Today' Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: Flashlight Worthy polls various online critics for The Best Graphic Novels of 2010:

"Moto Hagio is to shojo manga what Will Eisner is to American comics, a seminal creator whose distinctive style and sensibility profoundly changed the medium. Though Hagio has been actively publishing stories since the late 1960s, very little of her work has been translated into English. A Drunken Dream, published by Fantagraphics, is an excellent corrective — a handsomely produced, meticulously edited collection of Hagio's short stories that span her career from 1970 to 2007." – Katherine Dacey (The Manga Critic)

"Truly the most welcome English translation of the year, this collection of aching vignettes from the mud and blood of WWI [It Was the War of the Trenches] forms a unique human patchwork, fitting for a time and place where bodies and souls went to pieces. Tardi is a skilled artist, placing his soft, eminently fragile human forms against natural scenes so dense and thick (and buildings so heavy and broken) you'd swear that the entire Earthly organism has been put to bed by war's viral infection, but the true power here comes from his accumulation of carefully detailed narratives, ringing sadly as the greater accumulation of corpses remains painfully implicit." – Joe McCulloch (Comics Comics, Jog – The Blog)

"Packed to the gills, surprising, and unabashedly ambitious, MOME 19 isn't just the best volume the series has seen, it's a shot across the bow to a format that's been ceded to fans and friends-only collectives. Anthologies, said Fantagraphics. They're still at their best when there's an adult behind the wheel." – Tucker Stone (The Factual Opinion)

• List: Graphic Novel Reporter's 2010 Favorites include:

Werewolves of Montpellier by Jason: "One of comics' most inventive and offbeat practitioners of the art returned this year with a story that was not exactly groundbreaking for him but still wildly fun and different from most other stories out there. Jason's books are always hard to classify exactly, but this tale of a thief who dresses up as a werewolf (it helps scare people, which helps him pull off his crimes) is one of his most intriguing." – John Hogan

A Drunken Dream and Other Stories by Moto Hagio: "Few creators in the 60-year history of Japanese manga are more important than Moto Hagio, one of the cohorts of the so-called 'Magnificent Forty-Niners' who revolutionized the shoujo genre in the 1970s. A Drunken Dream and Other Stories features a thoughtfully chosen selection of 10 short tales translated by Matt Thorn and published in lavish, oversized hardcover. The title story in particular offers a rare treat, its implacable, mythological cruelty rendered in soft-focus color." – Casey Brienza

• List: At Attentiondeficitdisorderly, Sean T. Collins names Wally Gropius by Tim Hensley as his first "Comic of the Year of the Day," calling it "the first great comic of the Great Recession."

• Review: "I finally read Special Exits last weekend. And I am here to tell you: It was tough. It was not fun. But it was truthful. It was specific. And it ... helped. In this, it was utterly unlike the book on grieving that a well-meaning relative pressed into my hands. That book's blandishments felt feathery and abstract; they had nothing to do with Pop, or with how I felt about him. Special Exits, on the other hand, is all about specificity. Farmer captures the tiniest, most mundane — and at times ugliest — details of caring for someone you love, and watching them pass from you. It's bracingly clear-eyed and unsentimental... Her pages and panels seem crowded with detail — deliberately and effectively so, to mirror the way her parents' house, and their lives, fall steadily into clutter and disrepair." – Glen Weldon, NPR

• Plug: "The latest from Fantagraphics... is Special Exits, a graphic novel from 71-year-old Joyce Farmer. Debut book it may be but she’s no newbie: Farmer was part of the whole underground comix scene in the time of R. Crumb... It’s the kind of memoir you can sit alongside Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, or anything Harvey Pekar: a story about her elderly parents’ slow decline." – The Gosh! Comics Blog

• Review: "Usagi Yojimbo: The Special Edition... is the perfect collection for neophytes to the series — it starts from the top, and introduces many of Sakai’s running cast, including the titular wandering samurai rabbit and a selection of his friends, enemies, and allies-of-convenience. The high-glossy, bright-white pages make Sakai’s finely detailed, heavily Japanese-inspired black-and-white art pop off the page, and the collection covers enough of his work to show how he’s evolved as an artist, from the early days when he was finding his feet to art that looks much like what he’s producing today." – The A.V. Club 2010 Holiday Gift Guide

• Plug: "Stan Sakai has been drawing his funny-animal samurai series Usagi Yojimbo for upwards of 25 years now. Usagi Yojimbo: The Special Edition collects the first 38 issues of Usagi's own comics and various other early stories in which he appeared, along with a ton of bonus features and an extensive interview with Sakai — 1200 pages of ronin rabbit action in all, presented as a two-volume hardcover set in a slipcase." – Douglas Wolk, TIME/Techland "Comics Geek Gift Guide 2010"

