Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: At The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log, Wim Lockefeer's top 10 Best of the Year includes The Culture Corner by Basil Wolverton: "This book got me laughing out loud across the decades."

• Review: "I’m not sure how exactly one goes about recommending a book like [FUC_ __U _SS __LE], as it’s not only not for everyone, it’s kind of sort of not for anyone, which ironically makes it perfect for some someones. (Panel four of page 9 is perfect for 21st century comics historians; as it is surely the most intentionally provocative comics image of the decade)." – J. Caleb Mozzocco, Newsarama

• Plug: Author Anne Germanacos (surveyed by fellow writer Ravi Mangla) calls Abstract Comics "gorgeous and fascinating" (Via the Abstract Comics blog)

• Analysis: At The Comics Journal's new group blog The Panelists, Isaac Cates locates, in a single panel of Ghost World, a turning point in the narrative strategy of Dan Clowes

• Interview: At Wired, Scott Thill talks to Jim Woodring about Sunday's impending public debut of Jim's giant pen

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.)

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Of the artists that meant the world to me when I was young enough that lots of artists meant the world to me, Jaime Hernandez is the only one I know of that can still kill me dead with his newest and latest. Your mileage may vary, but Jaime's three-part story in the latest Love and Rockets brought to mind the same sweep of romance and regret and pursuit of all that's sweet in life as much as battered and broken insides allow that I remember all too well from the summer between my junior and senior years in college, when I would have put everything about my wonderful life on hold to climb into a black and white comic book for a little while. There are three or four panels in this newest effort worth some cartoonists' entire careers." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

• Review: "Set to Sea is [an] auspicious debut... Weing's nameless, landlubbing protagonist aches to rhapsodize about the sea but discovers that something's missing. After dozing drunkenly on a dock, he awakes to discover he's been shanghaied. His adventures provide ample material for a volume of poetry in this hilariously violent picaresque tale." – Richard Pachter, The Miami Herald

• Review: "A book like The Best American Comics Criticism invites argument. If you put 'best' in your title, argument will follow. I’ve got arguments, but I wanted to start by praising both the editor, Ben Schwartz, and the publisher, Fantagraphics, for making the effort." - Derik Badman

• Review: "...[T]his story is one where Deitch tries to tie the various unruly strands of his many stories together. In a way, I almost prefer that these overlapping, nesting, and sometimes contradictory stories never really congeal, but The Search for Smilin' Ed is, like all of Deitch's work, a compelling and highly personal piece of work." – Robert Boyd, The Great God Pan Is Dead

• Review: "Although the images are very haunting, they are extremely beautiful. Pim & Francie is a pretty unique book. ... This book as a whole is actually quite creepy, haunting, scary, beautiful, and intoxicating. I seem to enjoy it more every time I look/read through it. With images on almost every single page, this book is worth a lot more than its cover price." – Steven Thomas

• Review: "Wally Gropius ...[is] John Stanley for the 21st century. Not that Stanley doesn’t work just fine in 2010, but Hensley is worthy of that sort of praise. I wish this guy was writing Archie." – Chris Reilly, Guttergeek

• Review: "I loved this book and am glad I... could read something this wonderfully twisted... I really wish I could tell you what genre this is, but The Squirrel Machine defies that sort of commercial branding." – Chris Reilly, Guttergeek

• Review: "Man, Joe Daly is awesome. ...[H]e is back with thunder in his pen and ants in his pants. [Dungeon Quest] is as good as Scrublands on page one and it just gets better and funnier, more bizarre and familiar (if you have ever met or hung out with Larpers) with each page turn. Welcome back, Joe Daly. You rule." – Chris Reilly, Guttergeek

• Review: "The Troublemakers... is Gilbert [Hernandez] doing a Quentin Tarantino, in that he dips into a sleazy old unpleasant genre of crime exploitation films of the 60s and 70s and cherry-picks a bunch of the good bits and smashes them together and cooks them into a really sweet pie." – Chris Reilly, Guttergeek

• Review: "The Culture Corner... is the biggest score for fans of Wolverton since the publication of the Wolverton Bible. I guess you could also say that this is the first reprint collection of Wolverton material since the Wolverton Bible if you wanted to nit-pick. Great stuff." – Chris Reilly, Guttergeek

• Plug: "I’m barely able to form coherent thoughts about Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream and Other Stories. It’s an amazing collection of her work, and I hope it just causes an explosion of interest in her work." – David Welsh, The Manga Curmudgeon

• Plug: Sarah McIntyre took some lovely photos of Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace 1961-1962

