In 2003, when Harvey Pekar's American Splendor film was coming out, the indie-friendly film chain Landmark Cinemas was really high on the film and an acquaintance of mine who worked as a graphic designer for their in-house magazine, FLM, asked me if I would try to edit a short comics section in tribute to Harv. So I did. It didn't come out quite like I'd hoped, but I was honored to do it. I thought of this when Harvey passed away recently and I wrote this, but couldn't find a copy. This weekend, while starting to move everything out of my basement to have some work done, I found it. As far as I know, it isn't on the web anywhere else, and there are some great pieces. 

Click HERE for a larger version than what's below, so you can read all of it, but here's the Tim Hensley piece to whet your whistle: 

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Literally, I could not put down this book once I hit the second half. Every story is fantastic, because it takes these interesting genre detours and makes them seem just as more true than you could possibly imagine. ...I think sometimes people overlook the sheer potential that human conflict can give. Moto Hagio's A Drunken Dream, if nothing else, is a reminder of that, giving a plethora of all-too-human situations under the occasional sci-fi or fantasy trope. If you're looking for a densely-written change of pace that gives great insight into the career of a fantastic artist, you owe it to yourself to give this a look." – David Pepose, Newsarama

• Review: "All and Sundry is a very traditional sort of random-stuff-from-my-file-drawers collection, subtitled "Uncollected Work 2004-2009": the first half is "Drawings and Stories"... Most of these pieces were designed to stand as separate artistic works, and they're all pretty successful. (There are some mostly-text pieces here as well, all published originally in Mome, which are of respectable-literary-quarterly style and quality...) [...] And then the second half of the book is "Sketches and Notes"... These pages are less finished, obviously, and would be of greatest interest to other cartoonists... [I]f you are [a Paul Hornschemeier fan], you'll find a lot to be excited about here." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Interview: John Hogan of Graphic Novel Reporter talks to Cathy Malkasian about her graphic novel Temperance: "Moderation has been taking a beating in our culture for a while now. If you measure things by our shock-soaked media environment, then the whole world is wallowing in nuttiness and hysteria. Moderation has been reduced to a quaint ideal, but it’s really the engine in the back room, running everything."

• Interview: At Examiner.com, Marvin Miranda posts a months-spanning email conversation with Jacques Boyreau about Portable Grindhouse and the joys of VHS: "There's this chicken/egg first and very fascinating question about 'what we are' based on whether as career voyeurs our first exposure was to [analog] or digital, and what it means to switch from one texture consumption to the other.... I don't know how else to really put it except that it is important to be vigilantly beware of digital. It is a closed, sealed signal whereas the burning grain of projected film and its bastard buddy analog video, are open signals."

Starting now for a limited time, order Fire & Water: Bill Everett, the Sub-Mariner and the Birth of Marvel Comics by Blake Bell and From Shadow to Light: The Life & Art of Mort Meskin by Steven Brower together for just $51.99 — that's 35% off the combined cover prices!

(If you have already pre-ordered both books separately, please let us know and we will adjust your invoice.)

Thanks to Dash Shaw for sending us this bit of YouTube gold: Gary Groth appearing on the Canadian TV program The Anti-Gravity Room sometime in the early 1990s! Following Gary in this clip: Peter Kuper.

Go HERE for the full scoop. Limited to 500 copies, a mere $15 each. 

This photo of original art for a 1988 collaborative strip from The Daily Texan by Chris Ware and Bart Farar was recently posted on Flickr by Domy Books. See it in more detail here.

Head over to ICv2 to check out an exclusive 5-page excerpt from Rip M.D., the all-ages graphic novel written and drawn by Mitch Schauer, inked by Michael Vosburg and produced by the creative forces at Lincoln Butterfield, coming later this month from Fantagraphics.

Today is Roberto Clemente Day, honoring Latin America's greatest baseball player of All-Time, and one of the game's great humanitarians. Clemente was a 12-time All-Star and Hall of Famer who died in a plane crash on Dec. 31, 1972, while attempting to deliver supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. 

