EC Comics is bringing a horror legend into the fold. Oni Press just announced that novelist and screenwriter Joe R. Lansdale will be contributing a new story, “Picture Perfect,” for their next issue of Catacomb of Torment, one of their signature blood-spattered anthologies, and FANGORIA has the exclusive details, along with a sneak peek at the issue’s covers, which hit newsstands and comic shops in March.
In addition to Lansdale, Catacomb of Torment #9 also features stories from Celeste Bronfman and Jude Ellison S. Doyle, with art from Felipe Cunha, David Lapham, and Malachi Ward. Retailing for $4.99 USD, the new 32-page anthology issue will also feature five different variant covers, illustrated by Yanick Paquette, Ariel Olivetti, Shawn McManus, and Patricia Martin.
“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.”
Lansdale is probably best known in the horror space for writing the novella that would go on to inspire Bubba Ho-Tep, starring Bruce Campbell as an aging man who claims to be Elvis Presley. He’s also written novels like Dead Aim, Hatchet Girls, Sugar on the Bone, and Hell’s Bounty, as well as numerous iterations of Jonah Hex for DC Comics and heroes like the Fantastic Four and Conan the Barbarian.
“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!”
Catacomb of Torment #9 hits shelves on March 18, 2026. Check out the issue’s covers below:
