Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "I've been enjoying cartoonist Peter Bagge's contributions to Reason Magazine for years now... But now Fantagraphics has collected them into a great-looking trade paperback [Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me]!... I think Bagge has been doing really interesting work, mixing field journalism with humor and opinion in an entirely novel way. As an essayist Bagge is never preachy, and he often points out the shortcomings of his fellow libertarians (his account of meeting Ron Paul is particularly funny). He explores more than he rants, and when he does let loose, he's got a healthy sense of self-satire. These comics will piss you off, and that's good." – Jesse Brown, Boing Boing

• Review: "Drawn with sweeping black brush strokes, [Night Fisher] is done completely in absence of color. This, however, helps to magnify the tone of the story and brings a subtle heaviness to the work. The artwork itself is excellent.... [R. Kikuo] Johnson does a great job conveying character’s moods and emotions through angles, posture, and facial expressions. ...[I]f you enjoy these realistic and unapologetic looks at adolescence I recommend giving Night Fisher a read." – A. Alba, Hawaii Book Blog

• Review: "Abstract Comics, perhaps more so than any other recent comic release, highlights the way in which the comics world is markedly changing. Comics are indeed reaching across more disparate audiences and being found in a much wider selection of venues. But what might be the implications of this?... If nothing else, it seems that Abstract Comics makes explicit that the line between comics and high art is beginning to disappear.... Abstract Comics is a necessary addition to the comics canon in that it forces us to continue to think what exactly constitutes the comics form." – Sara Cole, PopMatters

• Things to see: New sketchbook drawings & comics from Anders Nilsen

On his blog, Paul Hornschemeier presents some teasers from his Mome swan song, the final chapter of his "Life with Mr. Dangerous" serial, which will appear in the forthcoming 17th volume of the anthology. And look, there's the cover, also by Paul!

With all of our event announcements today this Online Commentary & Diversions update is blissfully short:

• Review: "Jason’s books are entirely plot-driven, yet delivered with a dry, morose humor that gives the narrative an offbeat tone. Coupled with his ear for snappy dialogue, Jason’s plots become surprising romps that mash up divergent adventure clichés.... All told, Jason’s books, including The Last Musketeer, are pure escapist fun romps.... I’ll be looking for more of Jason’s comics, and hopefully more readers will also check his stuff out." - Michael C. Lorah, Newsarama

• Review: "...I was expecting something offbeat and madcap (and certainly wasn't disappointed in that regard), but I was also surprised by just how emotional Jason was able to make a story about an Anthro-dog murder society and time travelling hitmen. Yeah, the entire thing is patently absurd on every level - self-consciously and humorously so - but it's also a story about the impermanence of rage and the importance of forgiveness, alongside what a goddamn twat Adolf Hitler can be when all you want to do is shoot the bastard.... [I Killed Adolf Hitler] is a quick read and very rewarding, and something I imagine I'll come back to from time to time for a while. Smart, funny and surprisingly poignant, this was VERY GOOD." - David Uzumeri, The Savage Critics

• Plugs: The Gosh! Comics Blog talks up West Coast Blues and Love and Rockets: New Stories #2

• Events: On the Abstract Comics blog, anthology contributor Richard Hahn reports from the Abstract Comics signing at Jim Hanley's Universe and the Silent Pictures exhibit at CUNY

Onward with Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Reviews: "Locas ll collects a huge amount of comics featuring a more mature Maggie, finding and losing romance with people like Ray (one part Chandler victim, another part mod hobo), 'Frogmouth' (painfully sexy but achingly annoying), and reunions with Hopey and others in a strange relational ballet set in SW America. It’s a weird, flat plain of bizarre sex and twisted circumstance that would be the first collection of comics I would recommend for any adult wanting to get a handle on the aesthetics of the art form since it became culturally relevant to do so.... Meanwhile, Fantagraphics has also just put out a new issue of the Comics Journal #299, which has an incredible narrative by lawyer-outsider art-underground advocate Bob Levin... Levin is the writer of several books on the struggle of comics and the counter-culture and transgressive fringes, and because of him #299 of TCJ is THE book about comic art to buy this year.... Mome... is the current multi-artist series that has critics in the comics world and outside of it regularly amped.... The last few issues of Mome have really hit a hot-run of quality, and though some stories are more straightforward and others are expressionistic, all the art is always sweet." - Chris Estey, KEXP

• Review: "Comics journalism is mostly an oxymoron, but The Comics Journal, on the eve of its 300th issue, is a scholarly, intellectual publication.... [F]or intelligent discussion of current and past graphic storytelling and its creators (the current issue features an incredible story of an ahead-of-its-time genre-spanning anthology from the seventies that was never published), this is indeed an oasis of comics journalism." - Richard Pachter, The Miami Herald

• Review: "...[A]wesome to behold.... When life and love, of a sort, finally do reassert themselves at [The Squirrel Machine]'s end, it's horrifying and drawn in a fashion that makes it look less like a natural thing and more like a terrible apparition, or a special effect." - Sean T. Collins

• Things to see: Johnny Ryan's latest strip for Vice: a scene you didn't see in Caddyshack

• Things to see: On the Covered blog, Robert Goodin takes on a recent BD by Ludovic Debuerme