This is a great opportunity for us to re-announce one of our most eagerly-awaited projects of the last few years: Wilfred Santiago's forthcoming graphic novel, 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente. Wilfred has been working on this book for several years now, and it's been delayed more than once because the project kept growing bigger and bigger. We're pleased to announce that Wilfred has completed the 200-page book and the book will be released in April, 2011, in time for the 2011 baseball season. Spring always brings a slew of new and interesting baseball books, and we expect 21 to lead next year's pack. 

The biographical 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente is a human drama of courage, faith and dignity, inspired by the life of baseball star Roberto Clemente. No other baseball player dominated the 1960s like Roberto Clemente and no other Latin American player achieved his numbers. Born in 1924 in Puerto Rico, Clemente excelled in track and field and loved baseball. By the age of 17 he was playing in the PR Winter league. Spotted by the big-league scouts because of his hitting, fielding, and throwing abilities, he joined the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1954. A fierce competitor, within two seasons he was hitting above .300 consistently. He played like a man possessed, fielding superbly, unleashing his rifle arm, and hitting in clutch situations. Despite his aesthetic brilliance, he faced prejudice throughout his career and was given his due only after his unexpected and tragic death in a 1972 plane crash.

Although baseball was his obsession, Clemente never lost sight of his dreams and his greater responsibilities outside the game. This sense of urgency is what came to define him beyond that of a grand athlete. His eventual success and accompanying celebrity gave him the opportunity to engage his conscience in public life. He died when his plane went down in the Caribbean Sea on a relief mission to earthquake-torn Nicaragua that he personally directed. 

21 chronicles Clemente's life from his early days growing up in rural Puerto Rico, the highlights of his career (including the 1960 World Series where he helped the Pirates win its first victory in 33 years, and his 3000th hit in 1972 during the last official at-bat of his life) as well as his private life and public mission off the field.

After his death, Major League Baseball declared September 18 to be "Roberto Clemente Day," and in 1999, Pittsburgh's Sixth Street Bridge was renamed the Roberto Clemente Bridge in honor of the greatest Latino ballplayer in history. Wilfred Santiago captures the grit of Clemente's rise from his impoverished Puerto Rican childhood, to the majesty of his performance on the field, to his fundamental decency as a human being in a drawing style that combines realistic attention to detail and expressive cartooning. 

Wilfred Santiago was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. He now lives in Chicago. 

21: The Story of Roberto Clemente by Wilfred Santiago
$22.99 Hardcover • 200 pages • April 2011
ISBN 978-1-56097-892-3 

COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS / Nonfiction

Online Commentary & Diversions returns from the U.S. holiday:

• List: About.com: Manga places Moto Hagio's A Drunken Dream and Other Stories at #19 on their list of "50 Essential Manga for Libraries": "Collected for the first time in a gorgeous hardcover edition, A Drunken Dream offers a rare glimpse into the work of one of Japan's most distinctive and influential creators in shojo manga, and heck, manga, period. Worth recommending to both older teen and adult readers alike."

• Review: "Hagio draws these stories as if a full symphonic score were playing in the background. Her delicate, razor-thin pen line expertly captures her characters’ wide-eyed, open-mouthed anguish effectively. [...]  I, certainly, am very glad that Fantagraphics made the effort (and judging by the exceptional production values it was a tremendous effort) to get this book out there ...because... beyond Hagio’s historical significance, [A] Drunken Dream [and Other Stories] is a book that deserves attention." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Review: "Ever since it was announced in March (was it really that long ago?), I’d been looking forward to reading [A Drunken Dream and Other Stories] by legendary Moto Hagio. [...] It would be a real shame if Fantagraphics didn’t get any supportive business from this collection and demand for more. [...] I’m looking forward to reading more, and adding to the crying list!" – Sunday Comics Debt (who also provides the following two links)

• Review: "BUY. THIS. BOOK. No, seriously, buy it now. [...] I don’t think there is a single thing wrong with this book; Hagio-sensei touches on each of the topics she chooses to use with such perfection and …delicacy? that you can’t help but be amazed at how she does it. [...] I can’t wait for the next volume of manga Fantagraphics chooses to put out! They did a beyond amazing job with [A Drunken Dream and Other Stories]." – Kelakagandy's Ramblings

