Today's Online Commentary & Diversions (none yesterday):

• Review: "If Spielberg shed the skin of Hergé’s style in an effort to get to the heart of his stories, the compelling work of Dutch cartoonist Joost Swarte performs the procedure in reverse.... Swarte, equally inspired by the underground comix that emerged from the American counterculture of the 1960s and ’70s, adapted the clear line and reanimated it with subversive content unlike the perennially chipper Boy Scoutism of Hergé’s Tintin. ...Is That All There Is?, collecting the bulk of his comics oeuvre to date (excluding a body of children’s comics), provides an overdue opportunity to linger over and consider his narrative work.... Like a Rube Goldberg machine designed according to De Stijl aesthetics—with a rhythm and blues soundtrack—Swarte’s comics communicate a historically freighted, European sense of the absurd, poised toward a globalizing, postmodern present." – Bill Kartalopoulos, The Brooklyn Rail

• Review: "The real joy of Swarte’s work... is the architectural elegance of his illustrations and his fine ability to colour them using everything from watercolour to retro duo-tones. Looking at Swarte’s mostly 20th century work [in Is That All There Is?] now, what’s also — and tangentially — interesting is the retro-futuristic look of it: the settings are near-future, but everything’s styled circa the 1940s, much in the same way Ridley Scott imagined the future in Bladerunner. For sheer design swagger you need to check Swarte out." – Miles Fielder, The List

• Review: "These stories [in Athos in America] are a little less open-and-shut than Jason usually makes. His comics are always good, but I usually don't think about them too much after reading them. This one's more of a think stimulator than previous books.... It's a beautiful book. This is definitely Jason's best book yet. Good job, Jason." – Nick Gazin, VICE

• Interview: Chicago Publishes has an interview with Mome contributor Laura Park: "I’m really happy with the stories I did for MOME. I love short stories. Novels are the format now — it’s a selling format. You can have graphic novels in a bookstore, because non-comics people might buy them. Whenever you can get a comic from the comic shop into a bookstore, it’ll make more money. But short stories are kind of magical to me. My favorite writer is Flannery O’Connor. She has novels, but her short stories are the ones that linger and itch away through you."

• Bibliography: Love & Maggie presents a comprehensive annotated guide to Jack Jackson-related materials in back issues of The Comics Journal

• Scene: Paul Karasik has a delightful report from Angoulême; Stan Sakai has one too, with Usagi sketches

Running a little thin this week — our only exclusive update is Nicolas Mahler's Angelman — but we've got the usual links to strips from around the web:

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Angelman by Nicolas Mahler (view at original size):

And elsewhere:

The All-New Cartoon Boy Adventure Hour by John Kerschbaum at ACT-I-VATE:

Amazing Facts... and Beyond! with Leon Beyond by Kevin Huizenga:

Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane:

Forming by Jesse Moynihan:

Humblug by Arnold Roth (two new updates):

Maakies by Tony Millionaire (and anonymous photographers):

The Pain — When Will It End? (plus answers to last week's "Ghandi or Batman?") by Tim Kreider:

Truth Serum by Jon Adams:

What's in the Backpack by Victor Kerlow:

Woo, great big Drew Friedman illustration in today's The Wall Street Journal! Stepping in the dip is a party foul, Madonna.

It's still over 8 months away but the Alternative Press Expo folks are wasting no time in announcing their first batch of special guests, including 3 Hernandez Brothers (Gilbert, Jaime & Mario), continuing their Love and Rockets 30th Anniversary U.S. Domination Tour (not the actual name of the tour), and the one and only Jim Woodring, debuting (knock on wood) his new book Problematic: Selected Sketchbook Drawings 2004-2011!

Mark your calendars for October 13-14 at the Concourse in San Francisco, and stay tuned for future news and updates!

