Johnny Ryan’s mind-boggling prison planet/wrestling/monster/horror mash-up is back! Prison Pit blends Angry Youth Comix creator Johnny Ryan’s fascination with WWE wrestling, grindhouse cinema, first person action video games, Gary Panter’s Jimbocomics, and Kentaro Miura’s “Berserk” manga into a brutal and often hilarious showcase of violence like no other comic book ever created.
For the first time, all fourteen issues of Johnny Ryan’s career-defining comic book series Angry Youth Comics (2000–2008) are collected in one place: all the comics, the covers, and even the contentious letters pages, in one toilet-ready brick. Johnny Ryan’s utterly unpretentious, taboo-tackling is an infectious and hilarious bombardment of political incorrectness, taking full advantage of the medium’s absurdist potential for maximum laughs. In an age when the medium is growing up and aspiring to more mature and hoity-toity literary heights, Ryan builds on the visceral tradition that cartooning has had on our collective funny bone for over a century.
'I know not whether Laws be right, Or whether Laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol Is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long.' Oscar Wilde (The Ballad of Reading Gaol) This unique work looks closely at the life and times of Reading Gaol prison during the period that Oscar Wilde was a prisoner there. The book also contains a number of new insights concerning Wilde's classic poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, and offers fresh information about Oscar Wilde. Written by senior prison officer Anthony Stokes, Pit of Shame is based on upwards of ten years research and familiarity with the very fabric of Reading Gaol. It also tells of notorious and famous prisoners such as Thomas Jennings, Amelia Dyer (the 'Reading Baby Farmer') and actor Stacey Keach; examines the many hangings that took place at Reading over the years, including that of Trooper Charles Thomas Wooldridge — the 'C. T. W.' of Wilde's ballad; lists the chain of events that led to the rejection of capital punishment by the UK; and mentions the escapes, brutality, and corruption that took place. Anthony Stoke's compelling account outlines the rich and diverse history of this most famous of English prisons and tells of its many different and intriguing uses over the years, before Reading Gaol's modern-day reincarnation as an innovative and progressive young offender institution. There are chapters on internment in the wake of Ireland's Easter Rising, Reading's role as a local prison and borstal correctional center, and its use by the Canadian military for 'invisible prisoners.' All this is enhanced by fascinating period detail from archives, newspapers, and records. The appendices include a list of all executions at Reading Gaol, the historic Dietary Requirements, and Prison Rules. The 16 pages of illustrations include photographs and drawings of the prison and the hand-written entry in the Visiting Committee book concerning an ill-fated petition by Oscar Wilde to the Home Secretary; as well as that in the Execution Log for Charles Thomas Wooldridge.
For more than a decade, Johnny Ryan (Angry Youth Comix, Prison Pit) has been filling the back page of Vice magazine with some of the most transgressively hilarious and politically incorrect comics to ever grace a glossy, national magazine. A New Low collects this impressive body of work, as well as several other surprises. The victims of Ryan’s skewering satire in this collection include: G.G. Allin, Caddyshack, Bill Cosby, E.T., Everybody Loves Raymond, Ireland, Italy, Kenny G, Kid Rock, D.H. Lawrence, Ted Nugent, Russians, Small Wonder, The Shield, Spain, Two and a Half Men, Vice magazine, Wall Street, and so much more that can’t be so easily categorized (such as “Erotic Art Collecting Squirrel” or “Whorenado,” to name but a few). Johnny Ryan’s utterly unpretentious taboo-tackling is an infectious and hilarious bombardment of political incorrectness, taking full advantage of the medium’s absurdist potential for maximum laughs. In an age when the medium is growing up and aspiring to more mature and hoity-toity literary heights, Ryan builds on the visceral tradition that cartooning has had on our collective funny bone for over a century, and A New Low collects almost 100 full-color examples of Vice’s signature cartoonist.
Titanic tales of triumph and tragedy in the mighty Marvel tradition — with a twist! Overseen by the Watcher, the most offbeat series of all revisited major Marvel moments, asking the tantalizing question: what if? Imagine that a young Spider-Man joined the Fantastic Four! Consider the Hulk with Bruce Banner’s brain! Envision a world where the Avengers never existed — or one where they assembled in the 1950s! How about the FF with different powers? Daredevil’s secret exposed? Cap and Bucky surviving World War II? The first time Jane Foster wielded the hammer of Thor, a different Hulk or multiple Spider-People? Some of the ideas that shook Marvel’s foundations began in the realm of remote possibility! But can even Uatu believe his eyes when Jack Kirby reimagines himself and his fellow Bullpen legends as the Fantastic Four?
A powerful, intimate look at the Civil War on the home and battle fronts, "The Wolf Pit" is Marly Youmans's third and most accomplished novel. In it Robin, a young Confederate soldier and witness to the horrors of war, clings to what gives him strength: family pictures, psalms, and an old legend about a pair of mysterious green children found in a wolf pit. Robin carries these inside the Elmira prison camp, the very embodiment of hell. Meanwhile, Agate, the mulatto daughter of a hired-out slave, embraces the forbidden teachings of her mistress, Miss Fanny, who teaches her to love books and to write. But the hope Agate has fashioned for her future disappears when her owner, Young Master, learns of her education. Agate comes to understand the meaning of her mother's cautionary tales as she struggles to survive loss and degradation and to pit knowledge and truth against evil. By turns eloquent and harrowing, "The Wolf Pit" explores the will to endure in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, and the personal tolls exacted during this chaotic period in U.S. history.
Religious liberty is under attack in the United States. Faced with legal challenges for the mere action of preaching from the Bible, Pastor Preston and his supporters confront a terrifying truth: the US Constitution is no defense against a biased district attorney obsessed with sending him to prison. A Pastor's Pit exposes the threat to the religious liberty that people of all faiths take for granted in the United States, as well as the crucial role that US Supreme Court appointments and presidential elections play in maintaining the rights of all citizens. How can a pastor be indicted and tried for the "crime" of preaching from the Bible? Will the courts send him to prison or uphold his constitutional freedoms? Pastor Preston's future and that of his family and his church hang in the balance!
This long-awaited memoir by a key figure in Formula 1 includes trenchant observations on the 12 World Champions with whom he worked at Team Lotus. Peter Warr was best known for his management of the Lotus Formula 1 team, where he was one of Colin Chapman's closest allies as well as the man who nurtured the early Formula 1 careers of Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell. Frank, informative and beautifully written, his memoir remained unfinished at the time of his death in 2010, but the bulk of his work was done and was published in 2012, complete with an introduction and epilogue by Simon Taylor. This long-awaited inside story, which is of particular interest for its author's thoughts on Chapman and all the drivers he worked with, is a 'must read' for any Formula 1 enthusiast.
Far below the surface in the darkness of the great ocean depths where no Toa has ever gone before, there lies a strange and mysterious habitat known as "the pit." It's a place of unknown dangers and bizarre creatures, ruled by six merciless deep-sea monsters whose likes the surface world has never seen. They dominate a world where the rule is eat or be eaten. Welcome to a world of darkness... Welcome to the realm of the Barraki.
