Paul Hornschemeier points out on his blog that the McSweeney's-edited More Things Like This is out; this collection of drawn-and-written humor includes Paul, Anders Nilsen, and Jeffrey Brown along with the likes of "Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Vonnegut, Edward Gorey, Henry Darger, David Mamet, David Byrne, Basquiat, Leonard Cohen, Robert Crumb, and too many others to list," as Paul puts it. Wowza.

Cripes, September is over already? Here's your Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book makes for pleasant midday reading, maybe perched somewhere outdoors in the sun with a glass of ginger ale at your side. Read it in a lazy mood, identify with the slacker characters, and speculate on whether you could solve demented mysteries as well as they could. (Answer: probably not.)" – Molly Young, We Love You So

• Interview: Making his second appearance on the Inkstuds radio programme, Mr. Tony Millionaire

• Plug: "Man, if that Crumb book weren't coming out [Prison Pit: Book 1] would easily be my main pick for the week. Johnny Ryan does straight on fantasy/action, with no tongue in cheek, but without forsaking a single ounce of blood or guts. In fact, this may be even more gory and gruesome than his humor stuff... but those with strong stomachs will thrill to Ryan's grotesque and truly imaginative fight fest." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Things to see: Dolls! DVDs! It's your Dame Darcy update

• Things to see: Fantastic Four #9, page 10 by Anders Nilsen

• Tunes: The latest entry in the Inkstuds Mixtape series of cartoonist-curated playlists is from Noah Van Sciver

• Staff: “Language is Hell and Other Concrete Poetry from Nico Vassilakis” at Pilot Books in Seattle

Hey you guys, it's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Lists: Comic Book Galaxy's "Comics 666" group list-making roundup of top 6 graphic novels, collections or comics of 2009 includes several Fantagraphics selections from contributors Rocco Nigro and Geoff Grogan

• Review: "It's nice to see some Tardi, and it's especially nice to see the kind of Tardi present in West Coast Blues: nasty but just, chaotically controlled, hopeful yet hopeless. This graphic novel is a turbo-charged pace car for the likes of Vertigo Noir (which I like, as you'll recall), telling the boys to keep up if they can.... [Is] West Coast Blues an existential crime graphic novel? Maybe, but it's a very good one." – Timothy Callahan, Comic Book Resources

• Preview: Our Art Director Jacob Covey's design for Portable Grindhouse: The Lost Art of the VHS Box is a featured portfolio at design:related

• Things to see: Another delightful hand-drawn GIF animation from Lilli Carré

• Things to see: A few more sketchbook pages from Anders Nilsen

• Things to buy: The latest set of Stinckers from Steven Weissman (featuring the Yikes! kids!) is now for sale

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

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "From the opening panel until the final words, Tardi's adaptation of Manchette's crime novel [West Coast Blues] sizzles with a dazzling graphic intensity... Much like the 1950s American crime novels they emulate, Tardi and Manchette offer a impressive display of destructive violence, wanton love, and disregard for life. Showcasing Tardi's singular artistic talents, the brilliant West Coast Blues emerges as one of the best crime graphic novels ever produced." - Rick Klaw, The SF Site: Nexus Graphica

• Review: "[West Coast Blues] is slyly funny without being jokey; thrilling without ever seeming manipulative; cool, distant and ironic in its narrative voice; immediate in its depiction of violence. What do Tardi's illustrations add? Mostly a crowded sense of daily life, an ironic, sense-sharpening departure from the dark, shadowy atmospherics that sometimes nudge noir toward mere style." - Peter Rozovsky, Detectives Beyond Borders

• Review: "If you were a Martian trying to figure out America in the second half of the 20th century, you could do worse than to start by reading Jules Feiffer’s Village Voice cartoons [collected in Explainers]." - Sarah Boslaugh, PopMatters

• Review: Patricia Portales's review of Your Brain on Latino Comics (University of Texas Press) for the San Antonio Current includes mentions of the Hernandez Brothers and Wilfred Santiago

• Things to see: Santa gets a knee to the gut courtesy of Tim Lane

• Things to see and buy: New items in the 46 Million benefit auction organized by Anders Nilsen, including album cover art by Zak Sally

Here's more info on the "46 Million" art auction benefitting health care reform we mentioned yesterday, from the instigator of the whole shebang, Anders Nilsen. Above, Dan Clowes's contribution (no bids yet?!). Spread the word.

