archeology professor who thwarts the bad guys with his wits as well as his whip? “Raiders of the Lost Ark” is quintessential action/adventure, no doubt, but with a brawny brilliance behind the popcorn serial. And nobody typifies that clever toughness better than Dr. Indiana Jones. Whether he’s outrunning giant boulders, outwitting big bad thugs or outlasting Nazi tomb raiders in a horrific climax of Biblical proportions, Indy always has the right tool for the job. We speak, of course, of that mighty gray matter beneath his well-worn fedora.

Jon Gillespie – The Overtime Theater

My pick is an acknowledged classic but for good reason: North by Northwest. Still one of Hitchcock’s absolute best, it’s filled with action, from the UN Building, to a secluded mansion, an art auction, and of course the final confrontation on Mount Rushmore. What makes it smart? How about master screenwriter Ernest Lehman writing the words, which are performed by the all-star line-up of Cary Grant, James Mason, Martin Landau, Leo G. Carroll, and Eva Marie Saint, all directed by the master.

Sanford Allen

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia: Reviled by critics at the time of its 1974 release for its graphic violence and grim world view, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia has since achieved cult status as the film that stays truest to the vision of its hard-living director, Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs). The movie follows Bennie (brilliantly played by the gritty Warren Oates), a down-and-out American piano player in a Mexican brothel, as he and his prostitute girlfriend chase the score of their lives. That score, of course, is the head of a young Romeo who has impregnated the daughter of a powerful Mexican named El Jefe. See, Bennie and his girl know that Garcia is already dead, and carting his head to the big boss for a hefty cash reward is easy as digging up a grave. Or so they think. What follows is an unrelentingly bleak odyssey across the dusty backroads of Mexico as Bennie attempts to follow through his grisly task and sinks lower and lower into violence and madness. Through Bennie’s decline, Peckinpah holds up a cruel fun-house mirror to the audience’s expectations about what constitutes a Hollywood action picture. Instead of a feel-good buddy flick with guns, we get a glimpse into the lives of sad desperation that most men of violence actually live.

Put your boots on…it’s fixin’ to get weird.

The Secret of San Saba | Curse of the Undead | Jonah Hex

Paul Vaughn – Techno Geek

Several years after moving to San Antonio I discovered the Texas tales of Jack Jackson, published under the pen name Jaxon. Jaxon was one of the original underground comix artists in the 1960s and co-founded Rip Off Press. His historical graphic novels focused on the native people of Texas and their interactions with newer settlers from both Europe and Mexico. Many, like Comanche Moon and Lost Cause: The True Story of Texas Gunslinger John Wesley Hardin, are straight historical accounts, but the book that stands out for me is THE SECRET OF SAN SABA, published in 1989.

Subtitled A tale of phantoms and greed in the Spanish Southwest, this was the Texas weird tale I was looking for. Jaxon mashes up Indians and Cthulhu into a powerfully spicy stew guaranteed to win any South Texas chili cook-off. His meticulous illustrations of the interior of Natural Bridge Caverns (just North of San Antonio) as the otherworldly temple to the Native Americans’ alien god “Zulthu” will stay with you every time you visit this popular tourist attraction. San Saba, in the Texas Hill Country, may be known now as the “Pecan Capital of the World,” but apparently 300 years ago it was a hotbed of giant alien slug worship. And Zulthu’s worshipers were willing to go to great lengths to keep invaders away from their god.

Truly weird, by a master of graphical story telling. This book is now out of print, but it is so worth snatching up if you see one.

Joe R. Lansdale – Author

CURSE OF THE UNDEAD was my favorite Weird Western film as a kid. It’s dated, but I still have a soft spot for it. Favorite comic was JONAH HEX, which, frankly, was more wild than weird. It became weird when I wrote it and Tim Truman drew it. A lot of what we did has become the template for Hex these days, good and bad. Weird Western novel. Huh? Nothing jumps to mind. But, I also liked THE PHANTOM EMPIRE with Gene Autry, an early serial with cowboys and underground invaders. Lots of fun. MONTANA GOTHIC is good, but for some reason can’t remember the author right now (editor’s note: Dirck Van Sickle is the author in question).

Montana Gothic | Yellow Black Radio Broke-Down | Sukiyaki Western Django

Erik Bosse – Eyewash Pictures

His name is the Loop Garoo Kid, and he is the African-American protagonist of Ishmael Reed’s second novel, YELLOW BACK RADIO BROKE-DOWN (1969). He’s a trickster in the Yoruba tradition of Africa. After running afoul of Drag Gibson, the racist land baron in the old west town of Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down, the Kid sets out to destroy his adversary through intrigue, hoodoo magic, and good old-fashioned violence.

Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down gleefully throws itself into a weirdness that is more unfettered surrealism than what one would expect from contemporary slipstream novels, or any of those books umbrellaed under the term “new weird.” In this western we have anachronistic rock groups with electric fiddles, detectives who carry ray guns, and there’s even a scene where the Pope arrives astride a monstrous “loud red bull in front of a great stagecoach full of attendants.” As Life magazine put it in a contemporary review: “Literary surrealism has invaded Marlboro Country.” This skinny book make’s Alejandro Jodorowsky’s mind-bending psychedelic western movie, El Topo, appear by comparison as stodgy as a Republic Pictures horse opera.

James Hartz – Artistic Director, Overtime Theater / Film Classic Productions

My favorite Weird Western Tale is SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO directed by Takashi Miike. It is a mashup of homages to Sergio Leone’s Man With No Name films, Kill Bill, Akira Kurosawa, William Shakespeare and anime. The film is a glorious example of taking a time-tested plot (a nameless gunslinger plays both sides of a gang war) and reinvigorating it by abandoning limitations of realism and replacing with a world that constantly adapts to the emotions of those in it.

Beautifully shot as a blend of Kurosawa’s slow motion, Leone’s long shots, and Miike’s hyper-kinetic action all of which is reinforced by the climatic showdown between sword and gun. The film is more than a pastiche, but rather the all-too-rare joy of watching old ideas come together to create something new.

Zeppelins West | Deadman's Road | High Plains Drifter

John Picacio – Illustrator

When a book offers Buffalo Bill Cody as a head in a jar attached to a mechanical body and mixes it with zeppelins, sharks, Captain Nemo and Frankenstein’s monster, it’s hard not to pay attention. Joe R. Lansdale’s ZEPPELINS WEST isn’t a straight-up Weird Western in the way that his DEAD IN THE WEST might be, but it’s no less a cult classic. Lansdale’s latest Subterranean Press release DEADMAN’S ROAD collects the zombie classic DEAD IN THE WEST along with four other stories, one never before collected, one brand new. It releases in October but Subterranean is taking preorders now.

Don’t make Joe come to your house and do this.

Ross Ruediger – The Rued Morgue

When the “Missions Unknown” shout-out was issued for this entry, the first weird western that popped into my head was HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER. I tried to think of something else – something even odder and bolder (like El Topo) – but “High Plains Drifter” wouldn’t stand for it. It kept coming back to me as the only logical answer to the question. On the surface, there’s doesn’t appear to be anything particularly strange about the piece, or at least no stranger than the “Man With No Name” trilogy directed by Sergio Leone. This was only Clint Eastwood’s second feature film as a director, and once you start watching it becomes clear that, after acting in countless western productions throughout the fifties and the sixties, Eastwood really wanted to do something different with the genre. And so he turned out a violent, supernatural tale of a town inhabited by cowardly people, and one nameless stranger (Eastwood) who demands justice. But what for? That you don’t actually find out until near the end of the piece, long after the Stranger subjects the townsfolk to one humiliating display after another, renames the town Hell, and has it painted red (literally). Eastwood is as unlikable as he’s ever been, and referring to this character as an antihero is generous. The payoff is creepy and disturbing and yet the movie probably asks more questions than it answers, so if you’re looking for a nice, tidy bow on top of the gift, this probably isn’t the movie for you. Of course you are reading a piece on weird westerns, so what are you waiting for?

On the other hand, if I were a kid looking for a weird western, I’d have to go with THE VALLEY OF GWANGI, because, well, you can never go wrong with dinosaurs and cowboys.

The Valley of the Gwangi | El Topo

Sanford Allen – Author & Musician

When it comes to Weird Western cinema, there’s nothing weirder than Alejandro Jodorowsky’s EL TOPO. Released in 1970 but unavailable on DVD until 2007, the film follows a mysterious gunslinger in black as he rides across a wasted landscape littered with religious symbols and copious amounts of corpses. Through the gunman’s travels, Jodorowsky forces the viewer’s eye to a kaleidoscope of disturbing images, from eviscerations and brutal torture to a menagerie of physically challenged characters, among them amputees, dwarves and people with Down syndrome. The movie is reminiscent of Dali and Fellini but also Leone and Peckinpah, serving up a bloody surrealist fantasy that’s so seeped in religious symbols that it’s difficult to know how they all fit together. Whether you watch to unlock the puzzle of Jodorowksy’s imagery or simply take in the eccentricity of his vision, it’s an unforgettable travel across a Wild, Wild West as no director before or since has imagined it.

Mistah Pete – Left Foot Red Productions

Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, The Virginian: in the early 1960s, Zane Grey might as well have owned America’s only Neilsen book. But TV is always hot to jump on a trend (a few years late), and by the middle of that decade, Bond-mania had hit the airwaves. Get Smart and The Man From UNCLE had taken the place of Have Gun, Will Travel and Rawhide, but Bonanza was still number one. It didn’t take Faith Popcorn to see where this trend would lead — CBS debuted THE WILD WILD WEST in September of 1965.

The animated opening lets you know not to take this too seriously. This was produced in the era of Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, but what really veered this into the realm of “Weird Western” were the insane plots the villains threw at the President Grant’s favorite Secret Service agents, Jim West (played by diminutive ball-of-muscle Robert Conrad) and master-of-disguise Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin, Emmy-nominated for the role). They ran up against steam-powered earthquake-machines and cyborgs and crystal brain-implants and a circus of assassins and (no kidding) a drug that shrinks men to six-inches tall. Their recurring nemesis was Dr. Miguelito Loveless, a dwarf mad scientist who exhausted too much of his genius on death-traps for Jim and Artie.

The show was eventually taken off the air not for ratings but as a sop to watchdog groups despairing over TV violence. Each episode included at least two impressive fight scenes pitting Agent West against a veritable sea of burly cowpokes (Conrad famously had his skull cracked in one, which shut down shooting for two weeks), and often also just happened to require Jim to be stripped of his snazzy little blue bolero jacket and pose bare-chested and bound in leather as he’s caressed by some ‘60s wild-eyed hellcat in an exploding garter-belt.

So next time you despair that television panders to the 18-35 year old male, remember there once was a time when they were willing to deprive us of this little nugget of kinky fun simply because some blue-haired prudes complained loud enough.

The Wild Wild West | The Twilight Zone - "The Hunt"

Mike Fisher – Goofa Man Productions

This weird western is a Twilight Zone episode that involves hillbillies and a man’s love for hunting and his dog. The episode is called THE HUNT.

It involves a man who, along with his dog, is killed in a hunting accident. He eventually realizes that they are dead. The man and dog come to a gate that is the gate to heaven. But the gatekeeper won’t let the dog in!

The hillbilly says, any place that is too high falutin for Rip is too fancy for me!

Then he finds the REAL gate to heaven. See? See what was happening? Awesome episode and I saw it only a year or two ago for the first time.

The Phantom Empire | The Weird Western Adventures of Haakon Jones | Time Rider

Scott A. Cupp – Author

The field of the weird western is one that is very dear and close to my heart. I have written the occasional weird western and there are books which I would love to mention but cannot because I have a stake in them. Books like RAZORED SADDLES, THE NEW FRONTIER, and CROSS PLAINS UNIVERSE. I’m in those and helped select the contents for one.

But one I wish I had written is THE WEIRD ADVENTURES OF HAAKON JONES by Aaron B. Larson (1999, Battered Silicon Dispatch Box). Larson came into Adventures in Crime and Space when it was open promoting his book. My partner Willie Siros knew I would love it and purchased it for me. Unfortunately in the great book purge of 2007 it was lost to me, so I cannot even refer back to it. I know there were 36 or so stories in it and that they covered a multitude of genres – western, horror, science fiction, fantasy, detective (I think). They were short but definitely weird. In looking out on the web, I see the hardback is available if you want to part with serious cash. There is a paperback available from Battered Silicon Dispatch Box for either $25 or $30 (both prices are listed). I may have to restock this on my shelves. It’s good, it’s odd, it’s a western.

While others may be discussing Joe Lansdale books like DEAD IN THE WEST, ZEPPELINS WEST, or even THE MAGIC WAGON, I am going to go back to the weirdest western of them all, THE PHANTOM EMPIRE, a 1935 serial from Mascot Films starring Gene Autry as himself, a singing cowboy from Radio Ranch who broadcasts daily so there can be a song in each chapter. Out on the ranch is the hidden passage that leads to Murania, an underground kingdom descended from the lost tribes of Mu. Gene and his boys (his musicians and background singers) team up with two teenagers played by Frankie Darro and Betsy King Ross and go after the fiends who are intent on driving Gene away from Radio ranch. The story is convoluted and on close examination makes little sense but what more do you need. You have Thunder Riders (and Junior Thunder Riders!), killer robots, lost civilizations, a beautiful but evil Queen, ray guns, gangsters, radium, six guns, airplanes, skyscrapers, super fast elevators, and super science. What more could you want? The film is available in several inexpensive formats.

Drew Mayer-Oakes – Director, San Antonio Film Commission

TIME RIDER would be my pick. It stars Fred Ward, Peter Coyote and Belinda Bauer and it was produced by ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith.

To find out, we asked a deceptively tricky question: What is your favorite SF/Fantasy album cover of the last decade?

We asked San Antonio’s SF illuminati to wrack their brains and let us know what grabbed them in the oughts. We got some excellent feedback from the likes of John Picacio, Sanford Allen, Jeff from Hyperbubble, Mistah Pete, Paul Vaughn, René Guzman, Scott A. Cupp and Erik Bosse. While we’re showing ours, email us your favorites and if we get enough we’ll run a post in the weeks ahead with your favorites too.

Circa Survive - "On Letting Go" | Die Alten Maschinen - "To Be or Not"

John Picacio – Illustrator

Circa Survive - Blue Sky Noise

Album Title: On Letting Go
Band: Circa Survive
Cover Artist: Esao Andrews

Album covers were such a fertile market for imaginative cover art when vinyl was in vogue. Once the CD package shrunk the image area, lush illustrated music packaging became an increasing rarity as band photos and designer cliches became the norm. It’s even more difficult to find illustrated music packaging this decade as mp3s dominate — even harder to find music art that captivates.

This one does it though. The art is by Esao Andrews for Circa Survive’s album, On Letting Go. The image made me stop in my tracks when I saw it. Beautiful, iconic, poignant and wow. Andrews has done more art for this band’s music packaging including their 2010 release Blue Sky Noise, which is another knockout image. I’ve been familiar with some of Andrews’ work for a couple of years, but I think these bits of music art are amongst his best works to date.

Paul Vaughn – Techno Geek

Album Title: To Be or Not
Band: Die Alten Maschinen with Gerald V. Casale of DEVO
Cover Artist: Adolf Lachman

How could I not pick up this album…well, download it really. Gerald Casale from DEVO (yes, my favorite band ever) teamed up with a Czech techno duo and garnished with a sweet robotic album cover by Czech comics artist Adolf Lachman. The pathos of the robot image matches the theme of the song To Be or Not – mechanical alienation in an organic world. Can a robot love? Are our creations simply collections of plastic bones with servo motor souls or are they more than these parts. This song is a beautiful modern twist on classic DEVO. While Mark Mothersbaugh is normally though of as the vocalist from DEVO, Casale’s voice is pure de-evolution. Listen to this track once or twice and you will be singing it for days…complete with a Czech accent. Lachman’s portrayal of the robot on the cover is sensitive without being maudlin. And the energy dome employed as a flower pot is a brilliant touch.

Venetian Snares - "Pink + Green" | Janelle Monáe - "Metropolis"

Jeff from Hyperbubble – Musician

Album Title: Pink + Green
Band: Venetian Snares
Cover Artist: Arnold Steiner - AS1 Projects, “Eferia” pony designed by Anna Sjöberg

The heavens burst open like a piñata filled with metallic orbs, rainbows and party balloons. My Little Clonies fly though the purple icing skies in Buck Rogers rocketships, surrounded by candy colored foliage, while spikey haired horsies sporting bad ass rock tattoos, legwarmers and cubist eyeballs frolic below, littering the electric green grass of fantasy land with syringes and cigarette butts.

Janelle Monáe - The ArchAndroid

Pretty much describes the music within.

Mistah Pete – Left Foot Red Video

Album Title: Metropolis – The Chase Suite
Band: Janelle Monáe
Cover Artist: ???

I recently read an article about all the things that the Age of the Internet has taken from us, and one of them was the concept of the album in general, and the concept album in particular. No one told Janelle Monáe about this. Her Metropolis – The Chase Suite is a sci-fi concept album that might’ve been made by Styx or the Alan Parsons Project, but for it being the most modern of hip-hop (produced by Big Boi of Outkast fame, and released on the once-and-future Puff Daddy’s label, Bad Boy Records). The Metropolis Suite is the story of Android #57821 (also known as Cindi Mayweather) who has fallen in love with a human and so is now scheduled for “immediate disassembly” (or so goes the creepily cheery-voiced intro to the album). The rest of the album is about her flight from bounty hunters and “droid control marshals” armed with “chainsaws and electro-daggers!” Yeah, pretty much as geeky as it sounds, but it’s incredibly fun, and Monáe’s voice ranges from Cyndi Lauper hiccups to the deep Gospel-growl of Sharon Jones.

It should also be mentioned that Monáe’s new album, The ArchAndroid continues the story, and also has a pretty cool cover, also pretty clearly inspired by a certain Fritz Lang classic silent film classic.