• Review: "[Jason's] comics are consistently funny and heartfelt, but tinged with a particular brand of melancholy. [...] The new collection, What I Did, takes the first three albums Fantagraphics translated and published in English. The first piece, 'Hey Wait...' is a real heartbreaker. [...] The second album, 'Sshhhh!' is a collection of wordless strips about a bird in a tweed jacket, and his tribulations as a character through life. [...] The strips delicately and comically depict the absurdities of modern existence... The last story, 'The Iron Wagon,' is an adaptation of a Norwegian mystery novel. [...] It’s great stuff, and like all of Jason’s stuff it’s deeply humanist." – Ao Meng, The Daily Texan

• Plug: "Jason's silent comics are so great. The monster ones in Almost Silent and 'Hey Wait' in What I Did especially. They are funny and sad and those are the two things a person wants." – Atomic Books "Holiday Picks"

• Review: "...[Four Color Fear] will... blow your fucking head up. [...] Trying to describe what makes many of these comics strange would take too long. Weird characters, odd behavior, no real logic, the list is endless. What makes this shit gold is the art. [...] Flipping through this it's hard not to think to yourself, 'How did I not know about this until now? Why didn't anyone tell me?' There's a gallery of glossy cover art in the center that is flat out some of the best art I've ever seen." – Nick Gazin, Vice

• Review: "Overall, the experience of joining this large fellow on his life’s journey is a delight, if a fairly short one. [Set to Sea]’s a small book in length as well as size, able to be read in a single sitting, but it’s good enough that it invites multiple journeys through its pages, allowing explorers to marvel at the fluid movement of the characters, the chaos of an inter-ship battle, the choppy waves and calm harbors, the joys of a life lived and savored." – Matthew J. Brady, Warren Peace Sings the Blues

• Plug: "Destroy All Movies!!!: The Complete Guide to Punks on Film:... This excellently researched compendium collects every cinematic punk appearance. Everyone I show this to has a major case of jaw-droppage, it’s just that good." – Benn Ray (who also includes the book in his Atomic Books Holiday Picks), Largehearted Boy

• Plug: "Gahan Wilson: 50 Years of Playboy Cartoons is as mammoth and daunting a career retrospective as anyone could wish for: a gorgeous three-volume set encompassing a thousand-plus of the macabre cartoonist's drawings, as well as additional features including a handful of short stories he also wrote for Playboy. It's beautifully designed, too — the slipcase itself involves a perfectly Wilsonian gag." – Douglas Wolk, TIME/Techland "Comics Geek Gift Guide 2010"

• Profile: "Throughout the 1990s [Peter] Bagge devoted himself almost completely to a comic book called HATE, the success of which brought him other opportunities, as well as a key choice: 'If I really wanted to play it safe after achieving a modicum of success I would have devoted myself to doing the same thing for life.' Instead, Bagge chose to take on new subjects and continued to experiment. [...] Bagge taught a course at Seattle University last winter. He recommends that students interested in comics and graphic novels visit Fantagraphics Bookstore in Georgetown, as their selection is interesting and outside the mainstream." – Cambray Provo, The Spectator (via The Comics Reporter)

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: East Bay Express's Anneli Rufus names Jim Woodring's Weathercraft one of the Best Books of 2010: "It's a wordless masterpiece from a Harvey Award-winning autodidact who executes his rhapsodically weird yet somehow relatable surrealistic visions with a lush, lifelike, retro-tinged precision that recalls Edward Lear and Winsor McCay. In an age when too many cartoonists draw with a lazy, defiantly fuckoffish lack of skill, Woodring's museum-quality mastery puts most of his colleagues to shame."

• Review: "Comic book historians Greg Sadowski and John Benson edited this fun time capsule [Four Color Fear], compiling over three dozen spine-tingling tales from the likes of Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, Iger Studio, Joe Kubert, Basil Wolverton and others. Also included is a beautiful cover section, plus background commentary on each entry and an introduction by John Benson. Grade: A-" – Mike Sebastian, Campus Circle Newspaper

• Plug: "Bent... is more beautiful red and black ink drawings and hazy, lush, desaturated oil paintings of mostly pillowy girls." – Matt Forsythe, Drawn

• Plug: "Castle Waiting Vols. 1 and 2 HCs (Fantagraphics) — These two huge hardcovers can currently be had for less than 50 bucks, and offer up a whole new world of wonder. Perfect for anyone who loves to be transported to another place and time." – Alan David Doane's Holiday Gift Guide, Trouble with Comics

• Plug: "Some reference books will tell you all about movies that won Oscars or about movies that come from certain countries. Who needs that? Destroy All Movies is the only book in the world that will tell you all about every single movie that contains a punk. And I mean every single movie. Editors Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly have done exhaustive years of research, and they’ve located every liberty spike wearing extra, every mohawked background actor and every safety pinned day player in cinema history. And then they wrote a whole bunch of funny, interesting stuff about those movies, and did some interviews with filmmakers and punks for good measure." – Dennis Faraci, Badass Digest "Badass Gift Guide"

