What happens when you have to miss a couple of days of the comics internet is that it takes you almost the whole rest of the week to get fully caught up on Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: Library Journal's Martha Cornog gives a nice shout-out to Carl Barks and recommends Oil and Water by Steve Duin & Shannon Wheeler as one of "30 Graphic Novels for Earth Day 2012": "Wheeler’s atmospheric, ink-washed greys capture eccentric residents from crabbers to a pelican-rescue team, and Duin’s script catches the ironic resiliency of people exploited by the very industry that feeds them.... Valuable for high schoolers and adults as a glimpse into the crisis, and for general sensitization to environmental issues."

• Review: "When I brought Pogo home from the bookstore on a Sunday afternoon, I called my daughters over, and we lay on the floor in the living room and read it together. I read it aloud, because half of the fun of Pogo is hearing the fantastic dialogue penned by Kelly, and my daughters loved it. I’m sure there were things that went over their heads — jokes that rely on experiences they haven’t had, references to past events, wordplay that’s a little too sophisticated. But the beauty of the strip is that does work on so many levels. There’s slapstick humor, cute little talking animals, and keen observations on the human condition — the last made easier to swallow perhaps because the characters aren’t people, as human as they may be." – Jonathan Liu, Wired – GeekDad

• Review: "[Jason] populates his tales with brightly clad cats and dogs and ducks, but their misbehavior is unmistakably human.... [Athos in America] is... consummately worth reading for its three gems: the lovely title story, the self-portrait 'A Cat From Heaven' and the wonderful 'Tom Waits on the Moon,' in which Jason carefully maps the crossed paths of four lonely people." – Sam Thielman, Newsday

• Review: "Despair threatens to overwhelm the creator’s usual tales of longing [in Athos in America]. In 'A Cat From Heaven,' his characteristic unrequited love story gives way to a somewhat depressing look at a self-absorbed cartoonist named Jason’s bitter relationship. Mercifully, the rest of the collection is a little more playful, from a couple noir parodies to the highlight, 'Tom Waits on the Moon,' in which four solipsistic stories converge in a tragic act." – Mike Sebastian, Campus Circle

• Review: "The Sincerest Form of Parody: The Best 1950s MAD-Inspired Satirical Comics is a wonderful book collecting the best stories of the beginnings of a favorite comic book genre — and I can’t emphasize this enough — it’s put together by people who know what they’re doing. Plus, it’s designed to fit on your bookshelf right next to your MAD Archives volumes. I can’t believe that you haven’t already picked this up! Are you unsane?!?" – K.C. Carlson, Comics Worth Reading

• Review: "If [Wandering Son] Vol. 1 was a masterclass in people not wanting to accept the status quo within their own minds, Vol. 2 shows the uncertainty of the waiting world. The way that Nitori and Takatsuki fumble forward with no plan is painful and endearing. They know the two of them are better together but there’s the problem of dealing with classmates, family and teachers. It’s not easy and well done to Takako for not short-circuiting the process. It’s not easy writing characters in distress but it’s wonderful to read it. If you can recognise the character’s pain and sympathise despite your differences, it proves you’re human and so is the author.... So much of what we read is a kind of literary false economy. We put in so much and get so little out of it. Wandering Son asks so little of you and you get so much out of it.... It is a wonderful, sweet, heartbreaking window into being different, young, unsure, afraid and human." – Eeeper's Choice

• Review: "[The Man Who Grew His Beard]’s a big batch of critic-friendly comic strips, comics which resemble curios excavated from some none-too-defined European past and more often than not have all the daring shallow-space visual syntax of a Garfield strip. They’re less stories than contraptions that wear their artifice and structure on their sleeve, like those medieval homunculi which transparently show their cogs and mechanisms while making their programmed movements." – Rich Baez, It's Like When a Cowboy Becomes a Butterfly

• Review: "Action! Mystery! Thrills!... beautifully resurrects all the Golden Age favorites, from superheroes to killer robots to cowboys and occult Nazis. This time capsule collection of cover art spans from 1933-45... An index in the back gives the fascinating stories behind the covers, while the full-page, color reproductions reveal them for what they are: works of art." – Mike Sebastian, Campus Circle

