We love Danish comics (so much so that we co-published an anthology of them, From Wonderland with Love, with Danish publisher Aben Maler, and our Scandinavian comics anthology Kolor Klimax: Nordic Comics Now is coming soon), so we're especially pleased to learn that the Danish Comics Council and comics website Nummer 9 have announced the nominees for the 2012 Ping Prisen (Prisen = Prize) and that they include:

"Nostalgia" by Johan F. Krarup, from Kolor Klimax: Nordic Comics Now: Best Danish Comic

Mellem dyrene (Congress of the Animals) by Jim Woodring: Best International Comic in Danish

Speedy Ortiz dør (The Death of Speedy) by Jaime Hernandez: Best International Comic in Danish

We're also pleased to see Eisner-nominated From Wonderland with Love contributor Nikoline Werdelin nominated for Best Danish Comic for "Homo Metropolis."

UPDATE: For English-speakers, Matthias Wivel provides some background on the awards at The Metabunker.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "...A Drunken Dream and Other Stories... is a deeply impressive — and immersive — piece of work that's full of complex emotional truths. And deep weirdness. [...] I dug this, and I think many, many people not conversant with manga will, too. Stylistically, it's a curious mix: Her linework gives each page a sense of openness, conjuring a world of light breezes, flowers and sunshine, even as her characters struggle with inner darkness. This darkness can take many forms: doomed eternal love, grief, guilt or — in the collection's most satisfyingly creepy/affecting tale — a parasitic conjoined twin. It’s not overwrought or melodramatic – Hagio's got too good an eye for locating the emotional center of her work for that. But it is sincere, and often abashedly poignant." – Glen Weldon, NPR.org

• Review: "We’re up to the 14th volume of this classy Peanuts reprint series from Fantagraphics. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned in a while how much I like the book design by Seth. His color choices are particularly good this time. [...] In all, great fun and good reading. Highly recommended!" – Todd Klein (via The Comics Reporter)

• Plugs: "It’s a relatively smallish week but Fantagraphics have beefed it up with two brilliant looking books. Lucky in Love: A Poor Man’s History is the first of a two-part story written by George Chieffet about Lucky Testatuda, a rascally teen from New Jersey’s Little Italy and his experiences before, during, and after the war. But it’s not your usual take on the old familiar when-I-went-to-war tale... The other offering from Fantagraphics is From Shadow to Light: The Life & Art of Mort Meskin, a coffee table art book, biography and critique of a highly influential Golden Age artist... This book not only looks at his entire comics career which spanned for about 30 years from the 40’s but also goes on to include stuff from 1965 and onwards, when he went on to become some sort of Don Draper character (one cheerily imagines) in an advertising firm in 1965." – The Gosh! Comics Blog

• Plugs: "A beautiful retrospective on the 30 year career and work of an under-appreciated comics legend. From Shadow to Light makes an excellent argument that [Mort] Meskin has a home in the comics pantheon next to the likes of Jack Kirby and Alex Toth. [...] Both visually stunning and gripping narrative-wise, Lucky [in Love] is like an epic feature length classic cartoon with a modern sensibility — in book format." – Benn Ray (Atomic Books), Largehearted Boy

• Profile: At The Metabunker, Matthias Wivel profiles Nikoline Werdelin, creator of the Eisner-nominated story "Because I Love You So Much" from From Wonderland with Love, on the occasion of her 50th birthday: "And she is indeed merciless. A borderline if not full-blown cynic, her coldness is tempered by an exacting sense of humor that betrays her involvement. Plus it brings a rare clarity to her vision — she is a diagnostician rather than a nihilist. [...] A cartoonist for our age."

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Interview: In an audio interview originally broadcast on Resonance FM and now archived at Panel Borders for streaming or download, "Alex Fitch talks to Steffen P. Maarup about the collection of Danish comics he’s edited and translated into English: From Wonderland with Love – Danish Comics in the Third Millennium, an anthology that surveys the current comics scene in Denmark and collects creators from outside the world of comics also, including illustrators and fine artists alongside their sequential art peers. Alex and Steffen also talk about the wider world of Danish comics, including Danes who have found work on American titles and the controversy over the dozen cartoon illustrations printed in the Jyllands-Posten (Jutland Post) which led to death threats for the creators." (via The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log)

Signe Parkins, Peter Kielland, Thomas Thorhauge, Johan F. Krarup, Ib Kjeldsmark, Christoffer Zieler (who were all featured in From Wonderland with Love) and twelve other Danish cartoonists battle it out tournament-style in cartoonland until only one is left standing. Our good friends and colleagues at our From Wonderland co-publisher Aben Maler are posting a new duel from the first round each Friday on this page and collecting them all next month in a book titled Tegn eller dø. Five battles have already been waged — keep checking back for subsequent bouts.

