Comics Time: Prison Pit: Book 2

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Prison Pit: Book 2

Johnny Ryan, writer/artist

Fantagraphics, July 2010

116 pages

$12.99

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“OPERATION: RAPE LADYDACTYL. BEGIN.”

It wasn’t until I read those words on the screen of a computer operated by a robotic antagonist of Prison Pit‘s main character Cannibal Fuckface that I realized just how far Johnny Ryan was going to go with this series. Obviously it was already beyond violent; obviously it was already beyond sexually vulgar as well, what with Volume One’s maggot-fellatio fade-out. Obviously Volume Two was already filled to bursting with literally nauseating body-horror transformations and mutilations brought to life (and death) by Ryan’s never better, never nastier pen art. But an extended sequence in which our anti-hero is forced against his will to hunt down, attack, maim, and graphically rape-murder a creature that’s distinctly female even for all its monstrousness, one that screams in agony…for the first time I realized that Prison Pit isn’t a fusion-comics exploration of awesomeness in all its forms, but a horror-comics exploration of awfulness–of violence that maims and kills not just body but soul. Ryan is willing, even this early in a series I imagine will be able to last as long as he wants it to, to completely invert his instantly-iconic warrior, to make the audience root against him desperately, to feel dick-shriveling revulsion at his violence and pity for his victim. “That fucking sucked,” CF says when it’s all over. Understatement of the year. This book is a masterpiece of awfulness.

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3 Responses to Comics Time: Prison Pit: Book 2

  1. Fake Pat says:

    So jealous of you right now.

    So, so jealous.

  2. mckracken says:

    SLORGE !!!!

    haha cant wait.

  3. Johnny Ryan is the artist of the century already. It’s over. Everone else should give up.

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