Your daily dose of Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Maybe it’s because blood and brain matter look somewhat more disturbing in the chunky, primitive black and white favored by famed French cartoonist Tardi, but there’s something particularly creepy about his adaptation of the late Manchette’s crime novel [West Coast Blues] that wouldn’t have been well served by color. ... Manchette’s plot is pure pulp, with a driving engine for a plot and a Lee Marvin-like inclination toward swift and unreflective action. Tardi’s art delivers the action with admirable punch and attitude to spare." – Publishers Weekly

• Review: "Rock Candy is a wonderful book. [Femke] Hiemstra's work is a tribute to folk tales and surreal nightmares. It could not be better portrayed than how designer Jacob Covey of Fantagraphics has done it. This compact book, in style with Hiemstra's art, depicts her imaginative work in a playful way. Sketches, examples and inspirations then give a look behind the scenes how Hiemstra's childhood dreams and nightmares are established. An absolute must!" – Cadoc.nl (translated from Dutch)

• Plugs: At Robot 6, Sean T. Collins runs down his SPX haul, including a bunch of our Ignatz Series titles

• (Wild) Things to see: Vice magazine has a series of strips they commissioned to tie in with the Where the Wild Things Are movie by some of our favorite cartoonists selected by Johnny Ryan; Josh Simmons contributed this strip and reveals a different one that was rejected (for PG-13 gore)

• Things to see: Peanuts parody from Roger Langridge

• Things to see and buy: Via email from C. Tyler: a rare original Justin Green comics page on eBay

We just wrapped up our listings for the November issue of Previews, for our releases scheduled for January 2010. The issue's not even printed yet, but we've already posted the listings over in our News section! Get the details on King of the Flies Vol. 1: Hallorave by Pirus & Mezzo, the new volumes of our Mome and Hotwire Comics anthologies, the second volume of Unlovable by Esther Pearl Watson, and our collection of out-of-print Jason stories, Almost Silent! Follow Fantagraphics as we forge ahead into the second decade of the 2000s!

Dan Clowes contributes one part of a three-part cover for the new issue of The New Yorker, with a video explanation wherein the artists and art director Françoise Mouly discuss the concept:

And Jaime Hernandez has an illustration inside (via The Beat):

Lots of Online Commentary & Diversions today:

• Review: "The graphic novel, it turns out, is a form especially well-suited to the noir genre. Maybe this isn’t surprising — comics have always run the gamut of moods from goofy to autobiographical to just plain smutty. But it still gives a shiver of pleasure to stumble upon a graphic novel that captures the hardboiled tone of classic noir as perfectly as West Coast Blues, Jacques Tardi’s adaptation of a 1976 crime novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette. ... The plot includes bursts of bruality, dark realizations, alluring women and grizzled observations from its antihero — all the best conventions of noir, in other words, preserved and reborn in a fresh new medium. File it next to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler." – Molly Young, We Love You So

• Review: "...[West Coast Blues is] a well-crafted piece of genre entertainment. I dug it." – Sandy Bilus, I Love Rob Liefeld

• Review: "I had a significant crush on The Death Of Speedy Ortiz the summer I was 20 years old, reading and re-reading the serialized story with a passion I had never brought to a single comic story before then. ... I thought it was wonderful that summer I read it 10,000 times, and I remain convinced it's a special story every time I've picked it up since." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

• Review: "One of the many, many things I like about Kevin Huizenga's work is that a lot of his comics are about things that are not likely candidates for visual representation, and he manages to make them fascinating to look at anyway. Most of [Ganges #3] is about the process of perceiving one's own consciousness--the sort of hyperconsciousness of your own mind that happens when you're trying to get to sleep and can't--which is potentially the least interesting thing anybody could draw. And it looks fantastic..." – Douglas Wolk, The Savage Critics

• Review: "[Prince Valiant Vol. 1: 1937-1938] is gorgeous. ... [Hal] Foster is frequently cited as an influence on other great cartoonists, and part of it is his precise line and the way he builds a convincing world from authentic architecture, clothing and armaments. That's part of the appeal, but Foster also excels at staging. ... Unlike daily strip collections, the full, weekly Prince Valiant page ends up a brisk, headlong read... Prince Valiant is something I picked up expecting to admire. I had no idea I would love it. – Christopher Allen, Comic Book Galaxy

• Review: "Although far from all the artists represented in the new anthology From Wonderland with Love are so experimental with form and content that you must ask yourself if this can really still be termed comics, it is truly the cream of the crop who are assembled here. This collection offers a great perspective on how broad and versatile the talent pool is in Denmark." – Torben Rølmer Bille, Kulturkapellet (translated from Danish)

• Review: "Charles M. Schulz is my favorite cartoonist, so I was excited to see that the 12th volume in the [Complete Peanuts] series has an introduction by the legendary Billie Jean King... This is a important series of books which I give an ‘A Plus’ and I think it would be the ultimate part of a Peanuts fan’s collection!" – The Catgirl Critics' Media Mewsings

• Interview: At Largehearted Boy, author Jami Attenberg talks to Ellen Forney, saying "This mixture of openness and strength makes her work... extremely powerful and relatable, and probably very necessary for your bookshelf." From Ellen: "Sometimes I have to reflect and remind myself that I do have many more skills and more experience in my repertoire at this point, and to appreciate that the challenges don't freak me out so much. Still, some challenges are exhilarating and some are a pain in the ass."

