Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review/Plug: City Weekly's Scott Renshaw previews Kevin Avery's appearance at The King's English Bookshop in Salt Lake City on Friday to sign Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson, saying "Avery crafts a biography of a largely self-taught thinker who immersed himself in his passions, whether that meant classic film, the detective fiction of Ross Macdonald or folk music. The author allows his subject to develop primarily through oral history, as his friends and contemporaries recall a quirky iconoclast who disappeared into obscurity and a lonely death in 2006. But the book is most compelling simply by bringing Nelson’s own distinctive writing voice to a new generation, a voice that burned with intelligence, unabashed pimping of the work he loved and a commitment to understanding what artists were trying to accomplish."

• Profile: Scott Iwasaki of The Park Record talks to Kevin Avery in advance of his signing at Dolly's Bookstore in Park City, UT on Saturday: "'Even though it started out as an anthology of Paul's work, as I started learning more about him and his life, I found there was a lot of Paul between the lines of the reviews and I knew the book I needed to do had to also be a biography,' Avery said. 'I thought it would be a great way to present his work and tell his story.'"

• Review: "...I like comics to be really crazy. Luckily there are people out there who share my deranged concept of what comics should be. One is Johnny Ryan, who understands comics at odds with artistic correctness and had already demonstrated his lack of respect towards his fellow artists in particular, and everything in general... The level of violence reaches insane levels of pure abstraction; the figures in Prison Pit cannibalize, maim, tear, break, eat and shit with such enthusiasm and rawness, it's like watching some amoebas evolving through the microscope.... A Stan Lee for the new millennium." – Alfonso Garcia, C (translated from Spanish)

• Interview: There's a seemingly-slightly-out-of-date but still fun Q&A (with acrostic Qs!) with Steven Weissman at Wall Drawing: "Nice colors help a lot. Black and white is tough, you know, I have to think more. Even when I’m drawing for fun I like to use markers, screentones and so forth."

Join author Monte Schulz for a signing and discussion of his latest work on Thursday, April 12th in Corte Madera, California!

A novel of the Jazz Age, The Big Town is the story of a failed businessman whose dreams of prosperity hinge on the secret proposition of a millionaire industrialist and a dangerous relationship he finds with a poor orphan girl chasing love in the great American metropolis.

The event kicks off at 7:00 PM! BookPassage is located at 51 Tamal Vista Blvd in Corte Madera.

March/April advance shipments bring May/June books... Our shelves are starting to groan with advance copies of upcoming arrivals that have come in over the last couple of weeks. Above, the softcover edition of Stephen Dixon's short story collection What Is All This? (it's prose, folks), the softcover edition of Fredrik Strömberg's Black Images in the Comics, and (also below) Nicolas Mahler's Angelman...

...our biggest trim-size book ever, the hunormous Mr. Twee Deedle – Raggedy Ann's Sprightly Cousin: The Forgotten Fantasy Masterpieces of Johnny Gruelle (big book, big title)...

...the 5th volume of our beautiful, beloved, bestselling hardcover collections of Hal Foster's Prince Valiant...

...and from editor John Benson, to whet your appetite for our upcoming series of EC Comics reprints, a brand new issue of EC fanzine Squa Tront (dig that krazy Kurtzman art on the cover)!

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Gagne’s selections are first-rate. These stories are fiery fare. Lovers clash like storm-tossed waves on rocky shores. They battle misconceptions and social injustices.... Even stories created under the constraints of the Comics Code pack a wallop.  In the skilled hands of Simon and Kirby, love is most definitely a battlefield. The book’s special features are also top-notch.... Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby’s Romance Comics belongs in the personal library of all Simon and Kirby fans and all serious students of comics art and history. It’s a prime example of what I mean when I say this is the true golden age of comics." – Tony Isabella

• Review: "[Nuts] is certainly a very good strip... and it was this completely left-field life event, showing a style of comics I'd never seen before.... The book looks just great, even if I would quibble with the designer's very odd choice to call this a 'graphic novel' on the front cover, and while something about it honestly lacks the genuine, timeless brilliance of Wilson's decades of Playboy comics, this is still an important and very readable collection.... Recommended." – Grant Goggans, The Hipster Dad's Bookshelf

• Interview: At Publishers Weekly, Casey Burchby talks to Kelly Gerald, editor of Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons: "I’d been researching and working on the cartoons for a while, but I can’t take any credit for getting this project off the ground. Gary Groth and Fantagraphics approached O’Connor’s agent about doing a book and worked out an agreement for an exclusive contract in late 2009, which was when I was contacted. Some years ago, I gave a presentation on the cartoons at an O’Connor conference in Milledgeville where some representatives of the O’Connor estate were present. They liked what they saw and remembered me when the Fantagraphics contract was developed. I’m very grateful to them."

