It's time for your Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "[Editor Andrei] Molotiu has created a fun and accessible anthology here, one that’s smart and well-researched but not in the slightest bit obtuse. You don’t need to be an art snob to appreciate it; you just need an open mind. With that, the reward for Abstract Comics is quite lovely. And quite possibly a good opportunity for you to increase your appreciation for the comics format exponentially." - John Hogan, Graphic Novel Reporter

• Review: "...Giraffes in My Hair is a pleasure to read. The insights are genuine and the humanity is quite bare. Once I started reading, I didn’t stop until the book was over. This survivor’s tales were well worth the journey, once again, through two well-trodden decades." - John Hogan, Graphic Novel Reporter

• Review: "West Coast Blues... gets under your skin and remains impossible to resist from start to finish... Darkly amusing and undeniably entertaining, West Coast Blues keeps the mystery and interest alive by carefully doling out pieces of the story and introducing intriguing characters with loads of personality... Tardi does an excellent job of adapting what must be a massively entertaining book into a graphic novel form for all who seek a slightly different but no less thrilling mystery/adventure story to enjoy." - Avril Brown, Comics Waiting Room

• Review: "The Squirrel Machine should be called nothing less than a masterpiece: a true culmination and maturation of illustrative style and story. The atmosphere portrayed in black and white is meticulous and unsettling. Even the banal moments of the story have depth and direction... [a] lovely and blasphemous affair." - R.M. Rollston, Panel to Panel

• Plug: "Everything Jaime [Hernandez] does is genius, but I thought [Ghost of Hoppers] was especially strong. Maybe my favorite since Wigwam Bam." - M. Ace, Irregular Orbit

• Tweet: "I just got my grubby hands on the new @fantagraphics Abstract Comics collection. Devastatingly pretty thing..." - mattrodger

Quoted directly from Paul Hornschemeier's blog:

Inimitable Cartoonist and Fine Human Being Anders Nilsen has pulled together some great artwork for an even greater cause: health care reform. The participating artists are:

John Porcellino, Genevieve Elverum, Chris Ware, Ivan Brunetti, Dan Clowes, Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie), Jeffrey Brown, Paul Hornschemeier, Todd Baxter, Sonnenzimmer Print Studio, Adam Henry, Kevin Huizenga, Jay Ryan (The Bird Machine Print Studio), Lynda Barry, Lilli Carre, David Heatley, Kyle Obriot, Stephen Eichhorn, Buenaventura Press, Sammy Harkham and the organizer, Anders Nilsen.

The proceeds will go to Democracy for America Now, a national advocacy group running television ads to push the Public Option in democratic swing districts and offering support to congressional members who take a stand for the policy.

My art for the auction (from Beasts Volume 2) is here.

And you can (and should) see all the artwork up for auction by searching for 46 Million on eBay.

A short-n-sweet Online Commentary & Diversions update:

• Review: "While Prison Pit does, in fact, have a definable story throughout, it’s one that feels as though it were crafted in the margins of a spiral-bound notebooks stowed safely away in some backpack littered with the Sharpie penned names of metal bands. And though Ryan didn’t go so far as to in append a listening soundtrack to the back of this volume, one can almost certainly be assured that it contains its share of Cannibal Corpse and Slayer tracks." - Brian Heater, The Daily Cross Hatch

• Events: The Seattle Weekly recommends that you see the "dark, cynical, ornery, a tad cantankerous" Comics Savants exhibit at our Bookstore & Gallery today

• Crime: Prompted by the release of Prince Valiant Vol. 1: 1937-1938, The Journal News "LoHud" blog recalls the 1989 theft of over 100 Valiant originals from the Museum of Cartoon Art

Get this Chris Ware-designed t-shirt for only $10 + free shipping today at Woot and your money benefits the 826 program in my birth state of Michigan. Everybody wins! I ordered mine...

