Above are assorted issues of the lowbrow Elvifrance comic Mafioso, which lasted for ninety-six issues between 1982 and 1992. Elvifrance comics were a favorite target of French censors, and 176 releases of various titles were banned for sale, which is no surprise considering their emphasis on violence against women. You can read an issue of Mafioso here. If you read French, that is. 

It’s been a while since we posted a comic book, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been reading any. Of late we’ve been enjoying Ramba, a sort of female revenge serial written and drawn by Rossano Rossi, Marco Delizia and Fabio Valdambrini. Ramba is filled with sex, castrations, murder, perversion and other pulpy goodness, all courtesy of the character of Ramba, who is basically an oversexed hitwoman. When she isn’t fulfilling contracts, she’s running afoul of random men and having to put them in their proper place—the grave, usually. In issue 1, for instance, she tries to masturbate in an alley and of course you know how men are—always sticking their noses where they don’t belong. After Ramba goes Benihana on them, it’s off to kill her target, who she stabs in the chest and then uses for a little sexual pleasure while his lifeblood is leaking out of him. Oh, and just for good measure, she also urinates in his face. It's fun for the whole family. Want to see men finally get what they deserve? One or two issues of this should do the trick.

Assorted Super comics from the former Yugoslavia, circa late 1980s. 

Well, we’re glad to see somebody finally went and put together a website of Tijuana bibles. The site is called tijuanabibles.org. Above you see six covers from their collection, and below is the entirety of a raunchy and racially charged Esther Williams bible entitled Get a Li’l Like the Fishes Do. We had doubts about posting it, but whenever we self-censor we end up kicking ourselves later, so this time we decided screw it. We consider ourselves mainly a history site, and censoring history is always a bad idea. Consider that a content warning. Anyway, Esther Williams was of course a famous swimmer who used her skills in an acting career, so the underwater theme of her bible is a play on her many aquatic roles. It was probably printed in the late 1940s, a time during which its IR content would have gotten the hood and noose crowd pretty riled up. But they would have been clueless whom to blame, because, as we discussed before, these American-made books may have been called Tijuana bibles for the sole purpose of misdirecting crusading citizens and curious authorities. For more examples of these little treasures, pay tijuanabibles.org a visit.

Assorted covers of the French serial comic Tex Bill, with art that seems to be—how shall we say it—subtly phallic and/or centered on the groin. Yeah, we know—guns are phallic anyway, but even so, you see what we're talking about, right? Don’t even try to play us. You know you see it. 

Assorted Italian and Spanish covers of Nicola del Principe’s Sukia,1977 to 1986, borrowed from sources too numerous to name. Credit to all. Also, perhaps you noticed that the cover star looks like Italian actress Ornella Muti? Well, she is Ornella Muti. At least, the main character Sukia Dragomic is modeled after her. We’ll have the full story on Sukia later, along with more covers.     

Update: Okay apparently nobody got our headline and subhead, but that's because they didn't look at the first cover. Notice the snowman has a giant schlong, indicated by the shadow? So Season's Greetings is like a penile salute. And Ding Dong Merrily on High is a (not so) famous Christmas Carol. Not funny? Sigh. All we want for Christmas is more wit.

Here’s a rather disturbing 1977 cover by Spanish artist Prieto Muriana for the first of a six issue comic series about the assassination of John F. Kennedy (which happened forty six years ago today), and the events leading up to his brother Robert Kennedy’s killing. When we first saw this image at Blonde Zombies it made us cringe a bit, which makes it a successful cover, since it’s clearly intended to be an iconoclastic representation of this sad day. After our initial misgivings, we were able to appreciate the artistry involved. But then JFK is before our time. If you're old enough to have personal memories of the event, maybe there's nothing artistic here at all. Either way, you can see the other Kennedy covers here, and if you read French, you can check out the interior action here.

Métal Hurlant was published in France by artists Jean Giruad, aka Mœbius, and Philippe Druillet, with the help of writer Jean-Pierre Dionnet and financial director Bernard Farkas. These four became known as Les Humanoides Associés, or United Humanoids, and their magazine focused on serialized sci-fi and fantasy stories paired with high-quality art by geniuses such as Richard Corben, Milo Manara, and Alain Voss. These efforts helped bring comics into the adult mainstream, where they were finally taken seriously as art. So next time you buy a graphic novel like Watchmen or 30 Days of Night, give a nod to Les Humanoides Associés and their creation. More covers below.

Assorted covers of Terror Blu, the Italian fumetto we mentioned a while ago for its hyperviolent content. As you can see, we weren’t exaggerating.