Quoted directly from Paul Hornschemeier's blog:

Inimitable Cartoonist and Fine Human Being Anders Nilsen has pulled together some great artwork for an even greater cause: health care reform. The participating artists are:

John Porcellino, Genevieve Elverum, Chris Ware, Ivan Brunetti, Dan Clowes, Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie), Jeffrey Brown, Paul Hornschemeier, Todd Baxter, Sonnenzimmer Print Studio, Adam Henry, Kevin Huizenga, Jay Ryan (The Bird Machine Print Studio), Lynda Barry, Lilli Carre, David Heatley, Kyle Obriot, Stephen Eichhorn, Buenaventura Press, Sammy Harkham and the organizer, Anders Nilsen.

The proceeds will go to Democracy for America Now, a national advocacy group running television ads to push the Public Option in democratic swing districts and offering support to congressional members who take a stand for the policy.

My art for the auction (from Beasts Volume 2) is here.

And you can (and should) see all the artwork up for auction by searching for 46 Million on eBay.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Tunes: Inkstuds presents the Jaime Hernandez mixtape: 17 songs selected by Jaime and presented for your listening enjoyment, from N.W.A. to B.Ö.C. to Mötley Crüe to Dölly Partön

• Profile: "[Fletcher Hanks's] drawings, while often clunky, have a kind of primal 'rightness' and a narrative logic so wonderfully bizarre that it wins over readers normally skeptical of the kapow, blam, boom sequences of superhero comics. Beyond the comics themselves, though, it's [Paul] Karasik's smart enthusiasm for the work that tells readers in no uncertain terms that here is something to get excited about." - Sasha Watson, Publishers Weekly

• Review: "[From Wonderland with Love] is beautiful and attractive to such a degree that it makes one feel all proud of one's country. [Rating: 5 out of 6 stars]" - Hans Bjerregaard, Ekstra-Bladet (translated from Danish; link to scan)

• Review: "Beautiful graphic craftmanship and original narratives at a level that could have been drawn straight from the American comics market's avant-garde [in From Wonderland with Love]." - Søren Vinterberg, Politiken (translated from Danish)

• Review: "...Abstract Comics... goes one step beyond to leave the accepted definition of comics outdated, noting that the expressive possibilities of this medium and this language are still unknown." - La Cárcel de Papel (translated from Spanish)

• Interview: At Verbicide, Nate Pollard talks to Zak Sally about his new album Fear of Song and his publishing ethos: "Every La Mano release is something I am intensely proud of, and stand behind 110 percent. I aspire to people trusting La Mano."

• Things to see: Roger Langridge unearths some early Fred the Clown sketches

• Things to see: Recent sketchbookery from Anders Nilsen

Oh boy, let's start our post-Comic-Con Online Commentary & Diversions catch-up:

• Comic-Con: Coverage of our con announcements and happenings from Douglas Wolk for Rolling Stone, Paul Constant at The Stranger, and Chris Mautner of Robot 6

• Review: "...Jason elevates his skewering of filmic genres to a whole new level in his latest collection, Low Moon, which sees his unique takes on film noir, westerns and screwball comedy.  All of the tales are informed by his signature clean lines, bright colors, sparse dialogue and taste for a particularly brutal brand of slapstick humor and occasional moments of dark, incisive brilliance that are often reached without uttering a word... Featuring tawdry sex, alien abductions, existential crises, betrayal, and a hundred and one different varieties of murder, this is a book that pretty much has it all." - Ian Chant, PopMatters

• Review: "...Jason's Low Moon... [is] a collection full of mostly wordless comedic pleasures." - Richard Gehr, The Village Voice

• Review: "A question regarding the title of Michael Kupperman's Tales Designed to Thrizzle Volume One: Does 'thrizzle' mean 'pee your pants a little from laughing so hard'? Because if so, it just about achieved its promise..." - Rod Lott, Bookgasm