• Reviewer: For the Wall Street Journal, Alexander Theroux (author of The Strange Case of Edward Gorey, coming soon) examines two new dictionaries: one of birdcalls, one of American slang

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Greg Sadowski‘s excellent Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s (Fantagraphics Books) was the first of a quartet of books on horror comics to surface this fall, and for my money, it’s arguably the most invaluable of the bunch. [...] There are some real revelations here, and I can tell you that this hardcore horror comics scholar/collector/creator is eternally grateful for all that Sadowski and Benson have added herein to a richer knowledge of these unique comics and this grossly misrepresented and misunderstood period in comics history. With an eye toward entertaining fully as well as curating, Sadowski’s greatest accomplishment here is making Four Color Fear such a fun and engaging read, cover-to-cover. [...] In this, Sadowski brings far more care to his anthology than any of the original editors of these comics seemed to; the cumulative effect, at times, is intoxicating, and the ways in which both the individual art styles and the narrative content are woven into a satisfying tapestry are often witty, sly and insidious. There’s a lot of smart work, here, and as a result it’s a super read for everyone, whether you’ve never before sampled this era’s strange fruit or are (like me) a long-time fan and collector." – Steve Bissette, The Schulz Library Blog

• Review/Interview: "That meeting place between responsible parenting and letting your kids love monsters is at the heart of the new graphic novel Rip M.D.... The parental dilemma (just how much horrific stuff should we let our kid get into?) is mined as a story point, while the book itself serves as a family-friendly gateway to gruesomeness. ..[T]the story focuses on Ripley’s personal growth as he accepts responsibility for these monstrous misfits. It’s a legitimately positive message delivered via a story about creatures, all of which sits close to Schauer’s heart. 'I grew up an only child, predominantly surrounded by adults,' Schauer recalls. 'I had to find something to entertain myself. It turned out to be monsters. [...] I’m trying to pull from the emotion I felt when I first saw those classic monsters, not as something to fear but something that was misunderstood.' [...] Rip M.D. doesn’t skimp on the macabre while reinforcing the ideal of an understanding family and the importance of not passing judgment on society’s outcasts…at least until you know them well enough to deliver an informed diagnosis." – Jack Bennett, Fangoria

• Review: "In High Soft Lisp, Gilbert traces the relationship history of Fritz Martinez, the ultimate sex goddess in a career full of them, and in so doing reveals that her every fetish outfit and sexual free-for-all is fruit from the poisoned tree. Lots of characters in this book enjoy the living shit out of Fritz’s sexuality, not least Fritz herself, but to a man and woman they’re revealed to be creepily predatory about it, embracing the worst in themselves and encouraging the worst in Fritz. And here’s the thing: What have we been doing over the hundreds of pages we’ve spent watching Fritz adorably and kinkily fuck her way through the post-Palomar cast of Beto’s comics? What has Beto been doing? What does that say about all of us?" – Sean T. Collins, Attentiondeficitdisorderly

• Review: "Mome... is where the smart kids with the sharpest pencils, shiniest pens, biggest brushes and best software go to play before they blow your minds in great big award-winning graphic novels. It is intense, sometimes hard to read and crafted to the highest production standards. This volume signals five incredibly impressive years and the eclectic graphic mix presented here augurs well for the next fifty… Whether you’re new to comics, fresh from the mainstream ghettos or just need something new, Mome always promises — and delivers — a decidedly different read." – Win Wiaceck, Now Read This

• Interview: Bef got two minutes with Jaime Hernandez

• Plug: Allan Holtz at Stripper's Guide presents some samples of Gene Deitch's Terr'ble Thompson and recommends our collection of the strip

• Plug: In the head-scratchingest gift guide ever, Tom Mason of Comix 411 suggests our Prince Valiant volumes as a wedding gift for Prince William: "One or two volumes would be nice for the royal couple. They can pretend it’s history."

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "This week I read Unexplored Worlds, the second collection of pre-Spider-Man comics drawn by Steve Ditko. This handsomely designed volume mainly collects work Ditko did for Charlton, a mix of sci-fi, western and post-code horror stories. Ditko is in fine form here...; he seems more sure of himself here, full of verve, dramatic angles and odd hand gestures. In some stories, you can see the groundwork being laid down for what was to come in a few years — there’s a sequence where a guy travels to another dimension where you can see the beginnings of Dr. Strange." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Review: "Each story is weird and wonderful in its own way, even when the writers and artists aren’t as skilled as others. Even better is a 32-page cover gallery in the middle, printed on glossy paper, each suitable for framing. I could stare at such covers all day. [Four Color Fear is an] excellent book..., expertly designed and popping with flaws-and-all color. At more than 300 pages..., [its] heft is welcome. For serious comics scholars or just those seeking a nostalgic kick, [it comes] highly recommended as [a] strong year’s-best contender..." – Rod Lott, Bookgasm

• Interview: At The Faster Times, Ryan Joe goes behind the scenes of Four Color Fear with the book's co-editor Greg Sadowski: "The quality of the writing was [the] number one [consideration] — each story had to be a compelling read. The art came second, though I think every story we chose has interesting art."

