Online Commentary & Diversions returns after a post-APE hiatus and subsequent sick day:

• Review: "Good Jaime Hernandez comics are always just about the most satisfying books that money can buy, and I was so impressed with how the pleasure of seeing contemporary Maggie again for the first time in far too long [in Love and Rockets: New Stories #3] gave way to the satisfaction of seeing another building block in her curious history, and then everything turned unpleasant in a way that was equally bleak and fascinating. Watching Jaime fit everything together the way he does is breathtaking. Recommended for adult readers." – Grant Goggans, The Hipster Dad's Bookshelf

• Review: It's still "Love and Rocktober" at Sean T. Collins's Attentiondeficitdisorderly: "If Ghost of Hoppers was Maggie's confrontation with adulthood, The Education of Hopey Glass serves up the equivalent for Hopey and Ray. It's fascinating to me to see where their lives have taken them versus where they were — and more importantly, what they represented to Maggie — when they were first juxtaposed. [...] What makes these two stories compelling and connects them to one another beyond the basic idea of the characters coming to terms with their age is how much the stories rely on the kinds of things only an artist of Jaime's caliber can pull off for their telling."

• Review: "Man’s oldest gynophobic horrors and most simplistic delight in sheer physical dominance are savagely delineated in this primitive, appalling, cathartic and blackly funny campaign of cartoon horror. Resplendent, triumphant juvenilia is adroitly shoved beyond all ethical limits into the darkest depths of absurdist comedy. Not for children, the faint-hearted or weak-stomached, [Prison Pit Book 2] is another non-stop rollercoaster of extreme violence, profanity and cartoon shock and awe at its most visceral and compelling. ...[T]his book is all-out over the top and flat out hilarious. Buy and see if you’re broad-minded, fundamentally honest and purely in need of ultra-adult silliness." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Plug: "...Johnny Ryan’s Prison Pit Book 2... is the funniest shit I’ve read in years." – Sean Witzke, Robot 6

• Review: "Bitter, haunting stories [by Zak Sally] like 'The Man Who Killed Wally Wood' and 'The War Back Home' show a striking willingness to ask uncomfortable questions about himself and the world around him. His account of Dostoyevsky’s time in prison is a real highlight and I think marks a turning point in his storytelling ability. And the fearless, self-lacerating essay he provides at the end brings the book to a near-perfect close. Really, [Like a Dog] is a tight little collection." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Review: "There’s fourteen stories in all in this anthology, beautifully scanned, restored, and reproduced in all their four-color glory. [...] There’s a lot of fun to be had in these pages. [...] Boody properly showcases a sizeable enough collection of complete comics stories by the wildman inkslinger from Texas, finally elevating Rogers into the pantheon he’s always been part of — if only enough folks had been able to access his work. At last, they can!" – Steve Bissette, The Schulz Library Blog

• Review: "The publication of Rebel Visions was a vital riposte to [a] tide of apathy, a vast and authoritative work built for the clear purpose of documenting the entire history of the US underground revolution in a definitive fashion: a not inconsiderable task given the various tributaries that have spewed forth since the early 1960s. [...] Rosenkranz diligently weaves a number of divergent themes using the oral histories of most of the major participants." – Kevin McCaighy, Exquisite Things (via ¡Journalista!)

• Interview: Kat Engh of Geek Girl on the Street chatted with Megan Kelso at APE over the weekend: "I like writing and movies and music and art forms that are about more than one thing. I’m really fascinated by that, and I think that comics really lend themselves to that kind of layering and layers in conflict, because you’ve literally got two tracks of information with pictures and words, and because they’re so separate from each other, they lend themselves to doing different things at the same time. I’ve always thought that if a comic’s not doing more than one thing, it’s not taking advantage of what is, so yeah, I’d say I actively strive for that."

• Interview: At Comic Book Resources, Chris Mautner talks to Fire & Water author Blake Bell at length about Bill Everett — "I think Everett is as unique a stylist as Ditko is. When you see Everett's work, you automatically know who it is if you have any inkling about any of the Silver or Golden Age artists. Secondly, in his own way he's as influential as Ditko. Without question, Everett created the antihero in superhero comics back in 1939 when he introduced the Sub-Mariner. There was no other comic book character like him." — and upcoming volumes of The Steve Ditko Archives.

• Interview: It's the second part of Brian Heater's conversation with Drew Weing at The Daily Cross Hatch: "It’s such a weird time where so much stuff is available online, though I went out of my way to make the book a nice little object. And I feel like it does read better in book form, because it’s a format that you can more lovingly pore over the detail."

• Interview: At Gapers Block, Rose Lannin talks to Jeremy Tinder, who makes his Fantagraphics debut in Mome Vol. 20. This quote is relevant to the Mome story: "I grew up reading newspaper strips, like Garfield. I think it was around age 5 when I really started getting into Garfield and tracing it out of the paper every day. [...] Garfield was my focus in life for six years, I was so into it."