We are exceedingly pleased to report that Fantagraphics publications and artists received a record 18 nominations for the 2010 Eisner Awards. To celebrate, we're offering these titles at 18% off for a limited time! Click here for the full sale selection. (Sale is valid for online and phone orders only.) Winners will be announced at a ceremony on Friday, July 23, 2010 at Comic-Con International in San Diego. Congratulations to all the nominees! Fantagraphics' nominations are as follows:

• Best Short Story: "Because I Love You So Much," by Nikoline Werdelin, in From Wonderland with Love: Danish Comics in the Third Millennium  

• Best Single Issue: Ganges #3, by Kevin Huizenga

• Best Humor Publication: Drinky Crow's Maakies Treasury, by Tony Millionaire

• Best Humor Publication: Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me and Other Astute Observations, by Peter Bagge

• Best Anthology: Abstract Comics, edited by Andrei Molotiu

• Best Adaptation from Another Work: West Coast Blues, by Jean-Patrick Manchette, adapted by Jacques Tardi
• Best U.S. Edition of International Material: West Coast Blues, by Jean-Patrick Manchette, adapted by Jacques Tardi

• Best Archival Collection — Strips: The Brinkley Girls: The Best of Nell Brinkley's Cartoons 1913-1940, edited by Trina Robbins
• Best Publication Design: The Brinkley Girls, designed by Adam Grano

• Best Archival Collection — Strips: Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons, by Gahan Wilson, edited by Gary Groth
• Best Publication Design: Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons, designed by Jacob Covey

• Best Archival Collection — Strips: Prince Valiant, Vol. 1: 1937-1938, by Hal Foster, edited by Kim Thompson

• Best Archival Collection — Comic Books: Blazing Combat, by Archie Goodwin et al., edited by Gary Groth

• Best Archival Collection — Comic Books: Humbug, by Harvey Kurtzman et al., edited by Gary Groth

• Best Writer/Artist — Nonfiction: Carol Tyler, You'll Never Know: A Good and Decent Man
• Best Painter/Multimedia Artist: Carol Tyler, You'll Never Know: A Good and Decent Man

• Best Comics-Related Periodical: The Comics Journal, edited by Gary Groth, Michael Dean, and Kristy Valenti

• Best Lettering: Richard Sala, Delphine (Fantagraphics), Cat Burglar Black (First Second)

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: We published 3 of "The 6 Most Underrated Comics of 2009" according to Robot 6's Chris Mautner, including Giraffes in My Hair: A Rock 'n' Roll Life by Bruce Paley & Carol Swain ("Swain's low-key, nonchalant art fits perfectly with Paley's tales of hippie wanderings and punk-era decadence, stripping the stories of any rock glamor and tinging them with a genuine sadness. Really, this book just underscores how talented and sharp an artist Swain really is") From Wonderland with Love: Danish Comics in the Third Millennium ("...Nikoline Wedelin's haunting, chilling Because I Love You So Much... still resonates with me months after I wrote this review. The unflinching regard for its subject matter is not going to have people beating a path to its door, but the sheer daring artistry on display deserved much  more attention than it got") and Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons ("It's a testament, not only to Wilson's genius (the material never flags or gets rote, no matter what the decade) but also to Fantagraphics skill in presenting this material in such a stellar fashion. Really, it was the best retrospective collection of the year, and I wish more people had noticed it.")

• Review: In the interest of balance, Byron Kerman of PLAYBACK:stl loves Johnny Ryan but didn't care for Prison Pit Book 1

• Commentary: I don't check in with the TCJ message boards as often as I should -- there's some good discussion of the new volume of The Complete Peanuts going on over there (via ADD at Comic Book Galaxy)

• Panel: The concluding installment of The Comics Journal's presentation of a never-before-published panel discussion between Charles Burns, Chip Kidd, Seth and Chris Ware, moderated by Jeet Heer, that occurred October 29, 2005 at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto, Canada, turns things over to audience Q&A

Let's start out with a little showin' off!