• Review: "Consider this a warning. If you fail to immediately purchase a copy of Destroy All Movies a swarm of post-apocalyptic punk rock bikers will kick your door down and ram their fists down your throat. [...] This is an exhaustive reference work that is every bit as brash and entertaining as its subject matter. It's well written, exhaustively researched and laid out in a gorgeous, colorful package that'll make it a coffee table discussion piece in geek homes around the globe." – Todd Brown, Twitch

• Interview: Joe Gross of the Austin American-Statesman, who says "Packed with stills from movies both cult and mainstream, filled with reviews of 1,100 films, and featuring interviews with crucial actors and directors, Destroy All Movies is everything one could hope for from a project this esoteric," talks to the book's editors, Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly, who says: "It's not like a Leonard Maltin guide where you can just go down to the store and be like, 'Oh, I want this movie.' You're gonna really have to fight to find a lot of the stuff in there. Like some of it isn't even available in this country."

• Review: "I just sat down and re-read thru the new Love and Rockets issue. Shame on you, True Believer, if you haven’t already dog-eared this one. Please, please order this one today and thank me for urging you to do so. ... Jaime Hernandez has outdone himself. I mean, I’m a cynical super fan at times who often believes he’s 'seen it all' and then something like L ‘n R New Stories #3 comes out and just slays me." – Frank Santoro (who goes on to examine Jaime's panel layouts and compare L&R to Rocky and Bullwinkle), Comics Comics

• Interview: At The Daily Cross Hatch, Brian Heater's chat with Jaime Hernandez continues: "Maggie’s just got so much more going on than the other characters, for me. I like doing the other characters, but I’ll always go back to Maggie and the joy of creating her life. There’s just something about the character that I enjoy playing with and finding out where she’s going and who she is."

• Review: Did you think Sean T. Collins was going to omit Birdland in his "Love and Rocktober" series at Attentiondeficitdisorderly? "Doing a straight-up porn comic that borrows the Palomar-verse characters Fritz and Petra gives Beto the freedom to be as silly and utopian as he wants, something he couldn’t get away with in the naturalist, politically aware world of Palomar and Love and Rockets proper."

• Plug: Corey Blake spotlights Carol Tyler's You'll Never Know books as good examples of comics in print format

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

[The following reviews of Lucky in Love Book 1: A Poor Man's History come via artist Stephen DeStefano, who posts the links along with some unpublished Lucky artwork as a nice bonus.]

• Review: "Lucky in Love is an oddly charming book. It takes the tradition of immigrant fiction and wartime stories and channels them through archetypal cartooning styles, crafting a book that looks lighthearted but is actually darker in tone and theme than it might appear on the face of it. [...] My rating: 4 of 5 stars." – Jamie S. Rich, Confessions of a Pop Fan

• Review: "In stunning black ink on gloriously evocative sepia pages... comes a light-hearted, heavy-hitting barbed-edged faux autobiography that is a moving testament to the life of the average Joe. [...] Drawn in a wild and captivating pastiche of Zoot-Suit era animated styles and frenetically Jitterbugging teen movies; marrying Milt Gross’ He Done Her Wrong and Count Screwloose to Milton Knight’s Hugo and Midnight the Rebel Skunk the bold, broadly Bigfoot cartooning style used imparts a seductive gaiety to the folksy monologue and completely disguises the subtle landmines this tale conceals in the narrative. [...] Lucky in Love is utterly absorbing, purely cartoon entertainment, strictly for adults and immensely enjoyable." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Review: "It was hard to resist when I looked at Chieffet (script) and DeStefano's (artwork) comic book Lucky in Love which came out the other day. DeStefano's drawing is damn inviting in its retro style, and Fantagraphics has succeeded exceptionally well with the design of the book... The only real problem is that DeStefano is such a lively artist, while the story is more dramatic." – Simon Wigzell, Serienytt.se (translated from Swedish)

• Review: "Lucky in Love is both a humorous and often naïve look at our past as a country and as sex-obsessed teenagers. It is a deadly serious story about the fantasy and the reality of war and heroism. It’s drawn in a unique style that it reminiscent of classic Disney or Golden Age comic strips and is filled with hopes, dreams, fantasies and often unfortunate realities. It’s a great coming-of-age story and history lesson that shouldn’t be missed. Grade: A-" – Chad Derdowski, Mania

• Review: "There's already a lot of reviews out about how amazing Jaime's stories are in this issue [of Love and Rockets: New Stories]. I don't really have anything to add. It's all true. It's very touching, truly a masterpiece. But let me also say how much I love the cover illustration. I keep looking at it — the perfect composition, the colours, the weird, blue sun, the small details (like the baby held by the woman in the background), the boy being separated from the others, not looking at the viewer the way the girls do. It means even more when you've read the story. Jaime has already created a lot of iconic covers, but this might be the best one." – Jason (the cartoonist), Cats Without Dogs

