"It's Franz Kafka, Charlie Brown!"

Gregor Samsa has awoken with two problems. Not only has he somehow been transformed into a huge cockroach, but he has also been transported into the wacky world of Charles Schulz's Peanuts gang. This development comes courtesy of R. Sikoryak, a master of such world colliding.

I have not yet obtained a copy of Sikoryak's Masterpiece Comics book published by Drawn and Quarterly, but I soon will, and I think it's safe to recommend it to literary-minded comics fans, based on this excerpt first published in Raw Vol. 2, Issue 2 (1990) and another story I read in Drawn and Quarterly #4 (2001) in which the enterprising artist retells Arthur Miller's The Crucible using Little Lulu characters. Fascinating juxtapositions.

R. Sikoryak's website is here.

Philoskopy 101: The Wisdom of Popeye

Ahoy, swabs! Have you been looking for someone to help you navigate life's choppy seas? Do you need assistance in dealing with the Goons in your life? Good news! Popeye is here, with practical advice to keep you on the right path. Author of thirty books, including the bestsellers I Yam What I Yam...And You Can Too! and Sees Ya Ats The Top!, this sailor has learned much while circumnavigating the globe, and he's more than happy to share his sage wisdom with you! Light a stick of spinach-scented incense and read on, seeker!

This Godless Communism

In 1961, Treasure Chest, a comic book distributed to Catholic schools in the United States, began an ambitious project. "This Godless Communism" was a multi-part dissection of Communism, including biographies of it's founders and leaders. The series' first part, which was preceded by a word from no less an authority than J. Edgar Hoover, laid out a scary Communist America scenario where Americans do not have a government that represents their needs, homeownership becomes a thing of the past, and women are made to work outside of the home, thus destroying the family as we know it! Thank goodness those things could never happen here!

Illustrated by the legendary Reed Crandall, here is "This Godless Communism" in it's entirety.