How could we not re-post this image? Ellen Forney encourages you to have a Lust-ful holiday. Makes a great stocking stuffer! Get it?! Photo from Sin in Linen. (No, that's not Ellen.)

Stephen DeStefano gives a blog update on progress of his graphic novel Lucky in Love, written by George Chieffet, with some teaser panels such as the above and a selection of his reference materials for the WWII part of the book. The book is due in Summer 2010.

If you're like me you like seeing stuff like this: over at his blog Richard Sala posted this snapshot of the original paintings for the front and back covers of Delphine #4. Head over there for a better view.

Arriving in comics shops across the USA this week:

Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons. 3 volumes. Deluxe presentation. 11 pounds. The ultimate holiday gift for any lover of good cartooning. Chris Mautner of Robot 6 makes it his Pick of the Week and says "I've been perusing the thing over the past week and it's really a sumptuous package, exquisitely designed and full of great, great work from one of the finest (and sadly, often ignored) cartoonists of the modern era." Jog sums it up more succinctly: "I mean, c'mon." Couldn't have said it better myself.

The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion. The title says it all. Chris Mautner says Val fans will "go ga-ga for this book." Due to distribution vagaries, only the hardcover edition arrives this week, with the softcover to follow shortly.

And last but not least two freshly reprinted volumes of The Complete Crumb Comics. Vol. 7: "Hot 'n' Heavy!" features several Mr. Natural tales and some of Crumb's wildest sex comix and much more; and Vol. 12: "We're Livin' in the Lap o' Luxury!" spotlights Crumb's American Splendor collaborations with Harvey Pekar (as seen in the movie) and other diverse works. Classics!

As always we have informative and entertaining previews and other information about these books at the links above, so you can look before you leap.

Attention critics, bloggers, and pundits! If you are putting together your own Best of 2009 list and need to be reminded which of your favorite Fantagraphics releases were released this year, by all means use our complete and up-to-date 2009 Releases section as your guide. And then when your list is posted we will include it in a future installment of Online Commentary & Diversions such as below:

• List: Book By Its Cover declares Unlovable Vol. 1 by Esther Pearl Watson a Top Ten Pick for Best Books of 2009 (in the #8 position)

• List: At Chicago Now, Marissa Meli names her top 8 Worthiest Comics and Graphic Novels of 2009; at #8: "Besides having a title worthy of naming your hipster band after, You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation! was way before its time; a freak-out in the middle of the white bread Golden Age. ... With a magical space wizard, the Leopard Women of Venus, and Zomax, the Demonized Marine Scientist on your shelf, you may not buy another comic book."

• Review: "...[The Great Anti-War Cartoons] offer[s]... a feast of great early 20th century illustration. There are a few recognizable names here, like Winsor McCay and Art Young, but a number of great discoveries as well..." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Review: "[Weathercraft] is a wordless story about strange creatures in a strange world. ... With an open mind you are sucked into a surreal world that is both a dream and a nightmare of geometric chickens, tornadoes of eyes, harp-playing frogs... It is an immense mental gut-punch. 6 out of 6 stars" – Lærke Pickering Thomasen, Geek Culture (translated from Danish)

• Review: It's rare for me to editorialize here, but I found Alan Bisbort's comments on The Wolverton Bible in the Hartford Advocate to be seemingly disregardful of the actual contents of the book

• Review: The Hooded Ultilitarian's critical roundtable of Ghost World continues, this time with guest writer Charles Reece: "If I’m correctly following Žižek’s Lacanese, this wide-scale commercial co-optation of not just the aesthetic Sublime, but pretty much anything that once gave off a sense of 'authenticity,' has resulted in our no longer being able to identify ourselves in relation to these (formerly) Master Signifiers."

• Plug: At Comics Alliance, Douglas Wolk declares Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons "Your high-end gift item of the week... It's extraordinarily nicely designed (by Jacob Covey) — three hardcover, full-color volumes in a slipcase with a few other ingenious design fillips inspired by the macabre comedy of Wilson's cartoons."

• Plug: On Twitter, BBC comedy genius Peter Serafinowicz (Look Around You, The Peter Serafinowicz Show) declares "Tales Designed to Thrizzle is a comic masterpiece, and the perfect Xmas gift. Trust me."

• Profile: The L.A. Times Jacket Copy blog spotlights Gilbert Hernandez, "the graphic novelist who brought the genre to a new level with the Love and Rockets series, co-written with his brother Jaime," in their roundup of United States Artists Fellowship winners

• Things to see: Kevin Huizenga works on Ganges #3 at IHOP at 12:48 AM on March 10

Merry Christmas!

Bruce Paley & Carol Swain, writer and artist respectively of the graphic memoir Giraffes in My Hair: A Rock 'n' Roll Life, appear together on the Inkstuds radio/podcast interview program, and as a bonus, Paley put together a musical "mixtape" to accompany the book and interview. Download and listen while you read!

Publishers Weekly offers a 12-page preview of Dash Shaw's new book The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D., with 3 pages each from 4 different stories. Man that's some good-looking art.