• Review: "That Greg Sadowski has gathered up 40 or so mostly forgotten non-EC Comics is cause for celebration... Sadowski does an excellent job of providing historical information for the talent and studios producing each story here... The book ends up being just about right. Good scholarship to put the stories into context, a glossy gallery in the middle of covers of the horror comics magazines of the day, and a highly entertaining selection of material from some of the better talents of the era. ...[Four Color Fear] is a solid primer and should be an entertaining one for years to come..." – Christopher Allen, Trouble With Comics

• Review: "Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s... will be intoxicating to comics fans, and just a hoot for casual readers. ...[T]his book... contains the crème de la blood from the wacky, unrestrained Halloween party that was pre-code horror comics." – Andrew A. Smith, Scripps Howard News Service

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "I enjoyed Tardi’s art, which made me feel as though I was visiting 1911 Paris. [...] The stories are dense and packed with outrageous events, providing a sense of adventure. The recaps, as characters explain what’s going on to each other, were both a help... and a satire, reinforcing just how much Tardi is playing with the conventions of the genre and layering event upon event, a kitchen-sink approach to plotting that keeps the reader interested in a world that seems so sedate but where anything can happen. [... The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec Vol. 1] is fun, but with the knowing remove of self-awareness and satire." – Johanna Draper Carlson, Comics Worth Reading

• Review: "Some of the conversations are amusing and the awkward silences of real life relationships are nicely portrayed by silent panels and the characters body language. The eight panel grids are the same on every page but that's not a bad thing. [Werewolves of Montpellier] is not the kind of tale that calls for spectacular graphics." – Eamonn Murphy, SF Crowsnest

• Review: "Set to Sea by Drew Weing... is about 150 pages long, but only has one illustration per page. It is always a good illustration, and this story of a would-be writer who’s shanghaied into being a pirate is great fun. Weing’s art is cartoony, but that helps lessen the violence of ship to ship battles with boarding parties hacking at each other with cutlasses. Weing is a young cartoonist to watch." – Mike Rhode, Washington City Paper

• Review: "...[T]he most recent installment in the annual [Love and Rockets] series features a couple of moments that are as technically brilliant and as profoundly moving as anything the series has seen in the past. It’s not easy to get to that level of emotion without collapsing under the weight of your own portentousness, but the Hernandez brothers have managed it." – Bob Temuka, The Tearoom of Despair [Spoiler warning!]

• Review: "As soon as I finished reading the new Love and Rockets, I could only think about how much I want to read further. Definitely it will be some time before the next issue and possibly when it is released I'll admit that it is worth waiting every day, but fortunately for the moment I can always go back to previous work by the brothers Hernandez, and read their latest project again and again." – Aristedes Kotsis, Comicdom (translated from Greek)

• Review: "I know I just got finished explaining that biology is destiny in the Palomar stories. But what struck me upon rereading the material collected in this volume, dominated by the titular story of a serial killer’s stay in the town, is the power of ideas. Not emotional or sexual drives, even, like the web of lust and unrequited love surround Luba’s mother Maria in the suite of stories that forms the second half of the collection, but actual honest-to-god ideas. [...] If Heartbreak Soup showed us Gilbert the literary comics stylist, Human Diastrophism shows us Gilbert the mindfucker — the Gilbert who’s still with us today." – Sean T. Collins, Attentiondeficitdisorderly (a continuation of the "Love and Rocktober" series)

• Interview (audio): Guest co-host Dan Zettwoch gets in on the Carol Tyler interview action in the new episode of The Comix Claptrap podcast — two of my faves together!

• Commentary: "'Frank in the Ruse Garden,' like all the Frank stories, like most of Jim Woodring’s work, is one hundred percent unadulterated Uncanny. Like Jim Woodring saw fever dreams we’d forgotten ages ago, and put them down on paper to remind us. [...] The Unifactor is an animistic world of spirits and strange forces. Time and again, Frank comes in contact with numinous wonders, and fail to rise to the occasion. Frank comes upon a field of floating souls, and grabs one to use as a flying horse. Frank dives into a well ringed with eyes, and emerges mutated and warped. Frank wanders into the House of the Dead wearing a party hat, and it’s, like, awkward." – Wesley Osam, Super Doomed Planet

• Plug: "How could it be Halloween without some horror comics? I’ve been enjoying Four Color Fear, ed. Greg Sadowski, an anthology of ‘50s horror comics from publishers other than EC. I’m only a couple of stories in and, while none have actually scared me, the oversized, full-color book looks to be a wonderful primer on horror-comics history." – guest columnist Sam Costello, Robot 6

Another two-day Online Commentary & Diversions (running a little off schedule, sorry):

