For more information about each book (or to order them individually), click the titles below.
Order these books and receive this FBI•MINI comic shown at left as a FREE bonus! Click here for details. Limit one per customer while supplies last.
Book 1
Prison Pit is an original graphic novel from the pen of Johnny Ryan, best known for his humor comic, Angry Youth Comix. Prison Pit represents a marked departure from AYC or his Blecky Yuckerella weekly comic strip, combining his love for WWE wrestling, Gary Panter’s “Jimbo” comics, and Kentaro Miura’s “Berserk” Manga into a brutal showcase of violence, survival and revenge. Imagine a blend of old-fashioned role playing fantasy games like Dungeons & Dragons crossed with contemporary adult video games like Grand Theft Auto, filtered through Ryan’s sense of humor.
The book begins with C.F. (his full-name would be too horrifying to reveal here) being thrown into the Prison Pit, a barren negative-zone populated by intergalactic, violent monster criminals. In this first volume, C.F. gets into a bloody slorge war (a slorge is a giant slug that excretes a steroid-like drug called “fecid” that all the monster men are addicted to) with ultraprisoner Rottweiler Herpes and his henchmen Rabies Bloodbath and Assrat. The ensuing bloodbath is an over-the-top, hyperviolent yet hilarious farce worthy of Ryan’s inspiration, Kentaro Miura.
Book 2
2009's Prison Pit was an unadulterated smash hit upon its release at the 2009 Comic-Con International, and the balls-to-the-wall series returns with more action and mayhem like only Johnny Ryan can deliver — again starring CF, the shirtless outer space barbarian antihero who remains damned to the Prison Pit (a vast wasteland beneath the crust of a barren planet, populated by the worst of the worst, where violence is the only law and evil creatures roam free). In this second volume, CF tries to get revenge against the evil behemoth that took his arm, and then winds up playing an unwilling participant in an elaborate escape attempt from the Pit.
Prison Pit blends Ryan’s fascination with WWE wrestling, grindhouse cinema, first person action video games, Gary Panter’s “Jimbo” comics, and Kentaro Miura’s “Berserk” Manga into a brutal and often hilarious showcase of violence like no other comic book ever created.
Book 3
Prison Pit blends Angry Youth Comix creator Johnny Ryan’s fascination with
WWE wrestling, grindhouse cinema, first person action video games, Gary
Panter’s “Jimbo” comics, and Kentaro Miura’s “Berserk” Manga into a brutal
and often hilarious showcase of violence like no other comic book ever created.
Even the lead character’s name, which is only one letter away from “Cannibal
Duckface” (hint: “Cannibal” is correct) is unprintable.
Prison Pit is so deranged and twisted that even the author’s plot description,
while admirably reflecting the spirit of the book, has to be edited into a sea of asterisks in order to be bearable to normal
human beings: “A mysterious new a**hole has descended into the Prison Pit. He’s looking for Cannibal F***face and he
wants revenge. Revenge for what? Probably for some f***ed up evil s***. But before he can get his hands on the CanMan
he’s got to battle his way through some pretty vicious motherf***ers. S***’s about to get real.”
Well, yes, exactly.
Book 4
As always, a plot summary of the latest installment of Johnny (Angry Youth
Comix) Ryan’s hugely popular sci-fi-prison-planet-gore-fest-slugfest-a-thon
serial must, in order to be presentable to normal, decent human beings, be
cut into fine Belgian lace. And so, with apologies:
“Cannibal F***face discovers the only way to escape the Caligulon is to
brainf*** the Slorge and create a giant, brainless oafchild that only knows how
to annihilate everything in its path. And what happens when the Slugstaxx
show up and use their nightj*** to turn this mindless monster against CF?
Total F***ing Mayhem.”
Praise for the Series:
"Hey are you doing any more scary guys made out of tar ripping each other's dicks off? You know why I like those? Because you don't have to read all them stupid words and stuff. Right? Haa ha, hey Johnny wanna come over and play? Ha Ha!" – Tony Millionaire
"The Prison Pit series has produced some of the best gay erotic comics in recent memory... without consciously setting out to do so. It could easily be subtitled 'A Complex Cycle of Penetration and Regeneration.' Johnny pumps this hyper-masculine orgy of violence and sex so far beyond bursting, it can't help but tip over to the queer side. It is a prison, after all." – Ed Luce (Wuvable Oaf)
"The continuing adventures of Johnny Ryan’s most violent fantasies run amuck, [Prison Pit] is rapidly becoming the comic that I look forward to the way a fat kid looks forward to syrup-encrusted cake. There’s no getting around the hoary old cliche — 'these aren’t for everybody' — so God help you if you can’t figure out a way to enjoy these books." - Tucker Stone, Flavorwire
"Prison Pit is the black metal of comics.... If it doesn't make you sick, you shouldn't be allowed to walk among the public in the first place. If it doesn't make you giddy for the next one, you don't deserve comics." - David Harper, Multiversity Comics
"No-holds-barred body-horror battle between monster-men who look like refugees from an alternate-universe He-Man whose house artist was Pushead instead of Earl Norem.... It is... a series fixated not just on surviving the present moment on a narrative level, but on drawing that moment out to ludicrous lengths on a visual level. Its action is defined by page after page of grotesque bodily transformations depicted beat by gruesome beat." – Sean T. Collins, The Comics Journal
"Prison Pit... rules. Like Yokoyama's manga, it's all surface cause & effect & somehow full of weird associations & meanings. It resonates deep." - Sammy Harkham (Crickets, Kramer's Ergot)
"...[Johnny Ryan] is easily one of the four or five most vital and important cartoonists working today. Prison Pit is like someone making a comic strip out of Mayhem's Live in Leipzig, played at half speed and double the volume your speakers can safely process. If you've never heard that album, then I'll spell it out for you: this is a brutal fucking comic." – Patrick Tobin, Multiversity Comics
"I find myself wondering how long Prison Pit can continue. I don’t really know what’s going on beyond a series of beautiful, awesome things, but that’s reason enough for me to continue loving it." – Nick Gazin, Vice
"Perhaps the best and also craziest comic Johnny Ryan has made yet.... I hope he does 1,000 pages of this..." – Jeffrey Brown
"For splatter-movie fans and anyone trying to grok the splatter-movie ethos, not to be missed."
– Ray Olson, Booklist
"Vile? And how. But the furious black-and-white scratchings have serious
underground authenticity, and the pointless plot and bare desert setting give it that pure-energy feel of boys
beating their toys to death in the backyard. A most acquired taste."
– Daniel Kraus, Booklist
"It may be one of the best comics ever. It actually makes me want to stop drawing comics, as if I’ve been going about it all wrong." – Michael Fiffe, The Daily Cross Hatch, "The Best Damned Comics of 2009 Chosen by the Artists"
"For splatter-movie fans and anyone trying to grok the splatter-movie ethos, not to be missed."
– Ray Olson, Booklist
|