Online Commentary & Diversions

• Analysis: "For me, Tom [Kaczynski]'s work is an oasis in the desert... Tom K builds comics that could be likened to a brick house. These are solid comics." - Frank Santoro, Comics Comics

• List: I haven't heard of pop group 3OH!3 before, but their frontman Sean Foreman has pretty good taste in comics going by this Top 10 list he gave to The AOL Radio Blog: Black Hole, Bottomless Belly Button, Monster Parade, Epileptic, Jimmy Corrigan...

• Review: "For my money, [Joe] Daly is hilarious, with an ear for great dialog, a nice feel for the way characters and convertibles glide across the landscape of the comic page, and a zest for uniquely convoluted plots [in The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book]."- Steve Duin, The Oregonian

• Review: "Previous assemblages of [Prince] Valiant being out of print, Fantagraphics, a leader in the field, has stepped forward with gloriously restored art reproduced in generous dimensions and abetted by the essays of experts. This initial volume... demonstrates just why Valiant continues to burn so brightly... Simultaneously nostalgic and eternal, Hal Foster's populist masterwork deserves this accessible enshrinement." - Paul DiFilippo, The Barnes & Noble Review

• Review: "I dont think I’ve ever read anything like Low Moon by Jason and I mean that in a good way... Low Moon has a brilliant almost tightrope deadpan mix of sad and funny... Jason is capable of stories with heart like no other; particularly stories with an aura of heartrending and heartbreak. Low Moon might be the second most melancholy book that I’ve read over the past year... Low Moon by Jason continues to push the medium forward and confound readers expectations with brilliant stories that defy categorization." - Brian Lindenmuth, BSCreview

• Profile: La Perse looks at the "disturbing... beautiful" comics of Dave Cooper (Google translation)

• Plug: Cartoon Brew recommends The Comics Journal #299 for the reprint of Myron Waldman's Eve, "a rare treat for Fleischer Studio fans - or anyone interested in clever, cartoon story-telling."

• Plug: "[Abstract Comics is] more proof that comics are truly an art form. They can be just as weird, surreal, absurd, artistic, expressive and transcendent as any other medium." - Corey Blake

• Plug: At Arts Journal, Regina Hackett blurbs the "Comics Savants" exhibit at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery: "Some of these people are the best of the best."

• Things to see: Ray Fenwick attends Dweebo's School of Art (a day-long collaborative drawing performance); plus further adventures of Dweebo & Pupil

• Review: "...[T]he primitive funnybooks rescued from obscurity by Greg Sadowski in Supermen! The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941 contain within their awesomely naïve and rudimentarily brilliant pages all the seeds of the postmodern graphic novel... Compounded equally from pulp fiction, movies, newspaper strips, and sheer desperate commercial-deadline-brainstorm lunacy, these early superhero tales created their own fresh synthetic mythology and compositional tools on the fly." - Paul DiFilippo, The Barnes & Noble Review

• Review: "[Bottomless Belly Button] reads almost like a John Updike novel... [Dash Shaw] really utilizes the medium to its fullest capacity..." - Benn Ray (Atomic Books) on WYPR (Baltimore public radio - streaming audio)

• Review: "[The Wolverton Bible] is fascinating read; it's a fascinating document by one of the most important illustrators of the 20th century." - Benn Ray (Atomic Books) on WYPR (Baltimore public radio - streaming audio - same link as above)

• Review: "Fantagraphics’ collection of the four issues of Blazing Combat blew me away from the start. The size and heft of the hardback reminded me of my textbooks from my school days. And once I cracked open the book, I found myself getting a hell of an education with this one."- Tim O'Shea, Robot 6, "What Are You Reading?"

• Review: "If nothing else, Supermen! puts Fletcher Hanks’ career in perspective... These are comics designed to make you tear your hair out waiting for the next issue, just to see if these guys could top themselves.  Great fun all around." - Tom Bondurant, Robot 6, "What Are You Reading?" (same link as above)

• Review: "Jason is an expert at expressing a complex idea with simple visuals and dialogue. Most of his works contain little to no dialogue, actually -- entire stories can be read in facial expressions, twitches, color changes and movements. The entirety of Tell Me Something contains 7 lines of dialogue. It tells the story of 2 lovers and the trials they go through to be together, using dual layered story arcs differentiated simply by the panel borders to convey depth and reshape the story into an intriguing form." - The Inside Flap [Ed. note: Tell Me Something is out of print, but will be collected along with other Jason stories in a forthcoming hardcover]

• Preview: Doug Pratt and Monte Schulz have an exchange in the comments of Pratt's blog about Schulz's forthcoming novel This Side of Jordan (previewed here)

• Preview: The Kenyon Review makes note of our forthcoming Abstract Comics anthology

• Previews: Matthew Brady offers succinct commentary on two of our upcoming titles: Tales Designed to Thrizzle #5 by Michael Kupperman ("This comic is funny") and A Mess of Everything by Miss Lasko-Gross ("The art looks great")