• Review: "Hollywood is probably the most likely to misrepresent any culture, but their casting of punks as Neolithic, abusive, drug addicts with candy-colored hair and an inexplicable amount of chains is far too amusing to turn away from. [Destroy All Movies!!!] editors Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly seem to have noticed this trend, and their commentary about each of these films borders on hilarious at several points. [...] In the end, you get both a compendium of thoughtful ruminations on punk culture and a hilarious collection of movie missteps..." – Thorin Klosowski, Denver Westword

• Review: "[Jason] is without immediate peer, and perhaps the closest I can get to him is Jim Jarmusch, the indie film director... Werewolves of Montpellier is less about the grand sweep of its pseudo-horror set-up (which is utterly demolished by a delicious final page denouement), and more about its mundane aspects, which resonate further than the book's forty-odd pages. ★★★★ [out of 5]" – Michael Leader, Den of Geek

• Review: ‎"...Blake Bell has crafted an excellent look at one of comics' most underappreciated creators: compelling, well paced and entertaining. [...] Bell kept Fire & Water moving at an excellent pace, never dwelling too long on any details but giving us Everett's life in relation to his comic career. And that's the key: Bell is a comic fan and knows his audience is as well so that's the focus. [...] While the tale of Everett's life held my attention the art is the real star. Covering everything from early doodles to his last published page we get to see thirty plus years of material. [...] The fit and finish for Fire & Water is exceptional. A heavy matt paper is used that really shows off the material and gives it an almost period feel. The size is perfect for admiring the art and is easy to read; a new perfect package. I can't get enough of the dust jacket image and its design is stunning: a real eye catcher. At $40 it's a great value." – Scott VanderPloeg, Comic Book Daily

• Review: At The Hooded Utilitarian, Noah Berlatsky's story-by-story examination of Moto Hagio's A Drunken Dream and Other Stories moves on to "Iguana Girl"

• Review: Sean T. Collins's "Love and Rocktober" review series at Attentiondeficitdisorderly moves on to Gilbert Hernandez's oeuvre, starting with Heartbreak Soup: "Whether in terms of family, sexuality, physicality, or deformity, biology is destiny for the people of Palomar... And although biology is obviously among Beto's primary concerns, destiny is the operative word. I don't think the Palomarians have the ability to escape the way the Locas do. Not all of them need to escape, mind you — there's a lot of really warm and adorable and hilarious and awesome stuff going down in Palomar — but whatever walks alongside them in their lives is gonna walk alongside them till the very end."

• List: At Robot 6, guest contributor Van Jensen names Josh Simmons's House as one of his "six favorite horror comics & movies" (and, by reduction, one of his three favorite horror comics): "Simmons uses no words through the entire story, but his real accomplishment is utilizing the design of the pages to deliver an increasingly claustrophobic, disorienting and terrifying story."

• Plug: At Robot 6, Sean T. Collins highlights our duo of creepy all-ages releases, David B.'s The Littlest Pirate King and Stéphane Blanquet's Toys in the Basement

• Interview: The Daily Cross Hatch's Brian Heater concludes his 3-part chat with Drew Weing: "What’s funny is, I’ve got Google Alerts for my name, so if somebody says it on the Internet, I show up like Beetlejuice. I click on it, like, 'ooh, this guy just dissed me.'" [Hi, Drew.]

• Analysis: At Comics Comics, Timothy Hodler compares the reproduction/restoration style of Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s with another, similar book which also came out recently, also noting that "Greg Sadowski’s [text] is preferable by a wide margin." (There's plenty of discussion in the comments, and from Alan David Doane at Comic Book Galaxy.)

Online Commentary & Diversions from Friday to today:

• Review: "In The Sanctuary, Nate Neal traces back the history of manipulation, power battles and betrayal to a single cave, thousands of years ago. The story unfolds entirely in a Paleolithic language Neal created, rendering the action subtle as a tribe careens toward possible chaos amidst the battles contained. [...] In the dynamics that Neal presents, you can see your country, your town, your work place and your family, all rolled into one cautionary tale. In stark black and white, Neal’s art exhibits much sophistication, while still maintaining a required roughness, given the time period and level of civilization he’s portraying. [...] Neal’s book digs deep down to the core of our humanity that almost requires manipulation for movement, but suggests that sometimes there are victories for us even if we do require a shifty style of prodding." – John E. Mitchell, The North Adams Transcript

• Review: "As ever, Jason's characters are universal precisely because they're so specific and odd; dog-faced werewolf Everymen, living their lives of quiet desperation. His art is precise and carefully defined, a collection of moments carefully chosen and arrayed to imply so much more than his characters could ever say. His silences are theatrical — he's the Beckett, or Pinter, of comics. And Werewolves of Montpellier is another masterly performance from one of our modern best." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Reviews: Sean T. Collins continues "Love and Rocktober" at Attentiondeficitdisorderly, delving into Love and Rockets: New Stories with Jaime's "Ti-Girls Adventures" from #1-2 ("If 'Locas' has taught us anything, isn't it that women should be the stars and driving forces behind their own damn comic, even if they're dressing up in one-piece swimsuits and punching each other in the process?") and the "Browntown"/"The Love Bunglers" duology from #3 ("Such power! ...[One] of the most devastating — and I mean so sad it impacted me physically — comics I've ever read. I will never forget reading this book.")

