Ah, our weekly strip updates are back on Friday evenings where they belong. We'll still call them "Weekend Webcomics" though. And we have another change to announce:

This week's The House of No by Derek Van Gieson will be the final installment to appear here — the strip has been picked up to run in our hometown alt-weekly, The Stranger, starting this week (where it's on a rotating schedule with Steven Weissman's Barack Hussein Obama among other new strips)! But don't fear, Derek will be back in this spot in the near future with a brand new feature called Claudette. Stay tuned!

The topic is one of Kim Thompson's favorite TV shows, sort of, in this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan...

Daily clips & strips -- click for improved/additional viewing at the sources:

• A Snoopy sketch accompanied by a great Sparky anecdote from Greg Hoffman (via The Comics Reporter via Bob Levin)

• More of Bob Fingerman's kid stuff

• Dash Shaw's storyboards for (presumably) a scene from The Ruined Cast

• Hey, there's another Post-it Show coming up at GRNY next month, and here's one from Steven Weissman

• Also from Steven, more sketchbook

• I'm partial to Debbie Drechsler's birds

• Noah Van Sciver keeps working on his book

• Steve Brodner's take on Sen. James Inhofe (R, Okla.)

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Plug: "Wally Gropius, Tim Hensley’s debut 'graphic novel' (still not comfortable enough with that term to remove the quotes) is my favorite book of the year by a wide margin. What looks like a European reprint of a mid-1960s hybrid of Archie and Richie Rich is upon closer inspection a brilliant, hilarious, deeply complex and wholly original work that rewards a fifteenth reading as much as a first. The story—the adventures of a lovesick teenage millionaire (no relation [I think] to the Bauhaus founder)—is told in language both verbal and visual that feels entirely without precedent, yet the book has a potent, jarring familiarity, as though Hensley has found his way into a profound well of our collective unconscious." – Daniel Clowes at The Daily Beast

• Guide: Robot 6 's Chris Mautner gives an introductory "Comics College" overview to the work of Harvey Kurtzman

Via our pal Donna Barr comes word that Roberta Gregory, beloved creator of Bitchy Bitch, has a new website where you can check out her strips, read her blog, get updates on her current projects and find out how to get her new book, Follow Your Art: Roberta's Comic Trips.

Daily clips & strips -- click for improved/additional viewing at the sources:

• Wired.com presents a new 2-page Usagi Yojimbo story by Stan Sakai (via The Comics Reporter)

• Ted Stearn drew Tim Hensley some Wally Gropius fan art

• This week's "I, Anonymous" spot by Steven Weissman

• Also from Steven, sketchbook pages (including this week's Barack Hussein Obama)

• Frank Santoro presents all the process elements of this finished Cold Heat page

• Scene shift! It's this week's Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane

• It's Paul Hornschemeier's new weekly t-shirt design for his Forlorn Funnies Shirt Shop and it's a classic

• Josh Simmons hits the cute/sinister bullseye again, on his & Wendy Chin's Quackers blog

• Also from Josh, this

• Kevin Huizenga's Rumbling continues at What Things Do

• Also from Kevin, a 4-panel excerpt, or strip, or something

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Interview: In an audio interview originally broadcast on Resonance FM and now archived at Panel Borders for streaming or download, "Alex Fitch talks to Steffen P. Maarup about the collection of Danish comics he’s edited and translated into English: From Wonderland with Love – Danish Comics in the Third Millennium, an anthology that surveys the current comics scene in Denmark and collects creators from outside the world of comics also, including illustrators and fine artists alongside their sequential art peers. Alex and Steffen also talk about the wider world of Danish comics, including Danes who have found work on American titles and the controversy over the dozen cartoon illustrations printed in the Jyllands-Posten (Jutland Post) which led to death threats for the creators." (via The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log)

"The Ruined Cast" / Dash Shaw - demo teaser from Howard Gertler on Vimeo.