• List: For Robot 6, Chris Mautner names "Six ‘retired' artists we'd like to see return to comics," including Brian Biggs ("...Frederick and Eloise [brings] a whimsical, storybook approach that never seem[s] overly twee or sweet. Indeed, [it is] often grounded by some dark undercurrents, not to mention backed by some serious artistic chops"), Dave Cooper ("Surreal, mind-warping books like Suckle, Ripple and his ongoing series Weasel, which chronicled a number of sweaty, paunchy, disturbingly neurotic and oversexed characters, had Cooper earning acclaim equal to the likes of Clowes and Ware"), and Mary Fleener ("...[S]he remains one of the most original voices in comics, with an art style that’s completely her own (no one draws a sex scene like her)." [Note to Mautner: Mary Fleener had a new comics story titled "Niacin" in Hotwire Comics Vol. 2, which we put out last year])

• Interview: At Robot 6, Tim O'Shea talks to Esther Pearl Watson about Unlovable Vol. 1. Choice quote: "I was a lot like Tammy and still am. It’s everything I fear."

• Profile: Seattle neighborhood newspaper The Ballard News-Tribune spotlights "alternative comics legend" and Ballard resident Peter Bagge

• Profile/Things to see: Goofbutton presents scans of the Bill Mauldin section in the 1977 World Book Year Book (via Spurge)

• Things to see: Buster Keaton as drawn by Kevin Huizenga for Cinefamily

• Things to see: New Vice comics from Johnny Ryan; believe it or not, one of 'em's just plain cute

• Things to see: Chubby vs. Pullapart battle royale from Ribs

• Review: French-Canadian site L'Autblog says Ripple by Dave Cooper is "a fascinating little book" according to the Google translation

• Blurb: Richard Cowdry is the latest blogger excited about Humbug

• Interview: The Pulse talks to future Mome-inista Noah Van Sciver

• Interview: The link for this Newsarama interview with C. Tyler isn't working at the moment; hopefully it'll be back up later

• Review: The Chicago Reader says that Beasts! Book 2 will "[set] loose something that will devour your still-palpitating innards"

• Review: ComicMix approves of Ghost World: Special Edition by Daniel Clowes & Terry Zwigoff

• Review: An older one that we missed - Thmazing reads The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 by Thomas Ott in the store without buying it, declares it "terrific"

• List: Kiel Phegley's "The Ten Best Comics I Read in 2008" includes Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 by the Hernandez Brothers at #7 and Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw at #1

• Analysis: Consequentialart examines a multi-page spread by Pat McEown from Dave Cooper's Weasel #1 (link via Sean T. Collins)

• Excerpt: Entrecomics posts some of Jason's Darth Vader gag strips from Meow, Baby! (as also seen in our 2006 Free Comic Book Day offering) and a page of his juvenilia as printed in The Comics Journal #294

• Preview: The Star Clipper Blog looks ahead to Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me and Other Astute Observations, our forthcoming collection of Peter Bagge's Reason strips

• Events: Comic Book Resources has the announcement of "The Art of Stan Sakai" at the Cartoon Art Museum (we'll have our own related event to announce in the not-too-distant future)

...by animator Nick Cross in this music video (I forget where I first spotted this):

Danko Jones - King Of Magazines from Bad Taste Records on Vimeo.

Got some extra links from Eric today:

• The Village Voice looks at Petey & Pussy by John Kerschbaum and The Lagoon by Lilli Carré

• Dr. K calls Petey & Pussy "vile and wrong" in the nicest way possible

• CMJ and the Philadelphia City Paper both feature Town of Mirrors by Robert Pollard

• The Gosh! Comics Blog blurbs Krazy & Ignatz 1925-1934 and 1935-1944

• Dark Worlds enjoys our collections of Walt Kelly's Our Gang

• Rip Post presents a bunch of Dave Cooper's recent artwork

• At Comicon.com, Jennifer M. Contino interviews Kevin Huizenga

• The Times' list of recommended graphic novels for Christmas includes Pocket Full of Rain and Other Stories by Jason, The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 by Thomas Ott, and Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw

• PLAYBACK:stl looks at Amor Y Cohetes and Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 by the Hernandez Brothers

• Chris Diaz uploads more photos from APE 2008

• Meathaus has a teaser of a forthcoming animated music video co-created by Dave Cooper

• Sketchbook comics from Tom Kaczynski

• A short Beasts! review

• Ladies and gentlemen, Tim Hensley covered in Post-It notes

Thanks to some inventory reshuffling we now have several formerly out-of-stock books back in our warehouse and available to order! Quantities are very limited — in some cases, literally a handful — so get your order in quick before they're gone again! The list:

• The Comic Strip Art of Lyonel Feininger
• The Comics Journal #290 (with the Schulz and Peanuts roundtable, this one sold out fast the first time)
• Crumple by Dave Cooper
• Greetings from Hellville by Thomas Ott
• Prince Valiant Vol. 11: Intrigues at Camelot (1946-1947) by Hal Foster
• Prince Valiant Vol. 41: King of Atheldag (1971-1972) by Hal Foster & John Cullen Murphy
• Prince Valiant Vol. 50: Vikings on the Isle of Man by Hal Foster & John Cullen Murphy (undamaged copies)
• Tell Me Something by Jason

Courtesy Dave Cooper: 

Hector Mumbly : Dave Cooper :: Lemony Snicket : Daniel Handler

Dave's also showing off his process and selling the original art from the book. (Hat tip: Meathaus.)