• Review: "...A Drunken Dream and Other Stories... sucked me into its stories and made me want to read a lot more of Hagio’s comics. A mixture of romance, science-fiction, and family drama, this ten story compilation is one of the strongest examples I’ve seen of the depth and breadth that the shôjo genre can contain. [...] Highly recommended." – Greg McElhatton, Read About Comics

• Review: "Now [Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s] is my kind of Americana. A finely curated collection of pre-code horror comics from publishers whose initials are not E.C." – M. Ace, Irregular Orbit

• Review: "...[Temperance] is an intimidatingly rich work, full of symbolism and moody art... It's all lushly rendered in spooky gray tones, with lively, somewhat pudgy characters always striving forward toward their dubious goals... Malkasian clearly has poured her heart into this story, bringing the characters to life even as they act to make readers think beyond the story itself. It's a beautiful book, and one that will stick in the mind for some time after reading it." – Matthew J. Brady, Warren Peace Sings the Blues

• Review: "...[T]his fabulous tome highlights the astounding wizardry of one of the most accomplished draughtsmen and yarn-spinners of [comics'] incredibly fertile early period. [...] Evocatively written by biographer Blake Bell, with dozens of first hand accounts from family, friends and contemporaries; the sad, unjust life of this key figure of comics art is lovingly recounted here with hundreds of artistic examples... Fire and Water offers an opportunity to revel in the mastery of a truly unique pillar of America’s sequential Art establishment. [...] Brilliant, captivating, and utterly unmissable, this is the book Bill Everett deserves — and so do you." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Plug: "Wow, punk is now nostalgic. You can’t stop getting older, can you? Well, you can, but it’s not a good alternative. Anyway, Fantagraphics has announced that next month they will release Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film, over 400 pages of reference to 'every appearance of a punk (or new waver!) to hit the screen in the 20th Century.'" – Johanna Draper Carlson, DVDs Worth Watching

• Commentary: At Robot 6, Chris Mautner gives you a beginner's guide to Kevin Huizenga in the latest "Comics College" feature: "In the short time he’s been making comics, Huizenga has shown himself to be an author of considerable talent and probing sincerity."

• Interview: Avoid the Future talks to Kevin Huizenga: "I often feel that I’m not really a true artist or a writer, just a fan whose playing make-believe. The inner compulsion I have is to put together something with a kind of complex structure, with some complex arrangement of things that surprises me, or makes me feel like my favorite comics do."

• Commentary: At the Schulz Library Blog, read "Lyonel Feininger: Lost Expressionist Master of the Sunday Comics Page," a comics-history class essay by Andy Warner (CCS, Class of 2012)

• Coming Attractions: Library Journal's Martha Cornog spotlights R.I.P.: Best of 1985-2004 by Thomas Ott and Approximate Continuum Comics by Lewis Trondheim in their Graphic Novel Prepub Alert for January 2011 releases

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "The Sanctuary is a powerful story, telling of the timeless conflict between learning and ignorance.  Nate Neal provides readers with an insightful look at the tension in a community when the balance is challenged by new thinking.  In short, The Sanctuary is a very promising debut, and probably one of the best new comics of the year." – Michael C. Lorah, Newsarama

• Review: "In Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s, editors John Benson and Greg Sadowski and publisher Fantagraphics drive a stake into the notion that EC was the only game in town. [...] There are enough goofy and ghoulish vignettes to satisfy the most bloodthirsty readers... I spent several evenings skipping through the book and reading stories that happened to catch my eye (and drag it down the hall, yuck, yuck), and I was impressed by the economics of storytelling. [...] It’s such a packed package that it may very well last through next October, unless rightfully gobbled up after midnight, long after the trick-or-treaters have retreated to their safe havens. Thankfully, these zombies of old can now lurk atop bedside tables and in four color — the next bite only a page away." – Alex Carr, Omnivoracious

• Review: "A movie guide should make you want to watch movies, and none has ever made me want to watch as many as Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film. [...] In addition to being wildly informative, the writing is entertaining as all hell. All of the contributors are knowledgeable and enthusiastic about their topic. This is the kind of book that you’ll keep on your coffee table and pick up for a few minutes here and there, and every time you do, you’ll find something amazing. [...] Destroy All Movies!!! is as hyperactive, eclectic, and punk rock as the films it commemorates. [...] But even as spastic and irreverent as it can be, this is also a serious, respectful examination of an overlooked piece of film culture. [...] BUY THIS BOOK. You won’t regret it." – Brent McKnight, BeyondHollywood.com