• Mr. Gahan Wilson was kind enough to contribute this astonishing page to my Yoda theme sketchbook. (Mr. Wilson having been one of my favorite cartoonists since I was about 8 — 3 decades — this was an unparalleled thrill.) I just scanned and uploaded about 50 previously unseen Yodas — of particular interest to Fantagraphics fans may be (chronologically) T. Edward Bak, Bob Fingerman, Derek Van Gieson, Kurt Wolfgang, From Wonderland with Love contributors Christoffer Zieler & T. Thorhauge, Sara Edward-Corbett, Gary Panter, Trina Robbins, Lewis Trondheim, Roger Langridge, Frank Santoro, R. Sikoryak, and Anders Nilsen... and that ain't even the half of it!

• Speaking of Gahan, Golden Age Comic Book Stories presents a selection of his mid-1970s newspaper feature Gahan Wilson Sunday Comics

• The latest Amazing Facts and Beyond with Leon Beyond by Kevin Huizenga

• Speaking of Kevin H., here's some manner of Wild Kingdom "remix"

• A happy flower (1943) and an odd creature (1993, not shown here) by Jim Flora

• John Pham is readying some artwork for an upcoming solo show at GR2 (stay tuned for an announcement — image yoinked from Facebook)

• Drinky Crow, by Mother Nature (ganked from Tony Millionaire's Facebook) — somebody call the Vatican

• Hans Rickheit's Ectopiary, page 11 , plus layouts for the cover of The Comics Interpreter #1

• For The Nation, Steve Brodner on that shitty recent Supreme Court decision

By the way, multiple belated hat tips to Robot 6, whose roundups of end-of-year links have been invaluable to the last few installments of Online Commentary & Diversions. On with the links:

• List: Publishers Weekly announced the results of their 2009 Comics Week Critic's Poll; among the top vote-getters are You'll Never Know, Book 1: A Good and Decent Man by C. Tyler ("I love this autobiographical family story as much for the way Tyler weaves between her own life and her father's, as for its painterly, illustrative panoramas of suburban neighborhoods and army scenes." – Sasha Watson) and Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 1 by Michael Kupperman ("Milk and other liquids may come out your nose as you read one of the funniest comics ever put to paper. Kupperman's droll absurdism is matched by a stiff, woodcut-like art style that underplays the sometimes outre concepts. A comedy diamond." – Heidi MacDonald). Humbug by Harvey Kurtzman et al, Low Moon by Jason, Luba by Gilbert Hernandez, Supermen!: The First Wave Of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941, West Coast Blues Jean-Patrick Manchette and Jacques Tardi, and You Are There by Jacques Tardi and Jean-Claude Forest all received single votes in the poll

• List: At comiXology, Tucker Stone counts down his top 25 Best Comics of 2009, with Grotesque #3 by Sergio Ponchione at #23 ("...every once in a while, I get a reminder how vast the world of comics really is. Grotesque — European, unusual, brilliant — was one of those, an experimental passport to another universe"), Ganges #3 by Kevin Huizenga at #7 ("...Ganges captured the thing that all of us spend a lifetime doing — thinking — and turned it into something deserving of examination") and, in the top spot, Prison Pit: Book 1 by Johnny Ryan ("Aggro, obscene, hilarious, compulsive: Prison Pit. It wasn't just the greatest comic of the year, it was one of those comics that operated like the end result of a math equation, a definitive answer to the question of what comics are, and what they should be...")

• List: Johnny Bacardi's Personal Best of the Decade includes Eightball #22 by Daniel Clowes

• Review: "Each [panel] almost vibrates with the frenetic, desperate energy of the characters as they try to pull off their cons. That energy explodes in the final pages, as the story comes to a dramatic but ambiguous conclusion. In the end, the work offers an homage to B-movies while standing out as a graphic novel. The Troublemakers will please long-term Hernandez fans. It also should serve as a good introduction to newcomers looking to jump into the Love and Rockets universe." – Publishers Weekly

• Review: "...Giraffes [in My Hair], a collection of anecdotes from Bruce Paley's teens and twenties on America's countercultural fringe, is a breezy read. ... Swain's art rarely calls attention to or gets in the way of itself, and in that it meshes seamlessly with Paley's deadpan 'here's what happened' narrative style, his reluctance to overstate or oversell the import of the anecdote reminiscent of Harvey Pekar's." – Sean T. Collins

• Review: "...[The Comics Journal] has reached issue 300 and is celebrating with a fascinating collection of creator-chats as industry tyros and giants come together to interview, share, bitch and generally shoot the breeze about graphic narrative: a tactic that makes this the most compelling read of the year for anyone truly interested in what we all do and why." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Review: "Fantagraphics Books continues its series devoted to chronologically packaging [Peanuts] and has not missed a step along the way. ... I’m pleased to inform that the latest edition, the twelfth in the series, is as lovingly curated as the first... [I]t is nice to know that one of the form’s greatest achievements is being held up as the accomplishment it really is." – Dw. Dunphy, Popdose