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions starts with a bang:

• Review: "...[A]n astonishingly rich and convincing picture of uncertain, developing human relationships. Besides the masterful storytelling, [Locas II: Maggie, Hopey & Ray] is notable for superb black and white artwork. Panel by panel and page by page, it's a delight to watch darkness crowding into open space, while supple linework dances freely in its allotted territory. This is a landmark in comics literature." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

• Review: "From Wonderland with Love is an excellent introduction to the part of the Danish comics scene that tries to push the boundaries of the medium – and in particular to the “wild bunch” that emerged at the beginning of this millennium. If you’re an open-minded reader, there’s no getting past this book, even if it – as a Dane – at times feels a bit odd to read Danish comics in English. […] If you love the place where art challenges the status quo and moves the fence posts, gaining new land in the process, you’ll feel right at home here." - Ulf Reese Næsborg, tegneseriesiden (updated with new translation from the author - thanks Ulf)

• Review: "[From Wonderland with Love] is a beautiful book, full of very different temperaments and different styles. All comics are from the 21st century and together they show both the great width and breadth of Danish comics. There are quiet, direct, hard hitting stories... And there are more poetic, allegorical, dreamy stories... And if you want new, interesting and strange, look no further." - Fredrik Strömberg, Sekventiellt (books by Strömberg)

• Interview: At Marvel.com, Sean T. Collins continues his series of Strange Tales MAX contributor interviews with Michael Kupperman: "People are going to be very interested in the changes I've made to the Marvel canon. They're probably going to have to scrap everything they've ever published and start over. The new version of SECRET WARS is going to be called OVERT WARS."

• Interview: The Daily Cross Hatch's Brian Heater kicks off a 3-part talk with Jordan Crane: "Well, I’m trying to make [Uptight] less sporadic. I want to do it two times a year, solid. It’s been kind of a chaotic last couple of years. So now I’m focusing everything I can on it."

• Interviewer: At Comics Comics, Dash Shaw questions Hope Larson about working with editors

• Things to say: Chip the Dancin' Fool as rendered by Tim Lane

West Coast Blues
By Jacques Tardi & Jean-Patrick Manchette

A SAVAGE NOIR THRILLER REUNITING A MASTER CRIME NOVELIST AND A SUPERLATIVE FRENCH CARTOONIST

George Gerfaut, aimless young executive and desultory family man, witnesses a murder and finds himself sucked into a spiral of violence involving an exiled war criminal and two hired assassins. Adapting to the exigencies of his new life on the run with shocking ease, Gerfaut abandons his comfortable middle-class life for several months (including a sojourn in the countryside after an attempt to ride the rails turns spectacularly bad) until, joined with a new ally, he finally returns to settle all accounts... with brutal, bloody interest.

Originally released in 2005, West Coast Blues (Le Petit bleu de la côte ouest) is Tardi’s adaptation of a popular 1976 novel by the French crime writer Jean-Patrick Manchette. (The novel had been previously adapted to film under the more literal title Trois hommes à abattre, and was released in English by the San Francisco-based publisher City Lights under the English version of the same title, 3 to Kill.)

Tardi’s late-period, looser style infuses Manchette’s dark story with a seething, malevolent energy; he doesn’t shy away from the frequently grisly goings-on, while maintaining (particularly in the old-married-couple-style bickering of the two killers who are tracking Gerfaut) the mordant wit that characterizes his best work. This is the kind of graphic novel that Quentin Tarantino would love, and a double shot of Scotch for any fan of unrelenting, uncompromising crime fiction.

80-page black & white 7.5" x 10.5" hardcover • $18.99
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The Squirrel Machine
By Hans Rickheit

AN ANACHRONISTIC PARABLE FOR THE CONVULSIVE ELITE

What is the squirrel machine? Is it a rodent ensnarement device? A mechanism for concealing one’s guarded harvest? An anachronistic fable? A meaningless diversion?

Set in a fictional 19th Century New England town, the narrative initially details the relationship and maturation of Edmund and William Torpor. But the two brothers quickly elicit the scorn and recrimination of an unamused public when they reveal their musical creations built from strange technologies and scavenged animal carcasses. Driven to seek a concealment for their aberrant activities, they make a startling discovery. Perhaps they will divine the mystery of the squirrel machine.

What is The Squirrel Machine?
• An immutably strange and haunting narrative that transcends known logics and presumptive dream-barriers;
• A distillation of subconscious beauty and inspired madness;
• A dangerous object for the incautious;
• A revelation for the undernourished crypto-seeker;
• The virgin caress of unconsummated apocalypse;
• The unspeakable thing that you always knew.