• Plug: "This week... everything fades in the presence of a newly-released collection of short manga from shojo pioneer Moto Hagio, A Drunken Dream and Other Stories. [...] Simply put, this book is gorgeous. [...] This is a release I’ve been eagerly anticipating since its announcement. Visit your local bookstore to find out why." – Melinda Beasi, Manga Bookshelf

• Review: "'Greatest Generation' hoopla will never seem the same after You’ll Never Know: Collateral Damage, book two in Carol Tyler’s sprightly but relentlessly honest 'graphic memoir'... [T]his is the story of not just a family but a generation, or two or three. And all are told with a saving dash of humor. Tyler’s form, a mix of scrapbook, diary, and cartoon panels, is likewise messy and eccentric, but it pays off in layered textures and viewpoints. Two famous precedents, Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, seem almost one-dimensional by comparison." – Eric Scigliano, Seattle Met

• Review: "While there aren’t necessarily many surprises in the story, Set to Sea is more about the savoring of a series of vivid moments (both for the lead character and the reader) than any sort of narrative complexity. With each page acting as a single panel, the true joy of reading Set to Sea is luxuriating in Weing’s intense crosshatching and detail. [...] Indeed, in a book whose visuals have such a powerful impact, Weing’s decision not to overwrite (and especially not to over-narrate) was his wisest. With nearly 70 of the book’s pages appearing as silent, the result was a book that understood and maximized its charms." – Rob Clough, The Comics Journal

• Interview: Nicola D'Agostino presents the original English text of the Drew Weing interview which ran at Comicsblog.it so you don't have to struggle through the mangled autotranslation: "So one day in 2005, I drew a panel with a guy sleeping. The only thing I knew about him was that he was a big fellow. I spent more than a year adding to it bit by bit, just improvising panels as I went. I started Set to Sea with no idea that it would be set in the past, or even set on the sea, so to speak!"

• Review: "...[T]he Billy Hazelnuts books are safe for children, while still being unique and complex enough for adults. Here Millionaire combines a gung-ho adventure spirit with a tempered yet still present darkness — two strains that have been the keys to so much of the greatest children’s literature. [...] Tony Millionaire is a genius and the Billy Hazelnuts books may be his best work. Imagine if Beatrix Potter had dropped acid with the 60s underground comix crowd or if A.A. Milne had collaborated with Franz Kafka. If you love fun, hilarious, and plain weird stories, then Billy Hazelnuts is for you." – Lincoln Michel, The Faster Times

• Plug: Comix 411's Tom Mason plugs the Stephen DeStefano retrospective exhibit at mdh Gallery next week: "It’s a cartoon fan’s dream come true, and did I mention the wine?"

• Profile/Preview: A gallery of images from the book accompanies this article: "See the work of Dan DeCarlo in the book The Pin-Up Art of Dan DeCarlo, published by Fantagraphics, which plunges into an alternate universe where Betty, Veronica, Sabrina grew up and live out situations that summed up the lewd sexual desire of men in the time before the sexual revolution of the twentieth century." – Ambrosia (translated from Portuguese)

• Interview: At his Cats Without Dogs blog, Jason presents a brief Q&A he recently did with the Spanish newspaper El Periodico de Catalunya: "I can hear the voice of a woman, from somewhere above me. 'Don't cry,' her voice says. 'One day you will see Neal Adams at a comic book convention in America.'"

• Feature: USA Today Pop Candy's Whitney Matheson spotlights Jim Woodring and his giant pen project: "I can't wait to see the pen and the drawings! (Also, can we start a campaign to get a live demonstration in New York?)"

• Commentary: At The Hooded Utilitarian, Ng Suat Tong surveys the use of buildings in comics and then looks specifically at architecture in Josh Simmons’s House 

• Commentary: At The Comics Journal, Tim Kreider's requiem for Cathy

• Commentary: The Comics Journal's Kristy Valenti is the guest contributor to this week's "What Are You Reading?" column at Robot 6

• Hooray for Hollywood: At Publishers Weekly's PWxyz blog Rachel Deahl reports that Dash Shaw's Bottomless Belly Button can be seen being read by one of the protagonists of the new film The Freebie

At the Abstract Comics blog Andrei Molotiu announces his appearance and art show at Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana tomorrow evening. His lecture "My Abstract Comics" begins at 7 PM, followed by an opening reception for his "Ruins and Other Narratives" exhibit.