• Review: "It’s clear from editor/publisher Steffen P. Maarup’s survey [From Wonderland with Love: Danish Comics in the Third Millennium] that, contradicting Horatio’s famous line in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, there is nothing 'rotten' about the state of comics in Denmark today. If anything, it’s nurturing a number of major talents as well as sprouting exciting new shoots." – Paul Gravett (via Robot 6)

• Review: "[In Sam's Strip] Walker and Dumas clearly take pleasure in working in callbacks to classic comic strips... [and] many of the metatextual gags are funny and fun. ... Dumas’s drawings of classic comic-strip characters are excellent... The result is a frustrating, compelling curiosity: the soul of an underground comic trapped in the mortal coil of a Hi and Lois." – Shaenon Garrity, The Comics Journal

• Plugs: At Comics Alliance, Douglas Wolk's recommended comics of the week include The Troublemakers by Gilbert Hernandez ("It's crazy, vivid, grindhouse-y stuff") and The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. by Dash Shaw ("intriguing")

• Plugs: The Gosh! Comics Blog also highlights The Troublemakers by Gilbert Hernandez and The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. by Dash Shaw among the week's noteworthy releases

• Plug: Rob Orange of Seduced by the New features Conceptual Realism: In the Service of the Hypothetical by Robert Williams

• Plug: Illustrator Joanna Barnum spotlights Nell Brinkley as an inspiration

• Plug: Mark Langshaw of Digital Spy takes note of the upcoming Kim Deitch book The Search for Smilin' Ed

• Analysis: Robert Boyd examines Popeye's propensity for cross-dressing, with evidence from Popeye Vol. 4 (via Jeet Heer)

• Coming Attractions: Wayno, whose work appears in the forthcoming Newave: The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s, talks about the book and the (announcement!) upcoming exhibit at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery

• Events: Star Clipper is sponsoring a screening of Ghost World at Schlafly Bottleworks in St. Louis tonight — oh jeez, in like half an hour! — and copies of the graphic novel and other Clowes books will be on sale

• Things to see: Follow your nose to a new Kevin Huizenga-drawn Amazing Facts and Beyond with Leon Beyond strip

• Things to see: Finished pages from Robert Goodin's 19-page story "The Spritual Crisis of Carl Jung"

The year's penultimate Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: Comic Book Resources begins their countdown of the Top 100 Comics of 2009. At #82, "Because I Love You So Much" by Nikoline Wedelin: "Found in the pages of the recent anthology of Danish comics, From Wonderland with Love, this collection of strips about a mother who discovers that her daughter is being sexually abused by her dad is one of the most harrowing and utterly stunning stories about a difficult subject matter I've ever read and easily equal to the works of, say, Phoebe Gloeckner or Debbie Dreschler." (Chris Mautner)

• List: The Brazilian editions of The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952 and Dash Shaw's Bottomless Belly Button have been voted among As melhores HQs de 2009 (The Best Comics of 2009) by a panel of critics at O Globo (via The Comics Reporter)

• List: Robin McConnell of Inkstuds re-posts his Best of 2009 and Best of the 2000s lists previously run at The Daily Cross Hatch

• List: Comicdom continues their Top 100 of the 00s with Black Hole by Charles Burns at #2: "I start, taking for granted that with Black Hole, Burns played the blues of the pelvis with unparalleled mastery."

• Review: "...[A] love letter to 70s exploitation movies. Beto being Beto, there’s a depth of visual symbolism and complexity of character that provides an emotional structure to the narrative not seen in the source material that inspired these stories. ...Elmore Leonard meets Roger Corman. ... There’s a wonderful luridness to the story that Hernandez revels in... The Troublemakers... shows the artist at the height of his powers, capable of crafting characters with surprising depth even in the basest of genre stories." – Rob Clough, The Comics Journal

• Review: Chris McLaren gives his impressions after reading the first book of the "marvelous" Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons

• Plug: Paul Constant of The Stranger picks up on our report of the recent Fletcher Hanks discovery and says "If you haven't read I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! and its sister volume You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation!, you're in for a treat."

• Plugs: At Comics212, Chris Butcher comments on our spread in the December Previews: "Wow, some good stuff this month."

