The Venn Diagram of Horror and Humor

Ted is joined by Johnny Compton, a Stoker Award-nominated, San Antonio-based author of horror stories whose debut novel, The Spite House, was released in 2023. In its review of the book, Esquire noted that “You can trace the tradition of the American ‘Bad Place’ from Edgar Allan Poe through Shirley Jackson, Richard Matheson, and Stephen King, all the way to Johnny Compton and The Spite House.”Johnny’s work in progress (at least for the purposes of the discussion here) is a book you’ll be able to read later this year. Titled Devils Kill Devils, it’s about a woman who believes she has a guardian angel who has saved her life multiple times—only to see that same entity show up on her wedding night and murder her husband. This begs the question: What has this supposed angel been saving her for?Johnny and Ted start out talking about pacing, which in Johnny’s case, changes depending on the type of horror he’s writing. He then unpacks the connection he’s always seen between writing horror and writing comedy and the challenge that arises in both from readers knowing what type of story they’re in while the characters don’t. Johnny also discusses not wanting to kill a particular character even though he knew he had to and his relationship to horror movies.And because he is technically done writing Devils Kill Devils and is already onto his third novel, Johnny and Ted talk about that one, too, including the 3-D chess writers play with themselves when trying to title the book they’re working on, knowing full well that it may have to change down the road.Find Johnny Online:Website: johnnycompton.com More information about Ted and his books is available on his website, thetedfox.com.