Prison Pit
Food or Comics? | French fries or Freelancers
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on a splurge item.
Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.
47 Ronin #1
Brigid Alverson
If I had $15, I’d spend the first $3.99 on the first issue of 47 Ronin, a retelling of a Japanese legend written by Mike Richardson and illustrated by Stan Sakai. I saw a preview of this and it looks phenomenal. Next up is my favorite soap opera, Life With Archie #24 ($3.99), in which Moose contemplates running for the Senate and The Archies reunite. This comic is consistently well written and the stories really drag me in. I’ll slap down another $3.99 for Popeye #7, because I’m a Roger Langridge fan. And because I love a bargain, I’ll finish up with Freelancers #1, a new series from BOOM! Studios that looks kinda fun — and hey, there’s a variant cover by Felipe Smith, one of my favorite manga artists.
If I had $30, I’d revert to my childhood and pick up the Doctor Who Annual ($12.99) from Penguin. When I was a kid, the British comics annuals were the high point of the holidays, and I’m pretty sure I have a vintage Doctor Who one tucked away somewhere. It’s probably aimed at kids but that just means I can share it with my nephew and nieces.
The splurge item to get this week is the new box set of Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. This is Miyazaki’s longest manga by far, and the story continues after the movie ends. It’s going to be the same large format as Viz’s earlier box set, but the seven volumes are being bound as two this time. It’s $60, but I noticed Amazon is offering a steep discount, so I’ll add another splurge: Nickolai Dante: Sympathy for the Devil ($29.99), a story that ran in 2000AD. I saw artist Simon Fraser describe it at NYCC this way: “Nikolai Dante is a swashbuckling hero from the far, far future, the year 2666, where he is alternately working for and against the czar, and for his own family and against his family, and in the meantime trying to get as drunk and screw as many women as he possibly can.” Sold!
Food or Comics? | Trondheim, Wonder Woman, Game of Thrones and more
Wonder Woman
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on a “Splurge” item.
Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.
Graeme McMillan
If I had $15 this week, I’d continue to support the DC relaunch by picking up Wonder Woman #1, Legion of Super-Heroes #1 and Green Lantern Corps #1 (All DC, $2.99). I’d also grab the first issue of IDW’s new ongoing Star Trek book ($3.99), which adapts episodes of the original TV show into the new movie continuity, because I’m nerdy like that.
What Are You Reading? with Kevin Colden
Animal Man #1
Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading? Today our special guest is Kevin Colden, whose comic work includes Fishtown, I Rule the Night, Vertigo’s Strange Adventures and Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper, among others. He’s also the drummer for the band Heads Up Display.
To see what Kevin and the Robot 6 crew have been reading lately, click below …
SDCC Wishlist | Pack an extra bag to bring home the goods from Fantagraphics
Love & Rockets New Stories #4
Fantagraphics sent over their list of books debuting at the San Diego Comic-Con later this month, and boy is it packed tighter than my suitcase on vacation day. The publisher will have almost two dozen new books at the show, including the last Mome; new stuff from Michael Kupperman, the Hernandez Bros. and Johnny Ryan; tons of Eurocomics; a Lou Reed/Edgar Allan Poe joint; and more. Check them out:
Love & Rockets New Stories 4 by Los Bros Hernandez: Featuring new stories by Jaime and Gilbert, including new material featuring Maggie set in the present and during her teen years.
Mark Twain’s Autobiography by Michael Kupperman: Probably the one I’ve been looking forward to the most, Kupperman publishes Mark Twain’s “biography” since the day the author/humorist died through last year — including his affair with Marilyn Monroe and his time-traveling adventures with Einstein.
Prison Pit Vol. 3 by Johnny Ryan: More deranged, twisted ultraviolent fun from Ryan.
Robot 666 | Take the horror home with Johnny Ryan
Exorcist print by Johnny Ryan
Fresh from perverting Small Wonder, Prison Pit‘s Johnny Ryan tweets that this is the last week you can buy art from his show at the Mishka NYC gallery. That means it’s your last chance to snag extremely affordable takes on an array of horror icons, from the Exorcist print above to pieces based on The Fly, Scanners, It’s Alive, Basket Case, H.P. Lovecraft, the Coffin Joe movies, Ryan’s own Prison Pit rogues and beasts, and much more. What are you waiting for, fright fans?
Inside the minds of Daniel Clowes and Johnny Ryan
Over on the CBR mothership, two potential “book of the year” candidates are talking about what makes them tick. First up is Daniel Clowes, author of Wilson. In a report on Clowes’s Dan Nadel-hosted spotlight panel at APE, CBR’s Karl Kelly reveals that Clowes thinks none too highly of the readability of classic comics even by artists he admires:
“I realized at a certain point that the thing that keeps me drawing comics and the thing that has always moved me along is that comics history is really disappointing,” Clowes responded. “It’s not the same as the history of novels, history of art, history of movies, the body of work is pretty spotty. The things we imagined don’t really exist. We imagine that Alex Toth did really amazing comics in the 50s that really worked, that were like Howard Hawk’s movies, but he didn’t do that. He never made a comic you could read. It’s terrible, and I say that thinking that he was one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th Century.”
What Are You Reading?
Usagi Yojimbo: Return of the Black Soul
Welcome once again to What Are You Reading? This week our special guest is Paul Maybury, creator of the webcomic Party Bear. His work can be found in Comic Book Tattoo, various volumes of Popgun and 24seven, and, of course, the full-length graphic novel Aqua Leung. Be sure to check out the sketches he shares.
To see what Paul and the rest of the Robot 6 crew have been reading lately, click on the link …
Hail Johnny Ryan’s Prison Pit Book 3 cover
Sabbath bloody sabbath, that’s a kick-ass cover! With Prison Pit Book 2 — the sequel to Johnny Ryan’s hugely acclaimed, splatterific sci-fi bloodbath — due to debut at Comic-Con this week, Fantagraphics has already unveiled the cover for the third volume in the series, headed your way in 2011. My left hand is involuntarily making devil horns even as a type. (Related: It’s hard to type with just a pinky and index finger on one hand.)
Put Prison Pit on your living room wall
from Prison Pit Vol. 1 by Johnny Ryan
Johnny Ryan’s Prison Pit — it’s not just for blood-soaked killing machines named Cannibal Fuckface anymore! Now you can own a page from Volume One of Ryan’s acclaimed, ultraviolent action opus. Several stunning pages are available for sale at Comic Art Collective. They really tie the room together, man.
Straight for the craft | Jenny and Johnny Ryan’s Prison Pit doll
Well, who’s this adorable little gentleman? Why, it’s Cannibal Fuckface, star of Johnny Ryan’s gruesomely good action comic Prison Pit. This felt doll version of the blood-soaked bruiser was constructed by Ryan’s wife Jenny, and here he hangs on the Christmas tree, making the season bright. Alas, with Prison Pit, Vol. 2, on the way this summer, his troubles are far from out of sight.