Your must-read link of the day: at Comics Comics, Jeet Heer presents a scan of a 1972 Washington Post profile of 17-year-old Gary Groth. Plus ça change: Gary still types with two fingers, and still forgets to close the door. (Also: evidence that the cliché of using sound effects in comics-story headlines dates back at least 37 years.)

Left: Ajax Wood IS Ardent Vein IS Cannibal Fuckface. Right: man of the hour Johnny Ryan. Saturday night will definitely go down as one of the most memorable events in the history of Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery thanks to Ardent Vein's incredible performance/reading of Chapter 1 of Johnny's Prison Pit Book 1. If you weren't one of the lucky people who witnessed it in person, behold, we've put it on YouTube in two parts!

Lots more photos in our Flickr set here.

Fifty years ago today Gene Deitch arrived in Prague for a "temporary" gig that stretched into five decades (thanks to the intervention of true love). The English-language weekly The Prague Post caught up with Gene this week to get the story as the anniversary approached. (Photo: Walter Novak/The Prague Post)

We're burning the midnight oil to bring you your weekly webcomics update!

Jesus H. Christ! It's this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan....

...Elzie Crisler meets Rattledog in this week's strip from Steven Weissman's Chocolate Cheeks, the next collection of the Yikes! gang's adventures...

...and more million dollar ideas, plus a trip to the comic shop, in our Monday-Friday Rocky strips by Martin Kellerman. Enjoy!

Late nite link blogging for your Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "You wanna talk about a gateway comic? How 'bout handing this sucker [Ganges #3] to anyone who's ever had trouble falling asleep? The whole thing is dedicated to nothing more or less than reproducing the mental and physical sensations of insomnia. Ironically it's Huizenga's most action-driven comic this side of Fight or Run or the video-game bits in Ganges #2. ... Combine it with one of the most effective uses yet of the Ignatz series' two-tone color palette--here a cool small-hours blue--and the experience is almost tactile, as though you're physically tunneling through the mysteries of your own mind." – Sean T. Collins [ed. note: I swear I'll have the issue up for presale on the website next week]

• Review: "No one is safe in Al Columbia’s world. Not the kittens (they get decapitated) nor the children (they get baked into pies) nor the bunnies (they carry scythes). Correspondingly, no one is innocent. Grandmothers are evil, grandfathers are greedy, and trees grow baby heads instead of apples and oranges. What a wonderful world it is. That’s not an entirely ironic evaluation of Pim & Francie, a collection of sketches, strips, stills and other valuable ephemera from the mind of Columbia (creator of the 1990s cult classic Biologic Show). The twisted narratives and characters are presented so deftly — with such humor and visual panache — that their wrongness becomes right; and thus is the singular charm of Al Columbia." – Molly Young, We Love You So

• Review/Profile: "Earlier this year, Fantagraphics gave readers the opportunity to encounter [Harvey] Kurtzman’s creative energy in complete form by reissuing a boxed collection of Humbug, his short-lived but monumental periodical that began publication in summer of 1957. It’s Humbug that functions as the spiritual father for magazines such as National Lampoon, Spy and The Onion, among many others, but there’s something invigorating about it because of its vantage point in the supposedly stodgy and bland 1950s. Coming out of that decade, Humbug really did break new ground." – John Mitchell, North Adams Transcript

• Review: "Even though Woodstock casts a large shadow on the cover of Fantagraphics’ The Complete Peanuts 1973-1974, it’s Peppermint Patty who should get star billing. Not to take anything away from Snoopy’s yellow-feathered avian sidekick – who does make several appearances through the hardcover tome – it’s just that Patty eventually gets the brunt of character development attention, while Woodstock exists as the perfect foil for Snoopy. ... Also of note is Schulz’s repeated use of standard gags (Lucy pulling the football from Charlie) along with a few new ones, including the consoling 'Poor, sweet baby.' Because of his tendency to keep running gags contained within a year’s span, it makes a trade collection work better than with most comic strips." – Christopher Irving, Graphic NYC

• Review: "What quickly becomes clear is that the graphic novel is a particularly apt form for inhabiting unconventional characters, and very few do this as well as The Squirrel Machine. Wielded skilfully, images are as expressive as words, and occasionally more so. Rickheit's drawings convey the boys' tortured feelings of persecution, elation and curiosity — as well as their uncouth creative urges — in a succinct and often gruesome way. Rickheit's frames vary from the cluttered to the stark, and his ability to pack detail into four square inches is rivalled only by his ingenious use of white space. ...The Squirrel Machine convinces anew that a picture is worth a thousand words." – Molly Young, Intelligent Life

• Interview: For Marvel.com, Sean T. Collins talks to Strange Tales contributor Tony Millionaire: "Just as you called, I was reading an old collection of THOR... It's funny: 'I say thee nay'? I didn't realize that was such a popular phrase."

• Interview: Peter Bagge recently appeared on The Marketplace of Ideas, a radio program hosted by Colin Marshall on KCSB 91.9 in Santa Barbara, California, to discuss Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me — you can stream or download the podcast of the program at Marshall's website (if it's not on the front page anymore, check the archive page)

• Plug: "I've recently enjoyed reading Prison Pit by Johnny Ryan... and The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book by Joe Daly." – Eric Haven (The Aviatrix), interviewed at Pixel Vision

• Things to see: KEVIN HUIZENGA PRISON PIT FAN ART (yes I'm shouting)

In a must-listen interview, Robin McConnell of the Inkstuds radio programme talks to our very own Kim Thompson about editing, translating, and publishing the works of Jacques Tardi in North America.

Exciting news here... Our own Peter Bagge has a development deal with FOX for THE BRADLEYS and the network has just ordered a pilot. The only details we can reveal just yet are that Bagge has a pilot script deal with FOX for an animated prime time series featuring The Bradleys (i.e.: the pre-HATE era when Buddy Bradley was a teen and still lived at home). We'll reveal more news when we can... 

Who do you think should voice Buddy, Babs, Butch, Mom & Dad? 

Emily Holt of the Seattle University Spectator introduces the school's newest faculty member: Peter Bagge, who will break out the leather elbow patches to teach a course on writing for comics this winter. Also revealed: Pete's newest comics project, a series of bio-comics about "independent and influential women from the early 20th century." Classic Pete quote: "I’ve never taught a whole college course before. I hope it works out, because my eyesight is starting to fail." (Photo: Clara Ganey, The Spectator)

This is the shortest Online Commentary & Diversions update in recent memory, and it's 100% old school:

• Interview: Harry Lee Green at Hairy Green Eyeball reproduces a vintage 1973 interview with Robert Crumb from Inside Comics #1

• Plug: A bit more Love and Rockets nostalgia from Mike Sterling — I love those panels too (who wouldn't?)