Congratulations to Shimura Takako and translator/editor Matt Thorn, whose English-language edition of Wandering Son Vol. 1 has been nominated to the American Library Association/Young Adult Library Services Association "2012 Great Graphic Novels for Teens" list! The final list will be announced by the ALA in January.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Fantagraphics, always a publisher you can count on to rescue classic comic material from oblivion, has published a gorgeous 288 page hardcover archive edition of Mickey [Mouse]'s earliest serialized comic strip adventures and he's quite a different character than we know today...a little rambunctious, a little mischievous, and a whole lot of fun. This book takes readers on a glorious ride through depression-era adventures as Mickey battles villains, becomes a fireman, visits a circus, and meets his faithful pup Pluto for the first time. Besides the many great comic strips, Fantagraphics has filled the book with a ton of supplemental material... This is an absolute must-have for any Mickey Mouse fan. Grade A" – Tim Janson, Mania

• Review: At Comic Book Resources, Greg Burgas and Kelly Thompson engage in a dialogic analysis of Dave McKean's Celluloid.

Burgas: "McKean’s art is astounding, as it always is. He moves from his very rough pencil work that he used on Cages and moves quickly into a multimedia extravaganza, with photographs interspersed with film reels (more photographs, of course, but used in a different way) and paintings and more detailed pencil work. The colors are magnificent, too... It’s an astonishing work of art, to be sure..."

Thompson: "I agree that the success of this book is in that it is beautiful from cover to cover. As a rule I tend to prefer McKean’s very rough pencil work, though I very much appreciate the layering mixed media styles he uses, and I found all of it very beautiful and successful in that way. I was impressed with the color choices and the really wonderful cubist look he achieved for some of the work, and some of the mixed media he used toward the end was some of my favorite in the book period.... After discussing it, I feel more pleased with the book as a whole because I’ve been forced to admit that I don’t recall seeing many more effective executions of erotic subject matter as a legitimate work of art in this way..."

Burgas: "What is compelling about Celluloid is that McKean tackles a difficult subject and elevates it beyond a simple porn comic. I think the very fact that Celluloid makes you wonder about sex in many of its iterations is impressive. As you can see, both Kelly and I had our issues with it, but it’s a gorgeous comic nevertheless. It’s definitely something that you don’t see every day!"

• Review: "I have the impression that Lewis Trondheim is the most important European artist of his generation. Such is the creativity and productivity and so the breadth of his work that, for me at least, wins the title deservedly. Approximate Continuum Comics... is the first part of Trondheim's autobiographical adventures.... The brilliant humour of Trondheim, his sharp-tongued reason, the way with which it shows the mix of imagination with reality. Equally impressive is the effortless way in which the most espressive artwork works serving the story." – Aristides Kotsis, Comicdom (translated from Greek)

• Review: "Bell does the best job of any attempt I've ever seen to bring together everything we know about Ditko's life and work. The result [Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko] is fascinating, frustrating and eventually presents a sad portrait of an immense talent that withdrew from the world and denied it of his work and himself of the audience, acclaim and success that was easily within his grasp." – Tom McLean, Bags and Boards

• Plug: "The 22nd -- and final -- issue of MOME from @fantagraphics is the best one yet. So sad." – Whitney Matheson (USA Today Pop Candy), via Twitter

• Plug: Sceneario takes note of the new entries in our new Franco-Belgian comics line with interest and excitement (en Français)

• Preview: At Flavorwire, Emily Temple shares some glimpses of the cartoons to be included in Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons, saying "Her style is distinctive — the charmingly brusque drawings are cut from linoleum and then essentially stamped when she applied ink to the ridges, and while the content is largely related to her experience as a student, you can still feel the slightly skewed, individualistic perspective that appears in O’Connor’s short stories.... Lovers of her work will doubtless find joy and meaning in her cartoons, and other people will probably like them too."

• Preview: Jamie Frevele of The Mary Sue picks up on the preview of Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons, saying "...while not as demented as some of her writing, the dark humor is still there, even in the short span of a single panel."