• Review: "Primarily known for his ghoulish comic strips in Playboy and The New Yorker, Gahan Wilson showed his tender side (kind of) with Nuts. Originally a series of one-page vignettes running in National Lampoon, Nuts is presented here in its entirety as a classic warts-and-all reminiscence of childhood, from sick days to family gatherings, the joys of candy to the terrors of the dark basement." – Mike Sebastian, Campus Circle

• Review: "R. Crumb hit it big in the ‘60s alternative Comix scene with his creation of Fritz the Cat (originally conceived as an adolescent). The feline protagonist remained Crumb’s avatar for lambasting American culture until a lackluster film adaptation prompted some divine retribution from his creator. The Life and Death of Fritz the Cat collects all of Fritz’s essential stories." – Mike Sebastian, Campus Circle

• Analysis: The Hooded Utilitarian's critical roundtable on Jaime Hernandez rolls on with entries from Derik Badman; the author of our forthcoming Love and Rockets Companion, Marc Sobel; and (Mome 22 contributor) James Romberger

• Awards: GalleyCat reports that Author Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, contributor to Significant Objects, has won the $1,000 Sidney Prize, which rewards "the author of the best new American story," and has a link to an excerpt from the winning story

• Opinions: Robert Crumb's got 'em! In the third installment of the "Crumb On Others" series, he lets you know exactly what he thinks of a bunch of prominent personalities, from Hitler to Ghandi (in whose homeland Crumb can be seen above) and from Kurtzman to Van Gogh

• Interview: When The Comics Journal posted the Q&A with Bill Griffith conducted by Gary Panter, I called it the must-read of the day, and it still stands as your must-read of the week: "I’ve only taken LSD twice in my life. Once on the beach in Martha’s Vineyard in 1967, which was pleasant, but not ego-shattering or anything. And once in New York after I’d started doing comics. All I remember about the second time was, I got hemorrhoids."

• Interview: Who better to talk to Matthias Wivel, editor of our Scandinavian comics anthology Kolor Klimax, than Steffen Maarup, editor of our Danish comics anthology From Wonderland with Love? A taste: "Putting together a good anthology is similar to making a good mixtape. Whatever the individual merits of a piece, it won’t do to include it if it doesn’t somehow work for the anthology as a whole. There has to be a consistent idea or tone to the book, which doesn’t mean that there can’t be dissonance — there’s some of that in Kolor Klimax, and I think for the better — but the individual parts still have to generate something greater than their sum. It’s incredibly difficult to achieve, but also a lot of fun." Read more at The Metabunker

• Interview (Audio): Blake Bell joins host Chris Marshall on the Collected Comics Library Podcast for a discussion about Bill Everett and Steve Ditko

Due to privacy concerns I'm slightly uneasy about posting photos of other people's babies, but this is too good not to share, so I'll just leave it anonymous and say that it came via Kevin Huizenga, who says "Wanted: more readers like [this]."

I just had to cross-post this from our Tumblr blog because it's too, too good: Jason pays homage to Moebius and George Herriman, saying "I should have been working on my new book. Instead I drew this." We forgive you, Jason. (Curiously, Max also has a pretty great Moebius/Herriman tribute.)

Another huge honor for Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's Romance Comics editor Michel Gagne and his video game creation Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet: last week the game picked up the GAME British Academy Video Games Award for Best Debut Game! (You may recall that just last month it won the 2011 International Animated Film Society Annie Award for Best Animated Video Game.) You can read an interview with Michel at the BAFTA Guru website and see a video clip of the game's victory at the award ceremony here. And if you're in Seattle you can congratulate Michel in person at Emerald City Comicon next week or at an event at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery next month that we'll be announcing very soon...