• Coming Attractions: Bleeding Cool's Rich Johnston reports here that "...[I]t seems that Fantagraphics, as part of their current attemp to to translate every French comic book in existence, has seized upon [David B.'s] book, Le Jardin armé et autres histoires or The Armed Garden and are to publish it in August next year," and here about our translation of Tardi & Manchette's Like a Sniper Lining Up His Shot, "...planned for August next year. Which, in terms of European-to-American translation is light speed."

The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log calls these Converse Chuck Taylors featuring Charlie "Chuck" Brown "an absolute abomination" — me, I want a pair. (Too bad they're only available from trendy French shop Colette [warning: autoplaying music at site] and cost €240.)

Here's a nice shot of Frank Santoro and Kevin Huizenga at the Pittsburgh Indy Comics Expo (PIX) this past weekend, from Jessica Heberle of Uncovered Space. (Via The Beat.) My own photos from APE are on their way.

We're painfully overdue for a new "Things to See" post, but in the meantime, holy moly, soak in Eleanor Davis's incredible new sketch blog We Be Ouija.

Jim Woodring is tracking the progress of his giant nib pen project at the United States Artists Project Site; in this post, follow along as he develops the working prototype.

Courtesy of Kristy Valenti, lead copyeditor for Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film, some highlights of the book's editorial style guide:

video game titles in quotation marks

afterschool special

blond for both sexes, unless is a noun for a female (the blonde kicked the monster, she has a blond mohawk, his liberty spikes are blond).

blow-dried

boombox

buzzcut

chrissakes not christ's sakes

’dos

drug runner but gunrunner

eyeshadow

facepaint, facepainted

"fairytale"

shitstorm (1 word, no hyphen)

Daniel Clowes provides cover illustrations (and, presumably, yet-to-be-revealed interior art) for two upcoming (early 2011) Criterion Collection releases: The Naked Kiss and Shock Corridor, both directed by Samuel Fuller. (Via Chris Mautner.)

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "The Sanctuary is a powerful story, telling of the timeless conflict between learning and ignorance.  Nate Neal provides readers with an insightful look at the tension in a community when the balance is challenged by new thinking.  In short, The Sanctuary is a very promising debut, and probably one of the best new comics of the year." – Michael C. Lorah, Newsarama

• Review: "In Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s, editors John Benson and Greg Sadowski and publisher Fantagraphics drive a stake into the notion that EC was the only game in town. [...] There are enough goofy and ghoulish vignettes to satisfy the most bloodthirsty readers... I spent several evenings skipping through the book and reading stories that happened to catch my eye (and drag it down the hall, yuck, yuck), and I was impressed by the economics of storytelling. [...] It’s such a packed package that it may very well last through next October, unless rightfully gobbled up after midnight, long after the trick-or-treaters have retreated to their safe havens. Thankfully, these zombies of old can now lurk atop bedside tables and in four color — the next bite only a page away." – Alex Carr, Omnivoracious

• Review: "A movie guide should make you want to watch movies, and none has ever made me want to watch as many as Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film. [...] In addition to being wildly informative, the writing is entertaining as all hell. All of the contributors are knowledgeable and enthusiastic about their topic. This is the kind of book that you’ll keep on your coffee table and pick up for a few minutes here and there, and every time you do, you’ll find something amazing. [...] Destroy All Movies!!! is as hyperactive, eclectic, and punk rock as the films it commemorates. [...] But even as spastic and irreverent as it can be, this is also a serious, respectful examination of an overlooked piece of film culture. [...] BUY THIS BOOK. You won’t regret it." – Brent McKnight, BeyondHollywood.com

• Plug: "For the budding or seasoned cult movie fan in your life, Destroy All Movies!!! by Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly is the picture perfect present." – Tara O'Donnell, living read girl

• Review: Sean T. Collins's "Love and Rocktober" series at Attentiondeficitdisorderly rolls on with Ghost of Hoppers: "Jaime Hernandez has long displayed an infrequently utilized but alarming alacrity for horror. [...] At first I struggled with why Jaime would choose this particular storyline--Maggie Realizes She's All Grown Up, basically--to delve deeper than ever into this aspect of the Locas world. I mean, this thing becomes a horror comic toward the end, easily the most sustained such work in the whole Locas oeuvre. What does any of it have to do with the misadventures of Maggie, the story's protagonist? But then it clicked..."

Jeezum crow! Colin Batty's fully-modeled renderings of some of Basil Wolverton's most infamous cartoon grotesques add a whole new dimension of GYAAAAH. Believe me, the one above is one of the least horrifying. (Via Bleeding Cool.)