• Profile: At The Comics Journal, R.C. Harvey on the life and work of Ernie Bushmiller: "Various among us have long been baffled and sometimes afflicted by the persistent presence, lurking at the fringes of cartoon afficionadom — or, sometimes, burrowed deep, prairie-dog-like, into its heart — of a sect or cultish non-organization of penumbra dimension, cult-ivated (so to speak) by a person or persons unknown.... In an effort to explain this mysterious and irrational dedication, we now paw through the alleged facts of Bushmiller’s life and work."

Author Monte Schulz will be signing his captivating novel of the Jazz Age on Wednesday, April 11th in Santa Rosa, California!

A novel of the Jazz Age, The Big Town is the story of a failed businessman whose dreams of prosperity hinge on the secret proposition of a millionaire industrialist and a dangerous relationship he finds with a poor orphan girl chasing love in the great American metropolis.

Join Monte starting at 7:00 PM at Copperfields Books Montgomery Village [ 775 Village Court ]!

A few days of Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson by Salt Lake City native Kevin Avery is a fitting testimonial to a man who pioneered rock 'n' roll criticism. Those familiar and unfamiliar with the culture of the '60s will appreciate this finely written tribute.... Overall, Everything Is an Afterthought will break your heart and inspire you to be a better person. It is a wonderful story of a man who deserves his chance in the spotlight." – Shelby Scoffield, Deseret News

• Excerpts: On his blog, writer Rob Trucks has a couple of bite-sized excerpts from Kevin Avery's Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson, here and here

• Review: If you've ever wondered what Tucker Stone might say about Love and Rockets #1, TCJ ahoy

• Review: "A little impenetrable in that wordless story kind of way, even when there are words. I like the stories – actually read them – but I’m more interested in studying the way each page sports a new texture or approach. The art is simply fantastic. Some stories retain a color scheme for their entirety and some switch up the limited palette within the story itself. Totally my kind of thing. I like the coloring, the line drawing, the combination of both. The graphic, printmaking quality of it and the 'classical' drawing are also attractive to me. I found myself just flipping through this collection for a long time.... High class stuff. Also, this book gets an award for best endpapers. Check it out." – Frank Santoro, The Comics Journal

• Review: "Lost and Found is the sort of retrospective project that begs summary statements. The introduction reads like a compressed memoir. The book, while extremely dense and a bit overwhelming to read, testifies to Griffith’s heroic output of underground comics, and his commitment to a lifetime of making work that is challenging, inventive, and beautifully drawn. His signature narrative discombobulation and linguistic elasticity unite all these disparate pieces into a cohesive statement of surprise and protest. It is ridiculously quotable. Also, it is very funny. Lost and Found delivers wholesale entertainment value with a socially redeeming dose of satire." – Matthew Thurber & Rebecca Bird, The Comics Journal

• Interview (Audio): Inkstuds host Robin McConnell says of his latest episode, "One of the most prolific cartoonists of the underground generation, Bill Griffith, joined me to chat about his new collection, Lost and Found. It is an interesting conversation that touches on a number of different topics, ranging from his Zippy the Pinhead work, to discussing his contemporaries like Rory Hayes."

• Interview: Paul Gravett chatted with Robert Crumb for Art Review  magazine; he presents an unexpurgated version at his blog: "In the last few years, I’ve got so deeply involved investigating scandalous shit that goes on in modern business and culture. It’s very difficult to interpret in comics, I’m trying to figure it out. There’s not a lot of action or humour, it’s serious, grim shit. You could get your ass in trouble doing that, too. I remember when I did this thing in the Seventies, ‘Frosty the Snowman’, where I had him being this revolutionary who throws bombs at the Rockefeller mansion and shortly after that was published, the Internal Revenue Service came after me."

• Interview: Chris Mautner's Q&A with Zak Sally at Robot 6 is a must read: "I’m no Pollyanna, nor am I a hippie; the world is NOT cut and dried with stuff like this, nor do I view it that way — if, for instance, Fantagraphics (who I love dearly) decided to print all their stuff over here, they’d probably have to kill important books by artists who don’t sell as well to ameliorate that extra cost. Or, hell, i don’t know — maybe they’d go under. Do i want either of those things? Heck no. I want Noah van Sciver and Chris Wright’s new books to get out in the world, and to reach their audience. I want Fantagraphics to be around for … forever. BUT: let’s also not fool ourselves that this 'lowest cost' imperative isn’t fucking up our world significantly, all day every day, as an economic paradigm. It’s a real thing, and that can’t be ignored either."