• Interview: Comics Alliance talks to Mome and The Comics Journal contributor Noah Van Sciver

• Interview: Comic Book Galaxy's Alan David Doane presents an exactly-decade-old chat with Barry Windsor-Smith, conducted on the occasion of the release of OPUS Vol. 1: "I mean, if I'd really wanted to sell it, I could have called it 'Tits Galore' or something like that." (I pulled the goofiest quote, but really, it's a substantive read.)

• Tribute: Steve Brodner mourns David Levine

• Things to see: This week's Seattle Weekly boasts illustrations from Jeremy Eaton and Pat Moriarity

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: Politics and Prose, perhaps the most graphic novel-friendly bookstore in Washington DC, lists their Favorite Graphic Literature of the Year:

"Every few years a graphic novel comes around that is so good you have to stop reading for a while, because if you read anything else you'd only be disappointed. ... The Squirrel Machine... is a masterpiece of comic fantasy. When I finished this book, I immediately returned to the introduction and read the whole book again, and again. Read this book to see what heights serial art can achieve in narrative and in the creation of worlds that exist in one character's mind. Read it if you think you can handle it, for it abandons the typical narrative structure and accomplishes its ends as only serial art of the highest quality can. This is a fine, gut-wrenching book, written and drawn by a true master." – Thad Ellerbe

"West Coast Blues is an unflinching story, perfect for any fan of the thriller." – Adam Waterreus

"C. Tyler's You'll Never Know, Book One: A Good and Decent Man... is also an impressive and beautiful history of the era; Tyler creates a panorama of images that sweep across the page as she documents her father's childhood, her parent's engagement, and her own young life. Her pen, ink, and color transform her creative panels (at times evoking a scrapbook) into vibrant memories intertwined by her restless imagination." – Adam Waterreus

"[With Abstract Comics] it becomes a treat to take a page of art — or a simple panel — and consider how the shapes, texture, depth, and color interact with one another; to reflect on how, when one takes the time, the enjoyment one ordinarily finds in reading a purely textually-oriented, narrative-driven written story can — with the graphic form — be translated into something completely different." – Adam Waterreus

"From Wonderland with Love: Danish Comics in the Third Millennium... is fantastic! This amazing collection just blew me away. There was not one moment when reading this book — in one sitting, slouched and unblinking on my couch, coffee going cold — that I did not completely love. ... Mythic and dreamlike, meditative and fantastical, this is a superb and surprising collection." – Adam Waterreus

• Review: "...[F]rom the moment he showed up [Michael] Kupperman was a master of stomping around the living room of modern reality and shoving pieces of conceptual furniture next to one another to awesome, knees-out-from-under effect. Kupperman's work has always had that charge that the really good stuff has... Kupperman doesn't get enough credit for building a comic book vehicle in Tales Designed To Thrizzle that serves to facilitate those skills. ...I'm not certain anything under heaven or earth could make something greater than Kupperman's peerless ability to craft funny moments." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

• Review: The Oregonian's Steve Duin, while professing "I am not on the board of directors of the Gahan Wilson fan club," nonetheless finds some pleasures in Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons, declaring "This is a stunning collection, gloriously presented."

• Review: superhumanoids writes of Dash Shaw's "eccentric little Animated Web Series That Could" The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D., "Disparate animation styles and simple, hand drawn production value is the perfect vessel for a world where future-artists hone their still life sketches on rigid, unmoving droids."

• Review: "Unclothed Man delivers just the right amounts of story, whimsy, art, and heft for four two-minute entries. It offers actual nutritive cultural substance, as opposed to so much web filler one often gets. And you’ll want to go back and watch them a few more times. There’s a lot of variety behind the series’ simple elegance." – Michael Shaw (no relation), Tubefilter

• Plug: "Compiled by Portland, Oregon-based trash cinema expert Jacques Boyreau, Portable Grindhouse honors the pulp video era that inspired Quentin Tarantino." – Hugh Hart, Wired

• Plug: Clicky Overload reminds us "By the way, world's best comic publisher Fantagraphics has a collection of Krampus postcards called The Devil in Design: The Krampus Postcards."

• Gift guide: Comics Alliance recommends Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1 for the recluse in your life in their snarky "Holiday Shopping Guide for the Unemployed Comics Fan" (sorry Steve, I just reports 'em)

• Links: Time for another awe-inspiring Love and Rockets mega link roundup post from Love & Maggie

• Things to see: Actually, Derek, I kinda like it

• Things to see: In Jim Woodring's latest blog posting, Frank faces terror from the deep! Yow!