• Commentary: At Comics Comics, Dash Shaw comments on and posts a transcript of a panel he was on at TCAF earlier this year

• Things to see: Coffee shop sketchbookery by Robert Goodin

• Things to see and buy: Puzzle paintings by Tim Hensley for sale via Buenaventura. I got one of an earlier edition from Tim at Comic-Con for a steal and it is a glorious thing

• Things to see and buy: The 2010 Jim Flora calendars are in

• Tunes: At Stereogum, "How Wrong You Are," the new song and video from Robert Pollard's Boston Spaceships

Johnny did a bunch of illustrations for an October Cinefamily flyer. It was hard picking one to feature here. One word of advice for Johnny: t-shirts.

It's my pleasure to share the following announcement from C. Tyler:

Hello Friends!

Two things this Fall:

Saturday, October 17 from 10 - 4 come see me at the Duke Energy Center in downtown Cincinnati. "Books By the Banks" is the name of the event and I will be there signing my newest book You'll Never Know.

Miami International Book Fair , November 8 - 15. I'll be signing all weekend as part of the "Comix Galaxy" and on Friday afternoon giving a talk to education professionals: "What's So Funny About Teaching Comics." I will be hauling all those corny thrift store props that I use to jump start creativity in my classroom at UC's DAAP down to sunny Fla. (Including "The Motivator" and "The Lamp of Inspiration". This year's new additions: action items like a 1960s world globe that lights up/spins and a mechanical hamster running like hell on a wheel.) I hope the talk goes over with this crowd (!). Regardless, I can't wait to put my toes in the ocean.

Book II: Collateral Damage is due out this time next year (Fall 2010), so stay tuned!

Pressure Printing has announced a new limited-edition print titled "Haniwa" from Rock Candy artist Femke Hiemstra. Go to their blog for more info and lots and lots of photos, from art in progress to print in progress to finished product.

Peter Bagge sends along the following message:

"Attention all Twin-Cities freaks & geeks: I'll be attending this up-coming FallCon, held at the Minnesota Fairgrounds between Mpls and St. Paul this upcoming weekend.  So please feel free to show up and spend all your hard-earned money on my useless crap!  Hope to see you there!"

http://midwestcomicbook.com/

It's crazy Friday nite webcomics synchronicity — two of this week's strips feature diet tips!

Blecky's been picking hers up from Southeast Asian folktales in this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan....

...while Chubby takes a traditional American approach in this week's strip from Steven Weissman's Chocolate Cheeks, the next collection of the Yikes! gang's adventures...

...and we break with the theme with a trip to Norway and more deep thinking in our Monday-Friday Rocky strips by Martin Kellerman. Enjoy!

Friday Online Commentary & Diversions fun:

• Quote of the week: "Right at the outset of the show, the con's lasting image was burned in my brain: Kim Thompson and Gary Groth carrying a wooden palette piled high with empty boxes to the exit door by our table. They weren't fucking around. No interns, no 'assistants.' Now that's what I call, 'Keeping it Real'." – from Frank Santoro's SPX report at Comics Comics

• Review: "I've gone on record several times here saying how much I love [Jaime Hernandez's] Ti-Girls saga [in Love and Rockets: New Stories] and how it seems to 'get' the superhero genre in ways that the Big Two just don't seem to anymore. All that holds true here [in issue #2] and more, with a wonderful, fitting ending for our heroines. I wonder what he'll do for an encore." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Review: "...[M]oreso than any continuing comic I can think of, Ganges places maximum emphasis on how events don't matter so much in a life as how they're processed, by means ranging from simple moment-to-moment experience to fleeting reflections on whole segments of a guy's youth gone by. ... Literalization of funnybook iconography powers the book's wit -- I mean, word balloons that literally float, ok? -- but it's how Huizenga builds on these ideas that matters, stacking images of thought streams and leaping licks of heartburn and disembodied heads with eyes closed to convey the enormity of a night passing, of conscious thought retreating, like a terrible shift in life itself. ... Totally assured work, supremely technical so as to address the personal. Kevin Huizenga is this reading generation's Chris Ware, and his work cannot be ignored." – Joe McCulloch, Jog - The Blog

• Plug: "...[Mome Vol. 16] verily brims with Renée French, Archer Prewitt, T. Edward Bak, Dash Shaw and new Fuzz & Pluck from Ted Stearn. And it includes two exclusive Cold Heat stories..." – Joe McCulloch, Jog - The Blog (same link as above)

• Things to see: Tim Lane continues to pay bills and give thrills, this time with his poster for the St. Louis International Film Festival

• Math: Their heart's in the right place, but the Lehigh Valley Express-Times jumps the gun by a year on the 60th anniversary of Peanuts

• Separated at birth: Eric Reynolds and Cannonball?