• Profile: At HiLobrow, Norman Hathaway puts the spotlight on Guy Peellaert: "Years later I realized that Peellaert had also been responsible for one of my favorite pieces of power-pop comic art; Jodelle (and later Pravda), which plastered hip, mid-’60s fashion drawing into a dystopian landscape of the future, done in a completely different linear graphic design-based style."

• Profile: Dan Taylor of The Press Democrat chats with Monte Schulz: "'My dad is actually mentioned in a very subtle way in The Big Town,' Schulz said. 'The main character, Harry, is in a barber shop. It says, "Back in St. Paul, he'd gotten his hair cut in the Family Barbershop on North Snelling Avenue by a cigar-smoking German fellow, whose young son drew funny little pictures."'"

• Profile (Video): Enjoy a brief video spotlight on the great Kim Deitch presented by Seth Kushner at Trip City

• Tribute/History: From last week, at The Stranger, rememberances of our former art director, the late Dale Yarger

Since we can't walk around covered in blood like Cannibal Fuckface (well, most of us anyway), you can at least have the man himself across your chest!

It's the Prison Pit t-shirt by Johnny Ryan, from our friends at Monster Worship! Two-color design on a sinister black t-shirt. Short sleeved for your arms, or an evil worm-like creature.

In an addendum to this previous FLOG post, I had no luck tracking down the highly-sought after Johnny Ryan-designed tees from H&M. But a certain someone did, and that would be Miss Bella Reid, the 13-year-old daughter of Larry, our manager and curator at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery! THANK YOU, BELLA!!! It's awesome!

If you don't have a pre-teen spitfire looking out for you, you can keep checking H&M stores across the country.  Or just give it up and get yourself some Johnny Ryan books instead at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery, located at 1201 S. Vale Street in Seattle's Georgetown district. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone: (206) 658-0110.

And keep an eye out for that Bella. Girl's smart as a whip, and I'm sure you'll be hearing more from her in the years to come! 

Author Monte Schulz is bringing The Big Town to the big town of San Francisco on Tuesday, April 10th!

A novel of the Jazz Age, The Big Town is the story of a failed businessman whose dreams of prosperity hinge on the secret proposition of a millionaire industrialist and a dangerous relationship he finds with a poor orphan girl chasing love in the great American metropolis.

Join Monte for a signing, starting at 7:00 PM at the Modern Times Bookstore Collective [ 2919 24th Street ].  And, we're pleased to announce that Modern Times invests 10% of the total sales on all events books to community organizations, so not only will you get to meet an engaging storyteller, but you'll also be helping support an organization working towards social justice in San Francisco's Mission District!

I could listen to Mome-vet T Edward Bak talk for hours, and if you live in Portland, OR, you can have the less time-intensive honor on Tuesday, April 24th!

The Portland Central Library is proud to present "Cartoonists Talking," an evening event in conjunction with the Stumptown Comics Fest!

Bak (or "Tebs," as I like to call him) will deliver a presentation on WILD MAN: The Strange Journey and Fantastic Account of the Naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller, which was serialized in Mome. The artist has conducted his own research in Southeast Alaska and the Aleutian archipelago, as well as St. Petersburg (Russian Federation) where he recently delivered presentations of his work for this ongoing project.

He'll be joined by artist Vera Brosgol for the event. "Cartoonists Talking" is from 6:30-7:45 PM at the Portland Central Library  [ 801 S.W. 10th Avenue ]!

The Art Insitute of Chicago is holding a panel on "Comic Art and Fine Art," and who better to speak on that than our own Ivan Brunetti!

Join Ivan this Thursday, April 12th, along with fellow panelists Neal Adams, Geofrey Darrow, and J.J. Sedelmaier (YES! Saturday TV Funhouse!). They'll be discussing the history and future of this popular -- and populist -- art form. Richard Holland, co-founder of Bad at Sports podcast moderates.

The panel starts at 6:00 PM in the Rubloff Auditorium of the Art Insitute of Chicago [ 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago ]. Free with museum admission and for students with ID. "Comic Art and Fine Art" is held in advance for their major summer exhibition, Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective.