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PRISON PIT: The Graphic Novel by Johnny Ryan. 

James Kochalka couldn't have done it better. Hard to believe this gentle soul would be waging war against the world a mere 28 years later. From Defenders #75 (1979) by Ed Hannigan, Herb Trimpe and Mike Esposito. That Greenpeace address is about a mere mile and a half  from our office; I don't think it's still there. Oh, and NEVER accuse the Defenders of being intolerant. 

Now available on Fantagraphics.com: the popular long-running series from Eros Comix, The Tijuana Bibles: America's Forgotten Comic Strips, including the brand-new Volume 9 (shown above) and past volumes #2 and 5-8! (Click here to browse the full list.) This series, edited by Michael Dowers, collects the hard-to-find comics booklets produced mainly in the 1930s that feature the most popular comic strip characters and media personalities of the day in sexually-explicit and outrageously satirical situations. These taboo-busting pamphlets were the original "underground" comix, and this reprint series is of interest to nostalgia buffs, connoisseurs of vintage erotica, and anyone else who…

• The Stranger has lunch with The Lagoon by Lilli Carré • On Blog Flume, Ken Parille offers critical counterpoint to some of Blake Bell's analysis of Steve Ditko's later work in Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko • Vitrola looks at Explainers by Jules Feiffer (in Portugese; Google translation here) • The San Antonio Current looks at Mome Vol. 12, Krazy & Ignatz 1943-1944, and Comic Arf • I Love Rob Liefeld reviews Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw • Your comics-icons-mashup street art of the day

  Barack Obama, cartoonist. 

You may experience a sense of déja vu, or perhaps more appropriately déja ne vu pas, at your local comic shops this week, as once again no new Fantagraphics releases are scheduled to arrive. What does next week hold? Stay tuned to Flog to find out.

Is it just me or is the Bat-Manga "controversy" the biggest comics non-issue since "is Kramer's Ergot 7 too expensive"? 

Everybody else has the day off, I guess: • Anthem looks at John Pham's Sublife Vol. 1 • Keep a hanky close by for the final installment of Steve Brodner's "Naked Campaign" videos for the New Yorker  

    HUMBUG is coming in early 2009.