• Plug: "Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons is the first compilation of her graphic work in pen-and-ink and linoleum cuts. Before her writing career the young student aspired to be a cartoonist, and she developed a visually bold and eye-catching style. The results are witty and acid comments on campus life and American culture that show O'Connor developing her own acerbic point-of-view." – M. Bromberg, BellemeadeBooks

• Plug: The Portland Mercury's Jacob Schraer amusingly abandons writing about Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons to post a video of Miss Piggy — that's OK, we all have days like that

• Interview (Audio): Kevin Avery, author/editor of Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson, is a guest on the Rockcritics Podcast. Host Scott Woods says "I’ve mentioned a few times here already Kevin Avery’s wonderful book, Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson. Half a personal biography of Nelson, half a compilation of select Nelson reviews and essays, it’s one of the finest books I’ve ever read about a writer — and, needless to say, about rock criticism."

• Profile: "[Basil] Wolverton was one of the pioneers who made today’s highbrow comics scene what it is; his twisted abstract portraiture, all sweatbeads and pleading eyes, floated like a buoy in a sea of banal comic art, influencing kindred spirits like Robert Williams and Big Daddy Roth. Though best known for his nightmare caricatures in the vein of Lena Hyena, his sf and horror work — jewels like the 'Brain Bats of Venus' — is equally disturbing (or invigorating). God knows what brain bat attached itself to Wolverton’s fertile grey matter, but it certainly wasn’t of this atmosphere." – Joe Alterio, HighLobrow

Our freelancer John Ohannesian, who's doing some cleanup and restoration for our next (and final) Popeye volume, came across this E.C. Segar portrait of R. Crumb. Ha! (Via the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery Facebook page.)

Let's all thank whoever it was who convinced Stephen DeStefano to get on Tumblr! (Above, from Stephen's inaugural post: designs for a statuette of Cole Oyl, Olive Oyl's poppa.) Also, let's all send best wishes to Stephen for a speedy recovery from a kidney stone procedure he underwent today.

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Gil Jordan, Private Detective: Murder by High Tide
by M. Tillieux

96-page full-color 8.5" x 11.25" hardcover • $18.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-451-1

See Previews / Order Now

Another never-before-translated classic from the Golden Age of Franco-Belgian comics, finally brought to American readers. Imagine the beautifully crisp images of Hergé (Tintin) put in service of a series of wise-cracking, fast-paced detective stories — punctuated with scenes of spectacular vehicular mayhem (including in this volume a dockside pursuit via car and bulldozer) — and you’ll see why 50 years later Gil Jordan is still considered a masterpiece in Europe.

Gil Jordan is a nattily-dressed but tough-as-nails private eye, seconded by his trusty ex-burglar assistant Crackerjack and his eccentric friend Inspector Crouton (as well as the invaluable Miss Midge).

Fantagraphics’ first Gil Jordan book combines two of Gil’s finest yarns in one splendid hardcover. In “Murder by High Tide,” Gil and his associates are hired to investigate the suspicious disappearance (death?) of an antiques dealer, while in “Leap of Faith” they get involved in trying to protect an attorney from Joe the Needle, a mysteriously escaped convict with apparent superhuman powers who has sworn vengeance.

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Sibyl-Anne Vs. Ratticus
by R. Macherot

64-page full-color 8.5" x 11.25" hardcover • $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-60699-452-8

See Previews / Order Now

Sibyl-Anne and her fiancé Boomer live in blissful peace in the French countryside until the evil rat Ratticus, evicted from his previous residence, sets his eye on the quiet acre that the couple share with their friends (a porcupine, a crow, and a rabbit).

After a hilariously unsuccessful attempt to infiltrate the quiet little community in drag (which leaves a member of the cast smitten, Some Like It Hot-style), the devious Ratticus engineers the takeover of a neighboring rat colony and builds it into an army that sweeps Sibyl-Anne and her friends off their homestead and onto an island. Battles by land, by sea, and even by air ensue, until finally the wicked are defeated and peace is restored. Macherot’s charming mouse’s-eye views of bucolic idyll and his fast-paced, witty storytelling turn this book into something like a Pixar version of The Wind in the Willows.