• Things to see (& buy): Andrice Arp's Japanese mythology paintings from Mome Vol. 15 are on display and for sale at Bad Apple in Portland

Your Online Commentary & Diversions for today:

• Review: "With The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book, [Joe] Daly maintains some of the psychedelic trappings of his earlier stories but puts them within a framework of stoner noir (ala the film Pineapple Express) buddy story, only with Big Lebowski-style absurdity. However, the book can't really be reduced to familiar genre markers all that easily, and [a] firm, eccentric sense of place is the biggest reason why it works." - Rob Clough

• Review: "Needless to say, one could study the art found within Abstract Comics: The Anthology (published by Fantagraphics Books) for months, or one could flip through the entire thing in five minutes, and the conclusions one could draw from either experience of the volume could easily be justified as informed and insightful." - Alan David Doane, Comic Book Galaxy

• Review: "[Prince Valiant] creator Hal Foster is justly hailed for his stupendous full-pagers, full of panorama and carefully-researched settings.... We moderns are fortunate that  superb reprint editions of these classics are readily available..." - Brenda Clough, Book View Cafe Blog

• Review: "I love [Richard Sala's] older work and newer work alike - the evolution of Sala's inky, angular charmers is a treat to see - and [Delphine] (a retelling of Snow White) has been such a wonderful foreboding wander through the twisty, turn-y, dark forest." - Emily Martin, Inside a Black Apple

• Plug: "This week I started reading Prison Pit Vol. 1 and ... I ... it ... um ... the thing is ... it's .... wow." - Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Analysis: Blog Flume's Ken Parille on Tim Hensley: "I can’t think of another cartoonist who approaches space -- and what we might call 'spatial color' -- in such a rigorously strange way."

• Interview: At The Daily Cross Hatch, part 3 of 4 of their interview with Hans Rickheit: "I can’t work from a script. If the book were really tightly scripted, I promise you I’d lose interest in it, and I might force myself to draw it, but the artwork would just become a lifeless thing. The book would suffer dramatically."

• Things to see: Baby vs. kangaroo and other absurdity from Tim Lane

We got a new camera! Presenting video/photo preview slideshows of:

Like a Dog by Zak Sally (open slideshow in new window):

Mome Vol. 16 - Fall 2009 by various artists (open slideshow in new window):

You Are There by Jacques Tardi & Jean-Claude Forest (open slideshow in new window):

We've got a big backlog of recent releases that still need the photo/video treatment, and we'll be filling those in in the coming days if all goes well.

From Debbie Drechsler comes word of her newly updated website, which now includes an online shop where you can purchase lovely notecards like the one pictured above, and her new nature sketch blog Just Around the Corner, home to drawings such as the study of a horse chestnut seed pictured below. Wonderful news!

• Lists: Graphic Novel Reporter's "Graphic Novel Picks for Fall 2009" has Al Columbia's Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days as a pick for Tweens, while The Squirrel Machine, West Coast Blues, and The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century AD are on the Adult Fiction list

• Review: "...[T]hese extraordinary visions from a different, four-colour era [in You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation!] are as bold and striking as they are violent and strange.... Classic comics from a different age." - Grovel

• Review: "This new book from Fantagraphics of Femke Hiemstra’s work [Rock Candy] is gorgeous. The cloth hardbound book has a nice die-cut cover and the inside is jam packed with Femke’s works including tons of paintings and drawings alongside loose sketches.... The way the sketches are juxtaposed with the finished work in the book makes me feel like I’m getting an insider’s view. If you're a fan of 'pop surrealism,' this is a book for you." - Julia Rothman, Book By Its Cover

• Review: "I said, 'It seems to me that when comics become abstract, they really cease to be comics and become, for all effective purposes, simply abstract art.' But this anthology [Abstract Comics], in its best work as well as in its not-best, shows that that's not true. Comics really are a coherent enough medium to support their own tradition of abstraction. That tradition doesn't quite exist yet. But, in this anthology, [editor] Andrei [Molotiu] shows conclusively that it could." - Noah Berlatsky, The Hooded Utilitarian

• Review: "...magnificent reproductions, done in a sturdy hardcover [Prince Valiant Vol. 1: 1937-1938] with oversized pages and entirely restored colors and shadings (indeed, those of us who’ve seen Prince Valiant reprint editions in the past will need some mental time to adjust to how much we’ve been missing)." - Steven Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly (via Steven Hart)

• Commentary: At Comics Comics, Jeet Heer offers some follow-up thoughts to Dan Nadel's previous essay on Prince Valiant

• Interview: Adrian Kinnaird of From Earth's End talks to Abstract Comics contributor Draw: "I had an epiphany. The gutter is where all the action in a comic takes place, it's where the reader creates the comic reading experience.... I wasn't trying to create effects, I was trying to create a visual representation of what happens in the gutter of a comic."

• Preview: Rich Johnston of Bleeding Cool looks ahead to our February '10 release King of the Flies: Hallorave by Pirus & Mezzo: "King Of The Flies looks like it should disturb and entertain on an equal basis."

• Preview: Akileos Editions will be releasing a translated edition of Blazing Combat in France

• Things to see: At the Covered blog, Steven Weissman's Zip-a-Toney take on Superboy #116

• Things to see: The clown appears to be the "food" in this scenario, from Tim Lane