A comic book in words, episodic and eerie, The Haunted Hillbilly is a carnivalesque thrill-ride that reads both like a vintage 1950s issue of Tales from the Crypt and a 21st century re-imagining of Michael Ondaatje’s The Collected Works of Billy the Kid. The Haunted Hillbilly is an historical first-person narrative, told by Nudie “The Carnival Couturier” (the name’s a twist on “Nudie, the Rodeo Tailor”, a real-life figure perhaps best known for dressing Elvis Presley), a gay couturier who, in Derek McCormack’s spellbinding world, also happens to be a vampire. As the story evolves, with its magical poetic cadence, Nudie makes, then breaks, the career of country-and-western legend Hank Williams.
