DARK HORSE'S OCTOBER HORSEPOWER: JOE BOB BRIGGS LOOKS BACK ON THE DRIVE-IN

Every month, Dark Horse Comics gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a comic or book in the Horsepower column which appears in each of our printed comics issues for the month. These articles can include the inspiration behind a specific title, what it’s like to work in the comics industry, or some other special feature on the highlighted title of the month. In this month’s Horsepower, Joe Bob Briggs looks back on the drive-in:

It all started when I noticed that Graveyard Tramps had come and gone at the Gemini Drive-In without being noticed by my employer, the Dallas Times-Herald. Little did I know that Graveyard Tramps was actually a nine-year old movie originally released under the title Invasion of the Bee Girls. All I knew was that it had never been reviewed at the paper where I was a newbie to the film beat. The following week the same thing happened to Dr. Butcher, M.D.—it came and went with a drive-in-only release with nary a mention from the cultural critics of the day. Once again, I was sadly uninformed about the picture—it was an Italian film originally titled Zombie Holocaust but had bombed under that title two years previously, then been successively re-released as Island of the Last Zombies, Queen of the Cannibals, and Zombie 3.

Obviously, there was something wrong with a society that would ignore a movie using the tag line “They bite, they squeeze, they’re ready to please!” So, I set out to chronicle the neglected world of the drive-in.

It was harder than I thought. Not only did the filmmakers not trust me, my own editors didn’t much care for the idea either. Then, once I got started with a weekly column called “Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In,” new enemies of the drive-in arts seemed to materialize on a regular basis. At first it was just the Babtist church that objected, but I grew up in the Babtist church so I know they object to many things that Jesus never spoke about. Next, I attracted the ire of the National Organization for Women— they were upset about my review of Pieces and were determined to cancel me long before Cancel Culture was a thing. Soon the Catholics joined the Babtists, then NOW was backed up by the National Organization for Decency in Tupelo, Mississippi, and then came an avalanche of organizations and movements decrying my celebration of what was, at the time, considered beyond the pale of serious criticism. This was especially ironic since I wasn’t really doing serious criticism at all, I was just describing what went on at the drive-in, on and off the screen.

Little did I know that this venture would continue for the next four decades, encompassing books, TV shows, syndicated columns, radio shows, speaking tours, conventions, and friendships with just about everyone who ever made an exploitation film. I remember one amazing evening when I was performing at a punk club called Wolfgang’s in San Francisco where the feminists and the evangelicals were both picketing outside, getting in each other’s way. And it was these little dashed-off articles collected in the new expanded edition of Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In that raised their hackles enough to paint signs and haunt the alt-music scene. If I’d known Dark Horse had a plan to resurrect these pieces decades later— with illustrations by a famous artist, no less—I would have worked harder on them, maybe polished the language a little bit, maybe refrained from telling the same jokes over and over. But I’m so grateful to the misfits and outsiders who preserved them after all this time, and I hope they’ll be regarded, not as serious criticism, but as the raw prehistory of twenty-first-century nerd culture.

Be sure to follow DarkHorseComics on social media and check our website, www.darkhorse.com for more news, announcements, and updates.

Author Profile

Al Mega

I'm Al Mega the CEO of Comic Crusaders, CEO of the Undercover Capes Podcast Network, CEO of Geekery Magazine & Owner of Splintered Press (coming soon). I'm a fan of comics, cartoons and old school video games. Make sure to check out our podcasts/vidcasts and more!