• Interview: At WFMU's Beware of the Blog, Kliph Nesteroff talks to Drew Friedman: "When I was talking to Albert [Brooks] at this party he said, 'Drew, did you know that Harpo's ex-wife married Frank Sinatra?' I said, 'No, it was Zeppo's ex-wife.' He said, 'No, no, it was Harpo's ex-wife.'  I said, 'No, it was Zeppo's ex-wife. Look, we have Andy Marx, Groucho's grandson standing right here. Let's ask him.' I said, 'Andy, which one of your uncles married Frank Sinatra's wife?' He said, 'Well, that was Zeppo's wife.' That's why I love L.A. It's handy to have Groucho's grandson [around] when you need him." (Note: audio of this conversation will be available from the Inkstuds podcast soon; we'll keep you updated)

• Profile: Seattle Times book editor Mary Ann Gwinn reports on the partnership between Rick Marschall's Rosebud Archives and Fantagraphics Books: "Now Marschall's company, Rosebud Archives, and Fantagraphics have formed a joint publishing enterprise that will draw from Marschall's immense collection, reclaiming the work of the great 20th-century magazine and newspaper artists for the 21st-century public."

• Commentary: At The Hooded Utilitarian, Shaenon Garrity kicks off a critical roundtable on Popeye with a 7-part appreciation: "Popeye hangs on, indestructible..., the last of a tougher, smellier, funnier breed."

• Reviewer: At Comics Comics, our own Jason T. Miles looks at something I'm also fond of: Andy Helfer & Kyle Baker's late-1980s run on The Shadow

In this video from the Oregon Cartoon Institute, Rebel Visions & The Artist Himself author Patrick Rosenkranz and Charles Boucher talk about Basil Wolverton and Carl Barks's influence on Robert Crumb.

Patrick also directs your attention to the new issue of Destroying Angels zine, with features on Jim Osborne, the Black Prince of the Underground, and 3-D comics pioneer Ray Zone.

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Unlike current shojo manga, Hagio's sentiment is more restrained, recounting a calmer account of destructive sibling rivalry, a quieter portrayal of a romance destined for failure, a subtle unraveling of a young woman in mourning. Her craftsmanship reflects wisdom and exercises the creative strength necessary to unravel and tie together the range of narrative threads that make up the tragedies and slow recoveries of life. ... A Drunken Dream collects stories by Hagio from her beginning, middle, and current career. The consistency of her work is evidence of why she's finally being translated into English and why that was long overdue." – Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

• Review: "Three years after her award-winning debut graphic novel, Percy Gloom, Cathy Malkasian delivers her stunning followup, Temperance. This solidly grounded parable — rich with contemporary resonance for Fortress America — artfully and modestly flaunts all the same whimsicality, brutality, quiet heroics, worldbuilding, melancholy, weirdness and surrealism of its earlier cousin, but with ratios altered. ... If this book does not show up on all the comics awards ballots in 2011, the injustices perpetrated by [the book's character] Pa will pale by comparison." – Paul Di Filippo, The Barnes & Noble Review

• Review: "Huizenga’s command over his tools as an artist, the integration of his love of depicting wide-open spaces, and his general restraint in delivering prescriptive messages is what sets him apart as an artist. He’s not afraid to go into exacting detail on some technical point regarding time or consciousness, but it’s always done in the voice of an affable, self-effacing and highly unreliable guide who’s really trying to figure it all out himself. His work feels highly autobiographical in the sense that the artist has always been a thinker, and Ganges reveals the depths of his inquiries, while still remaining playful on the page and appealing to the eye. When the series is eventually collected, it may well be Huizenga’s masterwork to date." – Rob Clough, The Comics Journal

• Review: "Sometimes a comic book comes along and kicks your dick in. This is that comic. Writer/artist Johnny Ryan is my kind of freak. The raunchy and over the top violen-terrific action and splatter-tastic gore that take place in Prison Pit must be seen to be believed. ... Fans of MTV’s old Liquid Television series and Adult Swim’s Super Jail should definitely put Prison Pit on their must have list." – Mark L. Miller, Ain't It Cool News

• Review: "Fantagraphics’ volume of 11 of Basil Wolverton’s Powerhouse Pepper stories (along with 4 starring other characters) works as a great companion to their new Culture Corner volume, despite having come out in 1994. Where Culture Corner showed Wolverton’s skill at doing brief half-page joke strips, Powerhouse Pepper shows how his style worked with longer, 10-page stories — and oddly enough, the difference isn’t as great as you might expect." – Kittysneezes