It’s also the legendary obscurantist cartoonist Hans Rickheit’s most ambitious graphic novel to date. Exquisitely rendered, strange, and hauntingly beautiful, this evocative and enigmatic book will ensure the inquisitive reader a spleenful of cerebral serenity that will require vast quantities of mediocrity to banish from memory.

192-page black & white 7.375" x 10.25" hardcover • $18.99
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Rock Candy: The Artwork of Femke Hiemstra
By Femke Hiemstra

Dutch artist and designer Femke Hiemstra has a unique style and vision that evokes the work of Robert Williams and Mark Ryden, but with a less cynical worldview that invites the viewer to enter the magic spaces she creates. Rock Candy is the artist’s first retrospective and fully spotlights her talent, whimsy and wit in a deluxe package certain to catapult her to the forefront of the Pop Surrealism movement.

Hiemstra’s paintings and illustrations are united by a meticulous attention to craft that gives life to her dark, lush, fairytale landscapes where inanimate objects come to life and frolic with anthropomorphs of all types. She incorporates mixed media, found objects, typography, and a variety of influences ranging from fireworks packaging to Japanese woodblock prints.

Rock Candy presents Hiemstra’s entire life and career under one cover. In addition to over 100 gorgeous reproductions of her paintings and illustrations, Rock Candy includes photographs and reproductions of her studio, her influences, her family and much more. The book also includes an introduction by Kirsten Anderson, author of Pop Surrealism: The Rise of Underground Art and proprietor of the Roq La Rue Gallery (Seattle, WA), as well as an interview with Hiemstra, statements about the works by the artist, and many other surprises that are certain to make Hiemstra a household name amongst fans of Pop Surrealism.

176-page full-color 6.5" x 8.25" hardcover with die-cut cover • $29.99
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The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book
By Joe Daly

Set in sun-drenched Cape Town, South Africa, The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book — featuring two full-length stories, “The Leaking Cello Case” and “John Wesley Harding” — is stuffed to the gills with mystery, suspense, action, adventure, conspiracy theories, cool cars, and excellent weed as Dave and his freeloading pal Paul, well-meaning stoners in the tradition of Cheech & Chong and Harold & Kumar, thwart criminal malfeasance even as they ponder the larger questions, such as, “What steps can I personally take to help protect the Earth and the species that inhabit it?” (though most people’s answers to these questions don’t involve sword fights and hovercrafts).

Joe Daly brings a refreshingly original — and utterly hilarious — voice to the comics medium, a dry, deadpan wit anchored in everyday reality combined with unnervingly deranged plots, rendered with a hyper-detailed, half-realistic and half-cartoony Tintin-style crispness.

112-page full-color 7.75" x 10.25" hardcover • $22.99
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Prison Pit: Book 1
By Johnny Ryan

Prison Pit is an original graphic novel from the pen of Johnny Ryan, best known for his humor comic, Angry Youth Comix. Prison Pit represents a marked departure from AYC or his Blecky Yuckerella weekly comic strip, combining his love for WWE wrestling, Gary Panter’s “Jimbo” comics, and Kentaro Miura’s “Berserk” Manga into a brutal showcase of violence, survival and revenge. Imagine a blend of old-fashioned role playing fantasy games like Dungeons & Dragons crossed with contemporary adult video games like Grand Theft Auto, filtered through Ryan’s sense of humor.

The book begins with C.F. (his full name would be too horrifying to reveal here) being thrown into the Prison Pit, a barren negative-zone populated by intergalactic, violent monster criminals. In this first volume, C.F. gets into a bloody slorge war (a slorge is a giant slug that excretes a steroid-like drug called “fecid” that all the monster men are addicted to) with ultraprisoner Rottweiler Herpes and his henchmen Rabies Bloodbath and Assrat. The ensuing bloodbath is an over-the-top, hyperviolent yet hilarious farce worthy of Ryan’s inspiration, Kentaro Miura.

120-page black & white 6.5" x 8.5" softcover • $12.99
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