By KEVIN HOOVER
This is the sensitive story of a Texas-based film critic, dissatisfied with mainstream media’s unwillingness to give exploitation cinema a seat at the table of cultural relevance. So, more than 40 years ago, he created a newspaper column that was equal parts review and reverence for the drive-in subset of filmmaking. Recognizing that those columns deserved a place to live on for posterity in a period pre-interwebs, the wordsmith’s work was compiled into an encyclopedia of sorts: a paperback compendium that has since become the stuff of legend among horror cinephiles.
Sure, we’ve seen it before – but have we seen it with vivid illustrations by a team of distinguished artists at Dark Horse Comics? With articles that likely went unread by anyone outside of the Lone Star State? And wrapped in a ruggedly handsome and durable to boot hardback crafted to retain its luster for another 40 years?
We think not. But luckily, this October, Joe Bob Briggs and Dark Horse Comics are unleashing the Debut Book-Fu upon the Mutant Fam that they’ve always wanted.
JOE BOB GOES TO THE DRIVE-IN, originally released back in the mid-80s, compiles the work of the journalist-turned-author who has tirelessly championed the drive-in movie. The book – through its columns and reviews – became a cornerstone in a career that would see the beloved Texas critic emerge as the country’s foremost authority on fringe cinema, beginning with Joe Bob’s Drive-In Theater on The Movie Channel and continuing today with Shudder’s The Last Drive-In. While the original run has gone out of print, the few copies that do exist are often ravaged by the ides of time and command exorbitant prices. The updated edition seeks to bring this highly sought-after work to a contemporary audience with all-new material.
After getting spry as fuck with the Mutant Fam during the annual celebration of Walpurgisnacht over at The Last Drive-In, Joe Bob took time to discuss the new-and-improved edition of his debut book.
The original JOE BOB GOES TO THE DRIVE-IN is a holy grail piece for Joe Bob fans, and everyone’s excited to see what Dark Horse Comics has in store with the new edition!
Dark Horse, which is one of the top comics companies, they’ve done an amazing job. They have world-class artists working for them, and they’ve illustrated JOE BOB GOES TO THE DRIVE-IN. Then, in a very entertaining way, I’ve gone back into the archives of the Dallas Times Herald and pulled out all the stuff that we left out of the original version (of the book). It’s sort of a complete, I would say, first two years of my writing on exploitation films, starting with the very first movie, which was Anthropophagus. You can see the development and evolution of the drive-in. And as the reviews move forward, I keep adding a category to the drive-in totals until there’s full totals.
The original book is almost 40 years old now. Are you surprised that there’s still so much interest in it?
I’m very flattered that somebody wants to republish articles that were dashed off for a newspaper 40 years ago! And nothing’s changed, really. I have an introduction trying to explain to people why these articles were controversial, because you’ll read them today and wonder what was so controversial about them. But the main thing was people thought these movies were disposable trash and that they shouldn’t have any attention paid to them. I was the first guy at a mainstream paper to say, “I’m gonna review these movies because I like these movies.”
And it wasn’t so much that I was reviewing them. Occasionally, a critic like Vincent Canby at The New York Times would review an exploitation film, but only to sort of sneer at it. So, this was the first place that celebrated what I call the “drive-in movie” – what the industry called “exploitation movies,” and what today they call “genre movies.” I don’t like that term – “genre movies.” I like “exploitation movies.” Exploitation was a marketing term which just meant that the movie had some kind of hook they could serve as marketing, because none of these companies had marketing budgets. If that was people getting their heads blown off, then that was the marketing hook. And if that was a low budget action star like Charles Bronson, then that was the marketing. But they were exploitation movies because the content of the movie was the exploitation element.
Stephen King wrote the introduction, and it appeared in both the original and this new edition. How does a horror author from New England become a fan of a Texan film critic, in an age predating email?
At the time, there was no internet, so people would tear (the column) out of the paper and mail it to their friends. That’s how Stephen King first knew about it. He had a relative who lived in Dallas, and she would send him the column every week. He became a big fan and that’s how he became the very first honoree at the World Drive-In Movie Festival in Dallas. He came and stood on top of the concession stand at the gym and accepted the lifetime achievement award.
The book has been out of print for decades now, causing prices on the secondhand market to skyrocket. And while Joe Bob Briggs-branded merch has increased in scope to include everything from plush dolls to T-shirts and even coffee, JOE BOB GOES TO THE DRIVE-IN unfortunately went – and stayed – dormant.
At the time it came out, it was a moderately OK seller, but it wasn’t a huge seller. If you didn’t live in Texas, you probably didn’t know who Joe Bob Briggs was, so not that many copies were in print. Also, it had this incredibly cheap binding; a lot of the books just fell apart. The high prices are simply the result of scarcity.
Ah, so the original run wasn’t really built to stand the test of time.
Right. It was a paperback – there was no hardcover version – so it deteriorated over time. And the pages yellowed. It was handled by Dell Publishing, and they weren’t big spenders.
Even those who haven’t had a chance to read the original edition have a sense of what to expect, but with all the talk of new material being added, what can we look forward to in the updated version?
When we first did the book for Dell, we didn’t include all the letters from readers, and we didn’t include all the drive-in alerts. We also skipped over some of the reviews and the columns in order to meet the length they needed the book to come in at. In this one, I just said, “Let’s get all this stuff and put all of it in, and we’ll cut it off at whatever point.”
I really wanted to include all of the various controversies and people who were adversaries of Joe Bob. It’s hard for people to understand why the Baptist Church would be on my case, or why all these various groups would decide to officially protest. I did a show in San Francisco and there were actual pickets outside the theater! People can’t imagine today why this fairly mild satire would inspire so much animus, but that’s the history of it. That’s why I wrote the introduction and explained that it was a different time. People were very thin-skinned about sex and violence. If they liked it, they would call it romance and adventure. But if they didn’t like it, they would call it sex and violence.
Every writer has a favorite piece of content – something they’re proud to point to over their careers. Is there anything specifically within this book that’s worthy of a personal callout?
I won’t be able to quote you a single line of it, but I kind of remember the review of The Ice Pirates (1984) being a winner. I don’t know if anybody even watches The Ice Pirates today, but it has everything in it. It probably has some of the all-time high drive-in totals!
People are clamoring to get their hands on JOE BOB GOES TO THE DRIVE-IN, but even before it releases in October, we’re wondering – does this mean your other books are coming back into print?
It does! But the next book that comes out after this will be a history of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. That’ll be out next year.
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I could not believe that a smarmy jerk like Phil Donahue, who reminded me of Joe Pyne, invited Joe Bob onto his talk show to yell at him about the quality of the movies he reviewed. From his tone you would have thought that Joe Bob reviewed kiddy porn.