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Intentionally or not, Mome #19 is almost a theme issue, with the usual mix of abstraction and autobiography giving way to multiple narrative-driven stories with their roots in genre fiction. ... All-in-all, a solid outing for one of the best (and last) alt-comics anthologies on the market. [Grade] B+" – The A.V. Club

• Review: "Rhymes, lyrics, words used by your grandma (and only if they had emigrated to the U.S.) and situations that have been extinct for many years are the main features of Culture Corner. But when is this so bad? ... So this is a release of great value for fans of Wolverton, but also a great opportunity to learn about one of the most famous and funny in the business." – Thomas Papadimitropoulos, Comicdom (translated from Greek)

• Comic-Con: Eden Miller of Comicsgirl reports on the Moto Hagio spotlight panel at Comic-Con last week

• Interview: Frank Santoro joins Brandon Graham, Michael DeForge, and host Robin McConnell for an Inkstuds roundtable on "fusion in modern comics"

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Exploration, thankfully, is precisely what Weathercraft is all about. Woodring’s latest graphic novel is a deep exploration of Unifactor, through looking glasses, behind tears in the world’s fabric, under sea and into space, this time all experienced through the beady eyes of Frank’s principle antagonist, Manhog." – Brian Heater, The Daily Cross Hatch

• Interview: At Newsarama, Michael C. Lorah discusses Weathercraft with Jim Woodring: "This is Manhog’s book. He’s a more interesting character than Frank in a lot of ways. He’s deep, whereas Frank is bottomless."

• Review: "Fantagraphics has done the world the great service of reprinting Basil Wolverton's Culture Corner... [T]hese strips will delight any Wolverton fan with their characteristic doggerel, gratuitous violence, and slapstick humor that pokes fun at the American self-improvement genre. ... [T]he Fantagraphics edition is well worth the price: it's a handsomely bound item, augmented with the sketches and a nice essay by Wolverton's son." – Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

• Review: "Foster’s humorous, quick-moving stories charge relentlessly forward. ... Whether Val is plotting a way to upend a larger force or enjoying good times with old friends, Foster’s twist-laden narrative comes across with a casual warmth, as if telling of merry adventures around a campfire. Similarly, Foster’s detailed renderings enforce the earthy grounding of Prince Valiant and his cohorts. ... The artistry, the witty and creative plot twists, and the evocative and charming characters all make for a truly timeless, and utterly enjoyable adventure comic strip experience. Any reader who appreciates the innocent high adventure of yore needs to get on board with Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant." - Michael C. Lorah, Newsarama

• Interview: Mark L. Miller of Ain't It Cool News discusses Werewolves of Montpellier with Jason: "The opening concept, the guy who dresses up as a werewolf and then is chased by real werewolves, I had in my mind a long time. I thought it was a fun, silly concept. But something was missing. It was only when I got the idea to mix it with an Audrey Hepburn movie that the story really took off."

• Interview in the future: Matt Thorn wants to know what you'd like him to ask Moto Hagio at her spotlight panel at Comic-Con 

• Plug: The Urban Outfitters Blog features Artichoke Tales by Megan Kelso, saying "marvel at Kelso's visual and narrative smarts."

• Scene: Juxtapoz has more photos from the Dave Cooper exhibit opening at Jonathan LeVine Gallery

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Operating in the territory of Rube Goldberg, Wolverton's convoluted plans for achieving his ludicrous goals [in The Culture Corner] rely less on mousetrap-like technical gewgaws than the artist's signature grotesques, which are laugh-out-loud joy. While a must-have for Wolverton completists, even newcomers will find the humor readily accessible." – Publishers Weekly

• Review: "Just what is Dash Shaw on? And may I please have some? ...The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. [is] an anything-goes anthology quite attractively packaged by Fantagraphics Books, right down to the transparent, animation-cel-esque jacket. ... Yeah, [the title story] is different. Yeah, it’s awesome. ... Much of Unclothed Man is stunning..." – Rod Lott, Bookgasm

• Review: Thanks to our Twitter follower Tim Leng for the following alert: "Awesomely positive review of The Art of Jaime Hernandez (and L&R in general) on BBC 6music this afternoon!" For a limited time the show is streaming here (click on Tuesday)

• Plug: At EarlyWord, Robin Brenner singles out Weathercraft by Jim Woodring as one of "the most artful finds" at TCAF

• Profile: The University of Cincinnati, where C. Tyler teaches, presents a news release about her 2010 Eisner Award nominations for You'll Never Know, Book 1: A Good and Decent Man

• Profile: The Chicago Tribune's Rick Kogan remembers Bill Mauldin after purchasing the Mauldin commemorative first class stamp, and calls Willie & Joe: The WWII Years an "amazing and beautiful collection" (via ¡Journalista!)

