Founded and edited by writer Barry Gifford in 1984, Black Lizard released over ninety books between 1984 and 1990, including reprints of classic novels by Charles Willeford, David Goodis, Peter Rabe, Harry Whittington, Dan J. Marlowe, Charles Williams, and Lionel White, as well as original novels by Barry Gifford and Jim Nisbet.
Lizard is single-handedly responsible for renewing the interest in Jim Thompson in the late 1980s, which resulted in several film adaptations of his novels.
Roman noir, literally 'black novel,' is a term reserved especially for novelists such as Thompson, Cornell Woolrich and David Goodis.
As the British critic Nick Kimberley has written, 'This is a godless world,' populated by persons 'for whom murder is a casual chore.'"
In 2021, Willy Vlautin wrote: "Those Black Lizard books were about psychologically damaged people trying to navigate a cruel, cutthroat world that didn't want them in the first place.