The Toronto Comics Art Festival has announced the first batch of special guests for the 2012 fest, and we're excited to reveal that we'll be hosting the following global guests on May 5th and 6th:

Jason: You asked for him, you got him!  Jason was, hands-down, the most asked-about artist at TCAF 2011. See? Don't say we don't ever listen to you, Toronto. He will be signing his latest, Athos in America, along with many, many other books.

Gabriella Giandelli: We are absolutely delighted to be hosting Gabriella, all the way from Italy! This is a rare treat to meet this wonderful artist, and we'll be debuting the collection of her Ignatz comic Interiorae!

Olivier Schrauwen: And making his North American comic convention debut (we're pretty sure), it's Olivier Schrauwen! He'll be signing copies of The Man Who Grew His Beard, among other things.

And stay tuned to the FLOG as we announce which artists from this continent will also be joining us at the Fantagraphics table for TimBits! See you at TCAF!

Get ready to listen up on Thursday, March 1st as editor Pat Thomas gives a special presentation for Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975!

Join us at the historic Washington Hall [153 14th Avenue, Seattle] for a slideshow on this powerful and politically-charged period of music, starting at 7:00 PM.

Tickets are $10 at the door, or you can purchase tickets in advance for $8 general public / $5 students at Brown Paper Tickets.

This wonderful event is presented by Seattle's Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas, and co-presented with Elliott Bay Book Company and co-sponsored by Hollow Earth Radio’s Central Sounds. We could not be more thrilled to be working with such great Seattle institutions of culture!

It's true: in a couple of weeks Gary Groth hops a plane to New Delhi and meets up with Robert Crumb for the 2nd Annual Indian Comics Convention at Dilli Haat!

On Saturday February 18th, Gary gives a special talk about the evolution of alternative comics in America and the history of Fantagraphics.

And on Sunday February 19th, Gary leads a live conversation with special guest of honor Robert Crumb for what promises to be an illuminating and entertaining look at the life and work of one of comics' all-time greats.

Will there be photos of Gary, Crumb and Drawn & Quarterly chief Chris Oliveros (also in attendance) sharing an elephant ride, as pondered by someone on the D&Q Twitter feed? We can dream. For the 0.65% of you who live in India (thanks, Google Analytics), this is the event of a lifetime!

Everyone -- er, everything -- will wanna follow you home when you're wearing this snazzy t-shirt designed by our own Jim Woodring!

Jim designed these t-shirts just for our friends at the website Boing Boing! This exclusive design is screened in scarlet ink on a jet black t-shirt, for a "tigers' breath in a cave" effect, as Jim describes it. Follow this link to get one sent to your home!

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers:

Athos in America
by Jason

196-page full-color 6.5" x 8.75" hardcover • $24.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-478-8

See Previews / Order Now

Another all-original collection of full-color graphic novellas in the format of Low Moon, Athos in America takes its title from the lead story, a prequel of sorts to the graphic novel The Last Musketeer, in which the seemingly ageless swashbuckler turns up in a bar in 1920 New York and relates the tale of how he went to Hollywood to play himself in a film version of The Three Musketeers. Another tie-in with a previous Jason story occurs in “The Smiling Horse,” in which the characters from the story “&” in Low Moon attempt to kidnap a woman.

Also in this volume: “The Brain That Wouldn’t Virginia Woolf,” a mashup of The Brain That Wouldn’t Die and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, told in reverse chronological order; the Bukowski pastiche “A Cat From Heaven” in which Jason works on his comic, has a reading in a comic book store, gets drunk and makes a fool of himself; the dialogue-free (all the text occurs in thought balloons) “Tom Waits on the Moon,” in which we follow four people (one of them a scientist working on a teleportation machine) until something goes wrong; and “So Long Mary Ann,” a prison-escape love-triangle story.

Tim Lane shares his breathtaking cover illustration for next week's Riverfront Times, which will feature his graphic feature narrative "Notes of a Second Class Citizen." You lucky St. Louisans will not want to miss out on getting your hands on a copy!

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