Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Sala’s work is like a fusion of Hergé and Charles Addams, yielding a simple, cartoon-like style that makes his moments of gothic horror all the more disturbing. ...[The Hidden] is a beautifully pulpy and incredibly imaginative book that gives a fresh spin on a well-used set-up." – Publishers Weekly

• Review/Interview: SF Weekly's Casey Burchby, who says "Richard Sala's new full color graphic novel, The Hidden, fuses two classic horror tropes — the story of Frankenstein's monster, and the ever-popular zombie apocalypse — into a new form that is surprisingly free of cliché and enriched with a strange sensitivity, owing far more to the classic horror literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries than it does to more contemporary EC horror comics, slasher flicks, or Stephen King," talks to Sala, who says "...as I began to write the book, elements of it started to seem oddly autobiographical — on some kind of psychological level, that is — and I realized the story had become less about Frankenstein specifically and more about the act of creation and its consequences."

• Review: "This French artist's unabashedly campy tribute to Jules Verne's proto-steampunk adventure yarns [The Arctic Marauder] is all about the art — spectacularly composed black-and-white evocations of arctic landscapes and Victorian contraptions.... Tardi has drawn a tribute to a venerable genre that partakes of its wonders while poking gentle fun at its preposterous twists and turns. The result is pure fun." – Laura Miller, "The Best New Graphic Novels," Salon

• Review: "Ryan’s line work is at its best in some parts of this volume, showing the ability to continually come up with inventive weird visuals. The first half of the book is nothing but new forms of violence and strange creatures that become different strange creatures. Every page brings a new visual that you will never, ever be able to forget. The second half shows off more minimalist compositions, giving the book an interesting asymmetry. The only bad thing about Prison Pit Book 3 coming out is that it will be another year until Book 4 is released, especially with the cliffhanger that this volume ends on." – Chad Nevett, Comic Book Resources

• Review: "Johhny Ryan’s artwork on Prison Pit could be described as cartoonish, but to be honest it’s better described as looking like the insane doodling of a madman, as found etched upon the walls of his padded cell — I would not be surprised to find out that this book was ghost-written by Charles Manson!... Ryan draws gore like no one else, and his creature designs are the stuff of nightmares — one of the monsters in the latter part of the story makes Cthuhlu look like a character from a children’s story!... Prison Pit: Book 3 is a comic unlike anything you’ve ever read before — the plot is outlandish, and the artwork is violent, bloody, gory, and completely unapologetic in its brutality.... Rating: 10 out of 10" – Edward Kaye, Newsarama

• Commentary: Robot 6's Sean T. Collins comments on the must-read Comics Journal interview with Johnny Ryan: "I’ve spent years enjoying Ryan’s scabrously offensive humor comics like Angry Youth Comix and Blecky Yuckerella, as well as his extravagantly vicious action comic Prison Pit, and I’ve often wondered where his search-and-destroy ethos originated.... Thanks to Pearson and Ryan’s jawdroppingly candid conversation, I finally feel like I understand..., at least a little."

• (Not a) Review (Per Se): "This isn't a formal review, per se, but instead a few gut-reaction thoughts on the remarkable new issue of Love & Rockets: New Stories (#4). I've never bothered to do this before in a review, but the nature of this issue demands that I note that there are spoilers below." – Rob Clough, High-Low

• Links: Another comprehensive round of Hernandez Bros.-related links from Love & Maggie (thumbs up for the mug shots)

• Analysis: "I really like the formats of both (Beto’s) Love and Rockets: New Stories and (CF‘s) Powr Mastrs. They are really different but somehow very similar. At least to me anyways." – Frank Santoro, The Comics Journal

• Review (Audio): The Extra Sequential podcast discusses "the whacky and funny Fantagraphics collection of Carl Barks’ much loved 1940s Donald Duck stories," Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes: "We tell you why creator Carl Barks is loved for his storytelling prowess and surprisingly funny and absurd humour in his Donald, Scrooge, etc. tales..."

• Interview: Comic Book Resources' Tim O'Shea has a funny and informative Q&A with Michael Kupperman: "Actually I’ve been hearing from [Twain] a lot. I thought that one meeting would be it, but since then he keeps reappearing, asking for help dealing with today’s publishing industry. He’s written a new novel called Prairie Rumpus, which I feel is dated in its use of slang and locale. Meanwhile I’ve got a lot of interest in my novel The Fart Vampires, a lotta heat building up."

