Originally published at: https://geektherapy.org/horror-master-joe-r-lansdale-enters-ec-comics-history-in-catacomb-of-torment-9-coming-in-march/
Author: Newsroom
PORTLAND, OR (December 17th, 2025) – THIS MARCH, EC COMICS’ CATACOMB OF TORMENT PROUDLY USHERS A HORROR ICON INTO ITS HALLOWED HALLS! Oni Press, the multiple Eisner and Harvey Award–winning publisher of groundbreaking comics and graphic novels since 1997, and William M. Gaines Agent, Inc. are proud to announce that award-winning novelist, screenwriter, and comics legend Joe R. Lansdale (Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo, Bubba Ho-Tep) is joining the ranks of EC Comics’ blood-spattered luminaries with an all-new story, “Picture Perfect,” debuting in March’s CATACOMB OF TORMENT #9 alongside Eisner Award-winning artist David Lapham (Stray Bullets).
The winner of 11 prestigious Bram Stoker Awards, the American Horror Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Edgar Award, Joe R. Lansdale’s career has spanned more than four decades across 50 novels, multiple feature films and television series, and countless short stories and comic books. Known as one of the formative pioneers of the “weird western” genre – wryly colliding classic American gunslinging with mutants, monsters, and Lovecraftian horror – Lansdale is perhaps most frequently recognized for his instant-classic reimagining of the DC Comics anti-hero Jonah Hex (alongside artist Timothy Truman) for the Vertigo imprint in the mid-1990s, as well as his creations Bubba Ho-Tep (subsequently adapted into the cult-hit feature film starring Evil Dead’s Bruce Campbell) and his long-running Hap & Leonard series that now spans more than a dozen novels, novellas, and multiple anthologies.
“I’m honored to work in the EC tradition, and Oni‘s interpretation is fantastic and beautiful,” said Lansdale. “It rings the bells of the original comics while managing to stretch the tradition of EC into the 21st century.”
“Working with Joe R. Lansdale under the immortal EC Comics banner is two life-long dreams come together,” said Oni Press President & Publisher Hunter Gorinson. “Joe has been one of the most prominent apostles of EC’s profound influence across the past half-century of comics, fiction, and film, so it’s little surprise that his work was in turn also an inspiration to us during our daunting development process on what would become Oni’s Eisner and Ringo Award-nominated line of resurrected EC Comics. It’s an honor to have him in our ranks!”
WAKE UP AND SMELL THE CORPSES! On March 18th, welcome back to the endless maze of the Tormentor’s catacombs . . . where the flesh is freshly flayed and the worst is always yet to come! In the malevolent EC Comics manner, breathe in that acrid stench and prepare for three ribcage-thrumming tales of trepidation wrought from the gaping maws of our latest victims . . . ahem, contributors: Celeste Bronfman (Star Trek, My Little Pony), Jude Ellison S. Doyle (Dead Teenagers, Be Not Afraid), Joe R. Lansdale (Conan and The Song of the Dead), David Lapham (Stray Bullets), Malachi Ward (Black Hammer Reborn), and more, only in CATACOMB OF TORMENT #9 – featuring a murder of calamitous covers from artists Ariel Olivetti (Punisher: War Journal), Yanick Paquette (Wonder Woman: Earth One), Shawn McManus (Fables), and Patricia Martín (Murder Drones)!
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EC CATACOMB OF TORMENT #9
WRITTEN BY CELESTE BRONFMAN, JUDE ELLISON S. DOYLE & JOE R. LANSDALE
ART BY FELIPE CUNHA, DAVID LAPHAM & MALACHI WARD
COVER A BY ARIEL OLIVETTI
COVER B BY YANICK PAQUETTE
EC HOMAGE VARIANT (1:10) BY SHAWN McMANUS
B&W ARTIST EDITION VARIANT (1:20) BY YANICK PAQUETTE
ARCHIVE EDITION (1:50) BY PATRICIA MARTÍN
ON SALE MARCH 18th 2026 | $4.99 | 32 PGS. | FC
IOD: 1/31/2026
FOC: 2/23/2026