• Plug: "For the budding or seasoned cult movie fan in your life, Destroy All Movies!!! by Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly is the picture perfect present." – Tara O'Donnell, living read girl

• Review: Sean T. Collins's "Love and Rocktober" series at Attentiondeficitdisorderly rolls on with Ghost of Hoppers: "Jaime Hernandez has long displayed an infrequently utilized but alarming alacrity for horror. [...] At first I struggled with why Jaime would choose this particular storyline--Maggie Realizes She's All Grown Up, basically--to delve deeper than ever into this aspect of the Locas world. I mean, this thing becomes a horror comic toward the end, easily the most sustained such work in the whole Locas oeuvre. What does any of it have to do with the misadventures of Maggie, the story's protagonist? But then it clicked..."

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "...[From Shadow to Light: The Life and Art of Mort Meskin] is extremely informative and truly wonderful... Evocatively written by creative/art director, designer, educator and biographical author Steven Brower, with dozens of first hand accounts from family, friends and contemporaries; the sad, unjust life of this major figure of popular art is fully explored and gloriously justified by every miraculous page of his work reproduced herein. [...] Brilliant, captivating, utterly unforgettable and unknown, Meskin’s enforced anonymity is finally coming to an end and this magical chronicle is hopefully only the first step in rediscovering this major talent." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Review: "[Mort] Meskin... deserves to be treasured by all comic fans and studied by all artists of the medium. Now, at last, he gets some of the attention he is due in From Shadow to Light: The Life & Art of Mort Meskin by Steven Brower. [...] On display in this book are amazing examples of comic art. [...] The biographical portion of the book is enlivened by vivid detail from many personal recounts by artists and friends Meskin worked with and his own sons... Overall... this book is an incredible testament to an incredible talent and hopefully it will encourage more comic fans to learn about Meskin and seek out some of his work." – Rich Clabaugh, The Christian Science Monitor

• Review: "Four Color Fear is a lovingly accumulated and organized collection of... stories starring ghosts, ghouls, zombies, demons, and monsters of all stripes. [...] Four Color Fear offers some nice bonus features too, which elevate it from being a simple compilation of reprinted stories. [...] In case I haven’t made this clear yet: this book is tremendous. [...] For fans of the genre, [editor Greg] Sadowski has performed a valuable service — rescuing these stories from obscurity and reminding us that, yes, EC was one of the important publishers of its era — only one of many. [Rating] 9/10" – David Maine, PopMatters

• Review: "One of the consolations of being obscure is the knowledge that you'll never have to wake up in a world where Drew Friedman has caricatured you. Friedman's pen is relentless and his eye is merciless: every foible, every wrinkle or blush or spot is seen clearly and depicted precisely. ...[T]here hasn't been a book like Too Soon? before, and it's been needed. So the answer to the question's title is: no, not at all. If anything, it's long overdue." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Reviews: The new episode of Easy Rider, the radio show for "rock, punk rock, country, power pop, garage and comics" from Radio PFM out of Arras in northern France, features Lucky in Love Book 1 by George Chieffet & Stephen DeStefano, Locas by Jaime Hernandez, and Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me by Peter Bagge among their Comics of the Week 

• Review: "Love and Rocktober" continues at Attentiondeficitdisorderly as Sean T. Collins looks at Jaime's Perla La Loca: "So what conclusions are we to draw from all this? It's taken me a while, but I've come to the conclusion that drawing a conclusion is the wrong thing to do. There's not some message being sent here about, I dunno, punk or fluid sexuality or sex work, which are sort of the common threads of the two big stories here... The message, I think, is simply to be found in the fact that there are two big, separate Maggie and Hopey stories here. They're not symbols, they're people."

• Plug: "Weeks like this are rare for fans of legendary manga... Fantagraphics comes out with A Drunken Dream and Other Stories and finally puts an end to the *absolute nonsense* that was the lack of translated work by Moto Hagio. [...] Support the translation of quality art-manga!" – 211 Bernard (Librairie Drawn & Quarterly)

• Interview: Jesse Tangen-Mills conducts the first of two interviews with Johnny Ryan at The Comics Journal: "At first my Mom thought this would be a nice hobby for me. She never liked the idea or thought I could make a living out of it. Now, she seems to appreciate it a bit more. I do send her my books because she asks for them. I don’t think I would otherwise."

• Interview: The second interview with Johnny Ryan at The Comics Journal, conducted by Ian Burns, was originally meant for this blog, but deemed Too Good for Flog: "...I felt, by doing research, I’m completely undermining the work. It goes back to my whole thing about seeing like a teenager’s action comic. Teenagers don’t think about, 'Well, I need to take an anatomy course,' [Burns laughs] 'before I draw my mutant planet war.' They just fuckin’ just go and just jump into it. So I had that same vibe."