Part of Fantagraphics’ program of bringing American readers the best of post-Tintin Franco-Belgian all-ages comics, Macherot’s “Sibylline” series (as it is called in French) is widely regarded as one of the great classics of the field, and is slated for re-release in French in 2011 as part of a “Complete Sibylline” project. This is the very first instance of Macherot’s work being translated into English.

BoDuley Bryant shares some advice he received as a young aspiring cartoonist in 1993 from the great Jim Woodring. Click to read the whole thing. Thanks to BoDuley (a.k.a. Dusty?) for sharing this on our Facebook page. (And Vol. 1 of the books Jim mentioned is still available.)

The programming schedule for the final day of Comic-Con 2011 (Sunday July 24) has been posted and... we got nothin'. Come hang out at our booth (#1718) and shop all day! If you've been keeping track you'll know that there's plenty of panels of interest on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. And Robot 6 has the scoop on our debut books (subject to change in one or two cases). Stay tuned for our complete all-in-one announcement.

Comic-Con keeps rolling out their 2011 programming schedule — today they've posted Saturday's lineup and it features our can't-miss 35th Anniversary panel which will include a couple of announcements that will knock your socks off. Here's what Fanta fans will want to catch:

10:00-11:30 50 Years of Comic Fandom: The Founders— It's hard to believe but it's been fifty years (more or less) since that peculiar institution called Comic Book Fandom was born. Meet some of those who were there at the inception, including Jean Bails, Paul Levitz, Dick and Pat Lupoff, Richard Kyle, Bill Schelly, Roy Thomas, and Maggie Thompson along with moderator Mark Evanier, as they discuss how fandom came to be and just what it was.  Room 24ABC

11:30-12:30 Bill Blackbeard: The Man Who Saved Comics— In the 1960s, while writing a history of the American comic strip, Bill Blackbeard learned that most of the nation's libraries were discarding their newspaper archives in favor of microfilm, destroying countless pages of comics in the process. Over the course of the next three decades, Blackbeard and his volunteers at the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art amassed a collection of more than 2.5 million comics, including virtually every comic strip ever syndicated in U.S. newspapers. When he passed away earlier this year, Blackbeard had contributed to more than 200 comic strip collections, including the beloved Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, and his work had inspired generations of cartoonists, historians and fans. Cartoon Art Museum curator Andrew Farago, publishers Gary Groth and Dean Mullaney, editor and herstorian Trina Robbins, and Jenny Robb, curator/assistant professor from Ohio State University's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum celebrate Blackbeard's life and legacy. Room 24ABC 

12:30-1:30 Fantagraphics 35th Anniversary— Fantagraphics Books was founded in 1976 with the launch of their first publication, The Comics Journal. Since then, they've grown to become one of the world's foremost publishers of literary comix and comic strips. Publishers Gary Groth and Kim Thompson offer a multimedia presentation highlighting their favorite works from the past 35 years, as well as previewing some of their upcoming favorites. Expect a major announcement or two, as well! Room 24ABC 

1:00-2:00 Spotlight on Anders Nilsen— Comic-Con special guest Anders Nilsen debuts his magnum opus, the 800+-page Big Questions, which he began self-publishing over 10 years ago and which quickly placed Nilsen at the forefront of alternative cartoonists. He is part of the Chicago comics collective The Holy Consumption with Jeffrey Brown, John Hankiewicz, and Paul Horsnchemeier and was recently featured in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Join him as he presents a slideshow of his work from his haunting postmodern fable. Room 4 

2:30-3:30 The Art of the Graphic Novel— Andrew Farago (curator, Cartoon Art Museum) talks with graphic novelists Chester Brown (Paying for It), Seymour Chwast (Dante's Divine Comedy), Eric Drooker (Blood Song), Joyce Farmer (Special Exits, A Memoir), Joëlle Jones (Troublemaker), Jason Shiga (Empire State: A Love Story (Or Not)), and Craig Thompson (Habibi) about their work in the genre that has elevated comics to mainstream bookstores all over the world. Room 24ABC