My old underground comix pal, the legendary Roberta Gregory, just found out that the cargo ship carrying her new book from India, « The Best of Bitchy » was . . . Just hit by a missile enroute.

Her publisher Fantagraphics issued a press release:

SeattleWA -- Fantagraphics Books learned today that a cargo vessel carrying the full print runs of two of our books was struck by an Iranian missile in or near the Strait of Hormuz.

The report we have is that the ship has limped to a safe port, where we await further news. Our thoughts are with the crew, and we hope and pray for their safety.

The two books, The Atlas Comics Library No. 9: Adventures Into Weird Worlds Vol. 1 by Russ Heath, Bernard Krigstein, Bill Everett, Joe Maneely, Carmine Infantino, et al. and Bitchy! The Exasperating Existence of Midge McCracken by Roberta Gregory and Helen Chazan, were printed in India and were bound for the Port of New York.

Both books had been scheduled to go on sale in early June, but that timeframe now seems unlikely. If the books themselves were not damaged and the crippled ship's cargo can be offloaded to another vessel and that vessel can then safely exit the danger zone, it could add a month or more to the delivery time.

We have no information on the cargo ship’s itinerary, but our speculation is that it was dropping off other cargo from India to that region or picking up additional cargo bound for the U.S.

Bitchy Bitch is most exasperated by this unexpected turn of events, echoing the title of one of Weird World's horror stories "When a World Goes Mad!"