Last-minute beer alert! Elysian Brewing Company debuts Fallout, the third in the series of 12 Beers of the Apocalypse featuring the artwork of Charles Burns, tonight at their Elysian Fields location in the SODO neighborhood of Seattle! Click the flyer above for legible details.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "The existence of serious rock criticism became central to the transformation of rock into art in the '60s; [Paul ]Nelson's artful criticism permitted this music to assume a high-culture position with swift ease.... His personal story defies alignment with the brilliance of the writings presented in this gorgeously designed book [Everything Is an Afterthought]. Nick Tosches writes in the foreword that Nelson 'never wrote about anything he didn't know to the full of its depths…' This book clearly supports what Tosches says. Avery has captured the mysterious life Nelson wound up living without compromising the productive and innovative one he led while creating what we think of today as rock criticism." – Martin Jack Rosenblum, The Shepherd Express

• Review: "Everett worked on numerous comics throughout his lengthy career and this book explores his key contributions during the early Golden Age (1938-42)... Bell not only reprints several of the stories featuring the largely forgotten creations Skyrocket Steele, Amazing-Man, Hydro-Man, Sub-Zero Man, and others, but places Everett within the proper context of history through a brief bio of the artist during this period and notes about the individual pieces. Deserving a place in most graphic libraries, the handsome Amazing Mysteries: The Bill Everett Archives Vol. 1 successfully re-introduces the talented Everett to a new generation of readers." – Rick Klaw, The SF Site: Nexus Graphica

Yet another honor for Wilfred Santiago's 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente — now it's been named one of Booklist's "Top 10 Graphic Novels: 2012" (so named even though it's all 2011 books), with Ian Chipman saying "Kinetic compositions washed with Pirate-yellow hues and a narrative that traces both Clemente’s personal and athletic triumphs combine in this biography of the pioneering Puerto Rican baseball great." We know it leads of the list because it's alphabetical, but we like the way it's part of the header graphic:

The list appears in print in the new issue (cover dated March 15), which also contains Gordon Flagg's review of Is That All There Is? by Joost Swarte:

"In the early ’70s, when American underground-comic artists like R. Crumb were drawing subversive stories in styles derived from the comic strips they grew up with, Dutch cartoonist Swarte was similarly warping the graphic approach of Europe’s most famous comics artist, Tintin creator Hergé. It was Swarte who coined the term ligne claire, or 'clear line,' for the distinctive, meticulous style marked by the use of unvarying, evenly inked lines. Swarte applied that technique to significantly more grown-up fare than Hergé’s rousing adventure tales, as shown in this collection of nearly all of his adult comics work, much of it featuring Jopo de Pojo, an oversized naïf with a Tintinesque quiff, and the pompous intellectual Anton Makassar. Some are globe-spanning escapades that are clearly inspired by Tintin’s exploits, albeit with sex, drugs, and gore; others are shorter satirical or humorous pieces. Since the main attraction is Swarte’s alluring visuals, a larger page size would have showcased the intricate illustrations to better advantage; but considering the previous unavailability of his work in English translation, that’s an ungrateful quibble."

It's your new Nicolas Mahler Angelman page and a brand new Up All Night strip from Michael Kupperman:

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Angelman by Nicolas Mahler (view at original size):

Up All Night by Michael Kupperman (view at original size):

No, not that kind of doctor! Wonderful news via Gahan Wilson's official Facebook page: "Gahan Wilson is to receive an honorary PhD from his Alma Mater, The Chicago Art Institute, in May of 2012!" Congratulations Gahan! I can't think of a more well-deserved honor.

You might not think our two latest preview-copy arrivals have much in common (aside from striking artwork and the fact that both have covers with dwellings in the background and trees in the middle ground), but you'd be wrong. They both feature mysterious, ethereal, supernatural characters observing the actions and fates of mankind! Pretty uncanny, no?

Interiorae by Gabriella Giandelli collects her beautiful and haunting 4-issue "Ignatz" comic series with the art now presented in its original full color. We're hustling this one out to premiere at TCAF in May, where Gabriella is a special guest! It should be in stores shortly thereafter.

And here's Mysterious Traveler: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 3, the latest tome in editor Blake Bell's comprehensive series compiling Ditko's groundbreaking early work. We're not blowing smoke when we say this is some of the best work of his career. This should be hitting stores right around the same time as Interiorae.

Want to see more? We have sneak peek excerpts of both these books at their respective pages at the links above. We're trying out a new scrolling embedded preview in addition to the traditional PDF download for more instant gratification, so check it out. And of course we'll have more photos and video to come. (In fact, I owe you a lot of those previews.) Stay tuned!