The Flaming Lips - "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" | Farflung - "25,000 Feet Per Second"

Scott A. Cupp – Author

Album Title: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Band: The Flaming Lips
Artist: Wayne Coyne

This was an interesting challenge. I am officially an old fart and tend to listen more to the music of the 50‘s and 60’s than the current stuff.  Not a total Phillistine, I do get some new music. One album which fits the topic at hand (ignoring the SF related soundtracks I got) was The Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,  a “semi-concept” album from the oddest band to exit Oklahoma City in many years.  I had heard the song “Do You Realize” in commercials with the big bunnies and weird stuff before I found me way to the album. I like much of it and don’t like other pieces.  It’s a little to self-consciously arty in a spot or two, kind of like Yes on electronic drugs. The opening quartet of songs appears to be related giving YBTPR the semi-concept status.  The album design and layout is credited to George Salisbury. I’m not sure that includes the cover art, which is wonderfully eerie featuring a young female warrior approaching a bizarre robot. I understand that this was to be the basis for a musical but that appears never to have happened.  All in all a mixture of psychedelia, electronic, angst, and Oklahoma weirdness. Try it, you might like it.

Erik Bosse – Eyewash Pictures

Album Title: 25,000 Feet Per Second
Band: Farflung
Cover Artist: ???

There have been times when I’ll buy music because of the cover art. However, it’s a dodgy pursuit, as the music only rarely lives up to the overblown art work. If I see album art depicting, let’s say, flying purple chimps kidnapping a curvaceous she-astronaut under a three moon sky, I’m not going to be happy if the music turns out to be standard delta blues or some New Age pan flute ensemble. But the reverse also happens. When I pick up an album of classic space rock (Pressurehed, Farflung, Chrome, Faust, Hawkwind, Amon Düül, et al.), I demand art work showing, in high detail, something like, well, a planet exploding; a generously craniumed Homo futurien emerging from a UFO parked in present day Hyde Park; or, a gargantuan scorpion perched atop a Mayan pyramid holding a curvaceous she-astronaut in its pincers…under a three moon sky. And so I’m going to cheat here and nominate a wonderful piece of album art which appeared 15 years ago. The band is Farflung. They’re a bastion of traditional neo-space rock who are still making music. But their first album, 25,000 Feet Per Second, has this stellar (if I may) cover art which is so wonderfully retro it could have been cribbed from a pulp mag circa 1945. The best thing is, the music lives up to this wonderful illustration.

King Crimson - "The Power to Believe" | Coldplay - "A Rush of Blood to the Head"

Sanford Allen – Author & Musician

Album Title: The Power to Believe
Band: King Crimson
Cover Artist: P.J. Crook

British surrealist painter P.J. CROOK’S cover to KING CRIMSON’S 2003 album shows a dystopian world that could be the near future, a dark steampunk fantasy or even (gasp!) the present day. Thronging masses wander the streets of a smoke-choked megacity while gas-masked soldiers with guard dogs ominously keep things in line. In the middle of the painting, a gas-masked nurse in Florence Nightingale garb delivers a naked child into the world. A messiah? An innocent not yet sullied by the place’s ugliness? Hell, the kid may even be stillborn. It’s all unclear. But the ambiguity and sense of mystery only add to the power of the image. Certainly, it’s a great match for this dark, heavy — yet occasionally uplifting — disk that is arguably the venerable experimental rock band’s best studio album since the early ‘80s. Bully for Crook and Crimson that it’s also one of the best SF-inspired album covers of recent years. Added San Antonio coolness: Crimson’s lineup on this disk includes Alamo City native Trey Gunn.

René A. Guzman - Geek Speak

Album Title: A Rush of Blood to the Head
Band: Coldplay
Artist: Sølve Sundsbø

Say what you will about Coldplay, the whiny alt-soft rockers cranked out one very popular album in ’02 with one very unnerving image of a ghostlike figure cracking through a vector field or some such technological snapshot gone awry. Which, turns out, it is. Back in the late 1990s, Norwegian fashion photographer Sølve Sundsbø scanned a model wearing all-white makeup with a 3D scanning machine for the fashion mag Dazed and Confused. The model also had on a cape with a colored twill, which the computer couldn’t read so it spit the colors out as spikes. As for her chopped head, blame the machine again for only scanning in 30 centimeter segments. None of which mattered since Dazed & Confused ran the image anyway. Later, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin saw the image and asked Sundsbø if the band could use it for their second album. Sundsbø not only agreed but even suggested scanning the band’s heads to use as art for the singles.