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.

We've received a few questions about our announcement last week that Alec Baldwin will contribute an Introduction to an upcoming volume of The Complete Peanuts. The idea was inspired by this Vanity Fair "Proust Questionnaire" with Baldwin from earlier this year, wherein Baldwin names Charlie Brown his "hero of fiction." So there you go.

Confidential to Gary Groth: here's a suggestion for another 30 Rock star to write a Peanuts intro sometime in the future (found while researching this post):

Ectopia, Hans Rickheit's in-progress graphic novel following The Squirrel Machine, is well underway, and he is presenting it as a serialized webcomic, posting a new page each week at its own dedicated website. Learn more about the book-to-be here, and start reading page 1 here.

Oh man these Online Commentary & Diversions links really pile up:

• List: The Daily Cross Hatch presents The Best Damned Comics of 2009 Chosen by the Artists, this year's edition of their essential annual survey of comics pros' top 5 comics. I won't quote all the lists' commentary here since that would steal some of their thunder (not to mention take me all night), but Pim & Francie by Al Columbia merits 5 mentions; You'll Never Know, Book 1 by C. Tyler is on 3 lists; The Squirrel Machine by Hans Rickheit, Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 1 by Michael Kupperman, Like a Dog by Zak Sally, Prison Pit Book 1 by Johnny Ryan, Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me by Peter Bagge are all mentioned twice; and The Wolverton Bible, Locas II by Jaime Hernandez, Humbug, Popeye Vol. 4, Low Moon by Jason, You Are There by Tardi & Forest, A Mess of Everything by Miss Lasko-Gross, Prince Valiant Vol. 1, Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1, and Lilli Carré's work in Mome all show up once each (plus a couple of 2008 releases like Zak Sally's Sammy the Mouse #2 and Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw sneak in there)

• List: Details magazine names Ghost World #10 on The 25 Greatest Gen X Books of All Time: "This caustically funny duo-tone tale follows the iconic cat-eyed adolescent Enid Coleslaw in her quest to find meaning, or at least cruel humor, in an age where everything's disposable."

• Review: "Strange Suspense collects dozens of Ditko stories from the 1950’s... Almost a decade before Ditko moved to Marvel, these stories bear his unmistakable style. His fine line work and flair for the abstract that would serve him so well on Doctor Strange particularly, is on full display. ... If you only know Ditko for his work at Marvel or later at DC, here is the chance to explore Early Ditko, unconstrained by editors or the Comics Code. While all of this work is marvelous, clearly Ditko is best at home in horror where he could let his imagination run wild, creating monsters and demons and the things that go bump in the night. Rediscover Ditko today!" – Tim Janson, Newsarama

• Review: "Brian Kane, author of the [Definitive Prince Valiant] Companion and surely the world’s foremost authority on the strip and its creator, Hal Foster, has once again done a herculean amount of work, and Fantagraphics has once again clothed that work in a sturdy, pretty volume. Prince Valiant hasn’t been treated this well since the ersatz King of England sang his praises. Those unfamiliar with the character – a young man who finds adventure, fame, and even love at the court of the legendary King Arthur – will find here all the background information they could ever want... But even long-time Prince Valiant fans will find plenty to fascinate them in this volume." – Khalid Ponte, Open Letters

• Review: "Delphine is a morbid interpretation of the symbology of fairy tales resounding with echoes of unrequited love and abandonment. This is perhaps Sala’s darkest and most intricate story ever – impressive in its nuance and ever shifting emotions. One can only hope that it is not ignored." – Ng Suat Tong, The Comics Journal

• Review: At The Hooded Utilitarian (a TCJ.com-hosted blog), reviewer Kinukitty kicks off a critical roundtable on Daniel Clowes's Ghost World on a contrarian note

• Plug: "Just got Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol 1. Faaaaantastic! ... Raw and grotesque and beautifully drawn and presented." – Dave Gibbons (via consecutive Twitter posts)

• Plug: Los Angeles Magazine highlights Conceptual Realism by Robert Williams and Sublife Vol. 2 by John Pham in their monthly roundup of books of local interest

• Plug: Mike Sterling presents a brilliant panel from Popeye Vol. 4 and declares re: the book "Comics don't get much better than this."

• Plug: Alison Nastasi of Horror Squad calls Portable Grindhouse: The Lost Art of the VHS Box "a tasty opus" and plugs last weekend's Fantagraphics Bookstore events

• Plug: Boing Boing "Boing Boings" the Femke Hiemstra exhibit at Roq la Rue

• Events: The Seattle Times' Christy Karras talks to participants in yesterday's Portable Grindhouse panel discussion at Fantagraphics Bookstore and makes the case for Seattle as Zombie City U.S.A.

• Analysis: Hypergeek crunches direct market sales data and declares Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1 the top small-press trade for November 2009, with Pim & Francie by Al Columbia ranking at #12

• Interview: From TCJ.com: "Every weekday from now until December 25, we’ll be posting a conversation between cartoonists from The Comics Journal #300, complete and online! In today’s installment, it’s a chat between L’Association publisher Jean-Christophe Menu and Kramers Ergot publisher Sammy Harkham."

• History: Love & Maggie rounds up the history of Love and Rockets 1979-1982 — even Gary Groth is impressed!

• Things to see: Tim Lane's Temptations diorama... completed? Oops, no, there's an audience in progress

* Things to see: Johnny Ryan did some gag cartoons for a girlie calendar from streetwear purveyors Mishka

• Things to see: An advertisement from Anders Nilsen

• Things to see: At his blog, Drew Friedman pays birthday tribute to old Jewish comedian Morey Amsterdam

• Things to see: The Huffington Post has a previously unseen 1968 photo of R. Crumb by photojournalist Harry Benson

• Things to see: Vince Lombardi by Jim Blanchard (for his pa, aw!)

• Things to see: The newest strip from Gabrielle Bell guest-stars Kim Deitch & Pam Butler

• Things to see: Kevin Huizenga's "Postcard from Fielder" part 2

• Life imitates comics: Failed Russian missile test or event from Jim Woodring's Weathercraft? You decide

First, so as not to bury the lede: Tony Millionaire is on Twitter. This is major. So far he is on a roll; among his postings is this sneak peek at the long-awaited sequel to the Eisner-winning Billy Hazelnuts, Billy Hazelnuts and the Crazy Bird, due this Summer.

I can barely keep up with Dash Shaw today! "The Haunted High School," a 5-page story he did for the Vice fiction issue, is now online.