• Plug: "The most excellent Michael Kupperman has begun touring in support of his time-traveling Clemens-as-superhero comic, Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010. This Saturday night, Kupperman will take his “Twain in the Membrane” book tour to the Mark Twain House in Hartford for a reading and signing." – Michael Cavna, The Washington Post

• Preview: Graphic Novel Reporter presents a 9-page sneak peek (excerpted from our own PDF excerpt) of Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010 by Michael Kupperman

• Commentary: At About.com Manga, Deb Aoki reports on our publishing announcement regarding Moto Hagio's The Heart of Thomas (note that the "The" was initially left off our announcement by mistake), calling it a "very exciting development" and saying "Fans of  A Drunken Dream and Other Stories will also be glad to hear that Matt Thorn, the translator of this critically acclaimed book will also be handling the editing/translation duties on this title as well."

Ray Fenwick is all up on and in the current issue of Canadian literary magazine Grain. "The spectacular full-of-words-and-questions artwork is by Ray Fenwick, this issue’s Featured Artist — Ray’s gorgeous jealousy-inducing cover alone is reason enough to pick up this issue!" says they, and who are we to disagree?

Our own Jason T. Miles has joined in the efforts to benefit the family of Dylan Williams of Sparkplug Comics by gathering donations of artwork and auctioning them on eBay. Current offerings include Peter Bagge's original cover for Neat Stuff #5 (above) and pieces by our own Eric Reynolds and Jason himself, with an interpretation of a cover of one of Williams's Reporter comics (below). Click each image to go directly to the respective eBay auction page. Upcoming auctions from Jason will include work by a who's-who of Seattle cartoonists, including Max Clotfelter, Jeremy Eaton, Megan Kelso, David Lasky, Marc Palm, Greg Stump and more. Meanwhile, the "Divine Invasion" benefit auctions organized by Floating World's Jason Leivian continue as well, with some great pieces including original pages by Kevin Huizenga (bottom). Bid early, bid often.

Remember that documentary that Eric was talking about last week, featuring interviews with Dan Clowes and Ivan Brunetti?

Well, I just got word from our friends at the Northwest Film Forum here in Seattle that it's screening there through September 29th! Holy crap, go see it.

Jason Vanderhill of Vancouver Is Awesome dug up these rare 1972 illustrations by Rand Holmes for Rohan's Record Store (not included in our Holmes retrospective The Artist Himself) for "Illustrated Vancouver," a series of articles on visual depictions of the city throughout history. Nifty!

Sometimes you just have to post a screengrab of a celebrity tweet plugging an awesome book you just put out.

Our weekly strips from Kupperman & Weissman, plus links to other strips from around the web:

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Up All Night by Michael Kupperman (view at original size):

Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman (view at original size):

And elsewhere:

Cochlea & Eustachia by Hans Rickheit:

Ectiopiary by Hans Rickheit:

Forming by Jesse Moynihan:

Humblug by Arnold Roth (another here):

Keeping Two by Jordan Crane:

Maakies by Tony Millionaire:

Truth Serum by Jon Adams:

What's in the Backpack by Victor Kerlow:

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "David B.'s newest, The Armed Garden and Other Stories, finds the creator turning his gifts to the world of historical legend. The subject may be different but the artist's mysterious and melancholy style saturates every panel; what's more, the three graphic novellas collected in The Armed Garden provide him with plenty of opportunities to draw the epic battle scenes he so loves.... The Armed Garden and Other Stories is the witty, finely executed work of an artist uniquely capable of capturing both the fervid ecstasy of belief and the dull, heartsick ache left behind once it cools." – Glen Weldon, NPR.org

• Review: "In Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010, Adult Swim contributor and comics creator Michael Kupperman (Snake 'n' Bacon) reworks [Hal] Holbrook's Twain as a Zelig-like immortal cruising through a century of life after his 1910 death.... Some of the tales are hilarious koans of absurdist comedy — Twain as the unknown fourth astronaut on the Apollo 11 mission is fabulous. Although it sometimes has the feel of a Saturday Night Live skit stretched into a feature film — perfect in small doses but unsustainable over a longer haul — the premise is too good to abandon." –Andy Lewis, The Hollywood Reporter (reviewing the book in tandem with Holbrook's memoir Harold: The Boy Who Became Mark Twain)

• Review: "Kupperman is a comedic genius. Filled with deliberately odd syntax, wizards, snarky dialog, vampires, outer space adventures, car UFO chasing, and nearly every significant event of the past one hundred years Mark Twain’s Autobiography [1910-2010] is easily the funniest thing that I have read in a very, very long time. Come to think of it, I don’t think I have ever read anything funnier. Nearly every page had me rolling. It wasn’t just a chuckle or even a hearty guffaw, either. It was maniacal  hysterical, snorting, crying, temporarily not breathing, and contorting my body into uncomfortable shapes type of laughing. It’s that goddamn funny. So funny, in fact, that I would be entirely satisfied if Kupperman went ahead and decided to write the biographies of everyone else, ever." – Zack Kruse, A Little Nonsense