Via indieWIRE comes this first look at the demo teaser for Dash Shaw's in-development animated feature film The Ruined Cast. Frank Santoro is helping out and I can totally see his drawing in there. indieWIRE has the full scoop on the film (which is still gathering financing and projected to be finished in Fall 2011) from Dash and producer John Cameron Mitchell.

This looks good — a comics reading featuring Ben Catmull & Renee French from the Fantagraphics stable alongside 4 other well-respected indie-comickers: Trevor Alixopulos, Rina Ayuyang, Josh Frankek & Lark Pien. Tomorrow evening, at Pegasus Books in Berkeley. Via Ben's blog.

Daily clips & strips -- click for improved/additional viewing at the sources:

• More juvenilia from Bob Fingerman

• Another lithograph by John Hankiewicz

• Nice fledgling bird sketches by Debbie Drechsler

• Stinckers by Steven Weissman & co. are now available at Big Brain Comics in Minneapolis

• This week's Truth Serum by Jon Adams

• T. Edward Bak's Steller Sea Lion linocut/letterpress print (part of his research expedition fundraising effort)

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "In reviewing Jaime Hernandez's Penny Century, I could point to the frenetic pace of many of the stories; the cute, odd, and endearing sort of strangeness spawned in this lightly magical universe; or even the beautiful art, which is truly the mark of this master cartoonist. But, no, I am going to hype the very first story, 'Whoa Nellie,' beyond anything else in this fantastic volume. ... Such a wonderful, and grounded, story is a nice start-off point for the still compelling, yet far stranger and sexier, tales that follow. Soup to nuts, this is a great book." – Jeremy Nisen, Under the Radar

• Reviews: The new episode of Easy Rider, the radio show for "rock, punk rock, country, power pop, garage and comics" from Radio PFM out of Arras in northern France, features High Soft Lisp by Gilbert Hernandez and Penny Century by Jaime Hernandez among their Comics of the Week

• Reviews: In comics form, Every Day Is Like Wednesday's J. Caleb Mozzocco documents a friend's reactions to Dungeon Quest Book 1 by Joe Daly, High Soft Lisp by Gilbert Hernandez, and Wally Gropius by Tim Hensley

• Review: "R. Kikuo Johnson's debut graphic novel, Night Fisher, is a compelling yet unsentimental coming of age story. It’s a portrait of awkward adolescence on the cusp of adulthood illustrated with the darker, more realistic tones of teenage life. Night Fisher is filled with bold artwork, psychological intricacies, and mature depictions of immature actions. ... R. Kikuo Johnson has proven himself as a masterful storyteller in his first graphic novel." – Steve Ponzo, Multiversity Comics (via ¡Journalista!)

• Interview: The Los Angeles Times' Noelene Clark questions Tim Hensley about Wally Gropius: "I did grow up in sort of a show business family, so I was continually in an environment of going places where a lot of people were famous, and I was sort of tagging along. I had the idea of somebody who is continually mistaken for someone really famous, but actually has nothing to do with that."

• Interview: The Daily Cross Hatch's Brian Heater continues his conversation with Gene Deitch: "Terr’ble Thompson was a style I adapted for that comics strip. I wanted something that looked like a comic strip, was a little ahead—something that had the UPA influence. ... Of course, if you’ve seen my other book, The Cat on a Hot Tin Groove, my jazz cartoons, that’s a completely different style. I’m used to working in all different styles. I don’t want people to say, 'this is in Gene Deitch’s style.' I want to do everything."

• Interview: At Unabashedly Bookish: The Barnes & Noble Community Blog, Jill Dearman chats with Derek Van Gieson: "I don't sit down with an idea and hack away, I need a trigger, something that sets my brain loose to just improvise and create on the spot."

• Plug: The Casual Optimist spotlights Jacob Covey's design for What Is All This? by Stephen Dixon

• Plugs: Graphic Novel Reporter names just about every one of our Summer releases as among "The Hottest Graphic Novels of Summer 2010"

• Reviewer: At Comics Comics, Dash Shaw examines The Anime Machine by Thomas Lamarre