• Interview: Greek site Comicdom presents a brief Q&A, in Engish, with Peter Bagge: "Almost all my story ideas are based on people and events from real life. Truth is always stranger than fiction."

• Interview: The Daily Cross Hatch presents the first of a 4-part talk with Gene Deitch: "It’s really bad to look back on the communist time with nostalgia [laughs]. There was a downside. But the animation studio here was kind of a Shangri-La. First of all, nobody in the communist hierarchy had any idea what we were doing or how, but they knew it was popular and they left us alone."

Online Commentary & Diversions (through yesterday; we're a bit behind):

• Review: "...[E]ven [Basil Wolverton]'s throwaway work — in this case, half-page gag strips (emphasis on the 'gag') that appeared in Fawcett's Captain Marvel titles during and after World War II — is fully worthy of rediscovery. Like a Bizarro Dr. Seuss, Wolverton packs each Culture Corner with goofy, rhyming advice... While silly and inconsequential, these strips revel in the subversive, surrealist glee that would develop more fully in Wolverton's later output for Mad and others, a style that would help unlock the inner cretin inside everyone from Robert Crumb to Peter Bagge. ...Fantagraphics has to be applauded for tenaciously keeping Wolverton and his eye-gouging, subliminally influential work from slipping through the cracks of comics history. [Grade] B+" — The A.V. Club

• Review: "...Tardi’s [It Was the] War of the Trenches is the most powerful comic I’ve read on World War One since Charley’s War... The black and white art is perfectly suited to the era being covered... while Tardi, not for the first time, proves himself a master of expression, the looks on the faces of the men caught up in the war speaking absolute volumes... It’s a hugely powerful work, both moving and horrific and filled with anger for the suffering and injustices one group of ‘civilised’ humans can visit upon another... [A]s the last voices of those who were actually there are fading into silence works like this are needed to remind us of the monstrous acts we can be capable of in service to the beasts of jingoism and nationalism and hubris, that we should read them and take cautionary lessons from them. Never forget." – Joe Gordon, The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

• Interview: Avoid the Future has an illuminating talk with Joe Daly: "The environment is surreal, in that it combines the fantastical with the urbane. I try to meld these two sides together into a continuum that supports both the phantasmagoric  and the banal, in a naturalistic kind of way. On a conceptual level, I’m also interested in combining extreme stupidity with a bit of cleverness (which the title ‘Dungeon Quest’ is supposed to invoke)." There's also a glimpse of Dungeon Quest Book 2!

• Interview: The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon grills Ben Schwartz, editor of The Best American Comics Criticism, saying "It's the kind of volume that starts fights... but that's okay and it's part of the fun. There's a lot of good work in the book and one or two absolutely inspired choices. Anyone with an interest in comics should at least give it a flip-through, and anyone with an interest in writing about the medium should use it as a springboard to discover a host of excellent new favorites." Schwartz on pitching the book: "Gary was the most skeptical. Early on he asked me if I seriously thought I could fill a whole book with good writing on comics. He sent me his essay 'The Death of Criticism.' Nice to know that's on your publisher's mind!"

• Interview: Canada's National Post has a Q&A with TCAF special guest Jim Woodring: "My name is Jim Woodring and I’m a cartoonist. I’m going to TCAF by invitation, with an assist from Fantagraphics Books, my publisher. I have a new book out called Weathercraft and I’m going to answer questions about it.

• Plugs: At The Cool Kids Table, Rickey Purdin runs down some recent acquisitions, including a couple volumes of Mome ("constantly entertaining") and the Weathercraft and Other Unusual Tales free comic ("...this free sample is PROBABLY about to set me on a path of Woodring fanaticism. Well played, Fantagraphics.")

• Plug: "Michael Kupperman's Tales Designed to Thrizzle is that rarest of comic books: It's actually, genuinely a comic experience, with several guaranteed laugh-out-loud moments per issue." – Paul Constant, The Stranger

• Plug: Comics Worth Reading's Johanna Draper Carlson spotlights Mark Kalesniko's Freeway in a roundup of upcoming graphic novels

• Links: Love & Maggie present a "monster-sized" edition of their exhaustive Love and Rockets link roundups

• Police blotter: "Man dressed as Snoopy in 'worst attempted jail-break ever'" (via our own Eric Reynolds)