• Review: "Love And Rockets: New Stories Vol. 4 contains the conclusion to the recent run of 'The Love Bunglers' stories — again with a heartbreaking digression into the past.... This is incandescent work. At this point, Jaime Hernandez draws comics better than maybe anyone's ever drawn comics. The story is beautifully paced, there are at least two stop and stare sequences in there..., the characters are warm and human and funny, one of the subplots addresses with significant insight and potency Jaime's long-time fascination with the power of memory in providing life with meaning and the ending made me choke up both as a moment with resonance across decades of comics but also for the thematic twist it provides on something we've seen in the last few appearances of Jaime's best character... I don't know that it's something you can pick up out of the blue, but my God, what a remarkable comic. I'm so grateful to have read it." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

• Review: "Congress of the Animals might be my least favorite Woodring book, but it’s still overall strong and compelling. I love the fact that Woodring has made a huge, fundamental change to the world of Frank, and that in doing so it still feels like an old familiar friend. I’m not sure just anyone could have pulled this off so late in the game, but with Woodring it feels like a natural extension of everything we’ve seen up until now. There’s no other comics quite like Woodring’s out there, and I’m forever thankful that we get these amazing, disturbing, wonderful creations from him. After all, a 'merely good' comic from Woodring is still better than most other comics out there." – Greg McElhatton, Read About Comics

• Interview: If you read one interview with Johnny Ryan, make it Jesse Pearson's epic, revealing talk with Johnny at The Comics Journal: "When I was first doing book one of Prison Pit, I felt like even though it was about monster men and fighting and all that shit, it was revealing more about myself than any of my earlier works. I removed a lot of that aggressive humor that was working as my armor."

• Interview: Panel Bound's Matthew Manarino talks to Freeway creator Mark Kalesniko: "I like doing comics, as you saw in Freeway, I like doing some comics with detail, I like to go in and show people a world and paint it and draw it. With Freeway I can take you to downtown Los Angeles and really give you a tour.... With Freeway and even Mail Order Bride I wanted to give you something where it’s not a crude drawing but give you a layout so you really feel like you're there. There is also a joy with that kind of work were you can come back to it over and over again and always find something new." (Mark's advice for submitting work to publishers is great, by the way.)

• Feature: In "Graphic Medicine" at Comics Forum, M.K. Czerwiek (RN) spotlights Joyce Farmer's Special Exits in an article on comics dealing with hospice care issues

We gathered up some press reaction and commentary to our announcement last week that we're publishing Moto Hagio's The Heart of Thomas next year:

• Lissa Pattillo of Kuriousity, who inadvertently helped break the news on Twitter, comments: "I’m really looking forward to reading Heart of Thomas. It piqued my interest after coming up a number of times during conversations re: Moto Hagio and Drunken Dream. We’ve got a year to wait but for almost 500+ pages, hardcover, and a classic manga we’d only dream of any other publisher releasing, it’ll be well worth it!"

• The mighty Anime News Network picks up the news

• Brigid Alverson's MTV Geek coverage of our announcement provides excellent background on the book and its creator

• "Moto Hagio fans have a whole lot more to be happy about as Fantagraphics has announced that they’re following up their release of A Drunken Dream and Other Stories with Heart of Thomas come next August. The company put a lot behind the release this past year and it garnered them a lot of critical acclaim both from the in the know manga crowd but also from the mainstream side, making it much easier to jump into another prestige style release from the celebrated mangaka." – Chris Beveridge, The Fandom Post

• Scott Green of Crunchyroll (who are streaming the anime adaptation of Shimura Takako's Wandering Son) shares the news, with a little background info

Our new David B. collection The Armed Garden and Other Stories has landed at #3 on this week's New York Times Best Sellers list for Graphic Hardcover Books! On the Times' Arts Beat blog Adam W. Kepler offers a brief review of the book:

"The comics medium has grown adept at translating legendary stories from history... In The Armed Garden and Other Stories, the French artist David B. adapts less well-known, but no less interesting, mythic tales of man and their interactions with god(s).... The stories are held together by the artist’s sense of humor and tone, not to mention the striking, not-quite-black-and-white, two-toned art. The reader can’t help but smile as a goose leads a warrior to battle a man who has become a star. One of many fantastical events juxtaposed with a to the point, almost ho-hum narration, suggesting the idea that these legends are common occurrences. If only that were so."