• Review: "[Boody: The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers ] is one of the funniest comics I've ever read, and all I do is read comics... Just looking at his drawings makes me laugh... If you like Johnny Ryan, you should check this out. And they weren't fooling around with that title. These comics are as weird as hell... This book is essential. Get it or get out." - Nick Gazin, Vice

• Review: "[Uptight] doesn't come out often enough... Jordan Crane is an immense talent; I just wished he worked faster. He's one of the best new guys of the past five years." - Nick Gazin, Vice (same link as above) 

• Review: "This is one of the greatest works of American art of the past century and fuck you if you were ignorant of this. Prince Valiant was and is one of the greatest comics of all time and most would agree that it's the greatest adventure comic... Reading Prince Valiant has the same thrill as reading Sherlock Holmes. He's smarter, handsomer, and a better fighter than everyone around him. Reading his adventures and watching him sneak around castles, swordfight small armies, and romance medieval bitches is more exciting to me than almost any other comic. I'm getting pumped just thinking about it... It's so beautiful. I want to be Prince Valiant and I want to be Hal Foster." - Nick Gazin, Vice (same link as above)

• Review: "Fantagraphics, the gold standard when if comes to collecting and reprinting newspaper strips, has released the first volume of Prince Valiant, covering the years 1937 to 1938 in all-new remastered color, the result is breathtaking! Foster is truly one of the great comic illustrators who ever lived but has never got his just due it seems because he didn't work in the traditional comic book medium. One needs only to read the first few pages of the book to grasp his incredible ability... This is graphic storytelling at its finest and a true treasure! Grade A" - Tim Janson, Mania

• Review: "The cover [of The Pin-Up Art of Dan DeCarlo] sums it up -- a man who looks disturbingly like Riverdale’s Mr. Lodge gazes lasciviously at a lingerie-clad young woman who looks disturbingly like a (very) bosomy Veronica. That is just so wrong... Breasts swell and sag with the weight of flesh, not silicone; thighs press firmly and meatily together, hips and butts strain against fabric, threatening plentiful wardrobe malfunctions. And the wardrobes!... The overall effect is -- well, I can’t describe the overall effect. Let’s just say that in trying to take it all in I may have stretched my eyes permanently out of shape." - Noah Berlatsky, The Hooded Utilitarian

• Review: "...Peter Bagge's new compilation of comics, Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me and Other Astute Observations... turns out also to be a rude form of local history... [H]is craftsmanship - in the tradition of Mad's Don Martin and Nancy creator Ernie Bushmiller - lies in his ability to reduce his drawings to the simplest possible details needed to tell the story. His rants are funny, but the frictionless gag-delivery systems of his panels are an even more effective rebuke to the willful obscurity of contemporary art." - David Stoesz, Seattle Weekly

• Review: "Collecting 10 years’ worth of cartoons originally done for Reason magazine, as well as a few odds and sods, [Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me] finds Bagge as sharp and irate as ever, and his art has improved while still being recognizably his own. Bagge is also, thankfully, still possessed of a great sense of humor, especially about himself—even the title reveals an element of self-mockery among all the self-righteousness." - The A.V. Club

• Review: "There are few comics in the history of the medium as universally beloved as Love and Rockets... The Palomar stories, while extraordinarily literate and often brilliant in how they straddle the line between magical realism and gritty serial drama, are complex narratives which benefit greatly from being read from the very beginning; Jaime’s lighter, simpler approach is probably a better place to start." - Leonard Pierce, The A.V. Club, offering advice on how to start reading Love and Rockets; here's our advice

• List/Interviews: 3 links from The Vice Guide to Comics: "Gary Panter's Top Ten Comics," "More Al Jaffee Than You Need," and "Big Answers" with Anders Nilsen

• Interview: At Comics Comics, Dan Nadel presents audio of his interview of Paul Karasik at the NYC book release for the second Fletcher Hanks book You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation! at Desert Island in Brooklyn last week

• Interview: More Hanks audio! Listen to Paul Karasik talk about Fletcher Hanks on Gary Shapiro's "From the Bookshelf" program on KUSP Santa Cruz radio a couple of weeks ago

• Interview: Robot 6's Tim O'Shea talks to John Kerschbaum about Petey & Pussy, self-publishing and other topics. Sample quote: "It’s what it would look like if Elmer Fudd REALLY blew Daffy’s beak off. But I’ve always felt that humor and horror are very closely related. That they naturally play off of each other. The funny bits make the scary bits scarier and vice versa."

• Interview: At The A.V. Club, Sam Adams gets Michael Kupperman to reveal some of the secrets of his comedy genius and the future of Thrizzle. For example: "Certainly I enjoy the outré and I enjoy artistic comics and surrealism in comics very much. But the decision I made and have stuck with and refined was the decision to try to be funny and communicate humor. Once you put that ahead of everything else, it resolves those other questions for you."

• Plug: Jog - The Blog spotlights 3 of our new releases from last week

• Plug: Boing Boing's Mark Frauenfelder passes along word about the "Someday Funnies" feature in The Comics Journal #299

• Plug: wrd.wthiin.woord spotlights Abstract Comics

• Plug: Between Peace and Happiness is "Kind of in love in Jordan Crane."

• Contest: Quick Stop Entertainment is giving away 3 copies of Michael Kupperman's Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 1. Entry and official rules at the link

Online Commentary & Diversions updates resume next week. Off to Comic-Con tomorrow! I'll be Twittering from the show as much as I can.

• Preview: "Now Jason publishes a collection of his short, sharp works ...called Low Moon, in which his trademark anthropomorphic animals get into all sorts of trouble — including, in the story 'Emily Says Hello,' murder, revenge and sexual domination." - New York Magazine presents an exclusive five-page excerpt from Low Moon

• Review: "All of Jason’s tales in Low Moon play like a black comedy, tragic yet humorous. Maybe it’s his protagonists blank eyed stares or the fact the characters are all cute animals being put through some troubling things that give these outwardly simple and light cartoons a heavy feel. If you’re a comic fan looking for a change of pace from the tired summer/blockbuster/epic/crossover comic events then this one’s for you." - Mishka Bloglin

• Review: "What surprised me the most [about Prince Valiant Vol. 1: 1937-1938]... was... how much [Hal] Foster had brought me to care about these characters... [P]erhaps for the first time ever, we’re able to see just how detailed and elaborate Foster’s art really was... More importantly, though, was how well Foster set up his pages. His layouts draw the reader across the page from one panel to the next, often culminating in a truly impressive final panel... Prince Valiant was good all along. Who knew?" - Greg McElhatton, Read About Comics

• Review: "I mean, holy. Effing. Shit... Was [Fletcher] Hanks insane or otherwise mentally handicapped? Dunno, but as editor Paul Karasik points out in his meaty introduction [to You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation!], this was a man mean enough to kick his 4-year-old son down a flight of stairs... You’ll love how much you hate [these works]; you’ll hate how much you love them." - Rod Lott, Bookgasm

• Review: I don't have time to patch together a coherent quote from the somewhat mangled Google translation of the review of Igort's Baobab series from Weltklasse Serier, but it's a good review

• Plug: "Boy, that Prince Valiant [Vol. 1: 1937-1938] hardcover looked great, didn’t it? The color is just stunning. The stories (what I’ve read so far, at least) are fun as well, with a nice mix of realism and fantasy. I’m looking forward to future volumes, both to see how Hal Foster’s style and Val’s character develop over the years." - Tom Bondurant, Robot 6

• Plug: "From Wonderland With Love: Danish Comics In The Third Millennium... looks pretty excellent. Read it, says I, and I hope I can follow my own orders." - Matthew J. Brady, who also has a few good words for Delphine #4, Grotesque #3 and You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation! 

• Interview: The Invisible Web podcast kicks off a new season by chatting with Fletcher Hanks-ologist Paul Karasik

• Things to see: Cover illustration & design for the Riverfront Times' 2009 Best of St. Louis issue and a New York Times Op-Ed illustration by Tim Lane

• Things to see: The latest batch of sketchbook comics from Anders Nilsen