New comics arrive in comics shops on Thursday this week due to the U.S. holiday. That gives you an extra day to count up your nickels because HOO BOY do we have a ton of stuff scheduled to land in shops this week! Such as:

All and Sundry: Uncollected Work 2004-2009 by Paul Hornschemeier

Giraffes in My Hair: A Rock 'n' Roll Life by Bruce Paley & Carol Swain

Love and Rockets: New Stories #2 by the Hernandez Brothers

The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book by Joe Daly

Rock Candy: The Artwork of Femke Hiemstra

The Squirrel Machine by Hans Rickheit

This Side of Jordan by Monte Schulz (cover by Al Columbia)

West Coast Blues by Jacques Tardi & Jean-Patrick Manchette

September is a-cumen in with Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "[The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book], about a monkey-footed man who muddles around a beach community in South Africa, is amazing... Both stories are laid-back, funny, and entertaining... Totally [recommended]. [Joe] Daly is one of my favorite new talents in comics, and... this is... one of my top five comics to be released this year so far." - Paul Constant, The Stranger

• Review: "You'll Never Know... is a daughter's pursuit of her father's untold war story as she seeks to recover what he has wilfully held back from her... [Carol] Tyler manages to unravel the saga brilliantly at every level of narrative and artistic execution. Basic training for the war, courtship of her mother that happens almost simultaneously, the invasion of north Africa and conflicted events in the artist's own life with husband, daughter and father in turmoil emerge seamlessly. Memory and the present flow together, make sense together... After all this time, the second world war has grown closer to comic art in the best sense." - Paul Buhle, Morning Star

• Interview: At The Daily Cross Hatch, Brian Heater begins a multi-part Q&A with The Squirrel Machine creator Hans Rickheit: "I kind of live in my own insular world. The notion that anyone reads my comics other than myself is kind of weird and mystical."

• Things to see: "Meet 'Pig-Pen'" (via The Comics Reporter)

Another fall book tour to announce: Hans Rickheit starts at SPX and works his way north and then west, signing copies of The Squirrel Machine all along the way. Dates from the Squirrel Machine blog; more info TBA:

September 26th & 27th

SPX
The North Bethesda Marriott Convention Center
5701 Marinelli Road
Bethesda, MD‎
(301) 822-9200‎

September 29th (6-7pm)

Brickbat Books
709 S 4th Street
Philadelphia PA
(215) 592 1207

October 1st (6-7pm)

Forbidden Planet
840 Broadway
NY, NY
(212) 473 1576

October 3rd (2-4pm)

Million Year Picnic
99 Mount Auburn
Cambridge MA
(617) 492 6763

October 5th (4-6pm)

That's Entertainment
244 Park Ave
Worcester, MA
(508) 755 4207

October 6th (7-8pm)

Rabbit Hole
805 Main Street
Fitchburg MA
(978) 345 0040

October 7th (4-7pm)

Casablanca Comics
151 Middle Street #2
Portland ME
(207) 780 1676

October 10th (7pm)

Quimby's
1854 W North Ave
Chicago, IL
(773) 342-0910‎

October 11th (2pm)

Vault of Midnight
219 S Main St
Ann Arbor, MI‎
(734) 998-1413‎

It's time for your Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "[Editor Andrei] Molotiu has created a fun and accessible anthology here, one that’s smart and well-researched but not in the slightest bit obtuse. You don’t need to be an art snob to appreciate it; you just need an open mind. With that, the reward for Abstract Comics is quite lovely. And quite possibly a good opportunity for you to increase your appreciation for the comics format exponentially." - John Hogan, Graphic Novel Reporter

• Review: "...Giraffes in My Hair is a pleasure to read. The insights are genuine and the humanity is quite bare. Once I started reading, I didn’t stop until the book was over. This survivor’s tales were well worth the journey, once again, through two well-trodden decades." - John Hogan, Graphic Novel Reporter

• Review: "West Coast Blues... gets under your skin and remains impossible to resist from start to finish... Darkly amusing and undeniably entertaining, West Coast Blues keeps the mystery and interest alive by carefully doling out pieces of the story and introducing intriguing characters with loads of personality... Tardi does an excellent job of adapting what must be a massively entertaining book into a graphic novel form for all who seek a slightly different but no less thrilling mystery/adventure story to enjoy." - Avril Brown, Comics Waiting Room

• Review: "The Squirrel Machine should be called nothing less than a masterpiece: a true culmination and maturation of illustrative style and story. The atmosphere portrayed in black and white is meticulous and unsettling. Even the banal moments of the story have depth and direction... [a] lovely and blasphemous affair." - R.M. Rollston, Panel to Panel

• Plug: "Everything Jaime [Hernandez] does is genius, but I thought [Ghost of Hoppers] was especially strong. Maybe my favorite since Wigwam Bam." - M. Ace, Irregular Orbit

• Tweet: "I just got my grubby hands on the new @fantagraphics Abstract Comics collection. Devastatingly pretty thing..." - mattrodger

The Squirrel Machine
By Hans Rickheit

AN ANACHRONISTIC PARABLE FOR THE CONVULSIVE ELITE

What is the squirrel machine? Is it a rodent ensnarement device? A mechanism for concealing one’s guarded harvest? An anachronistic fable? A meaningless diversion?

Set in a fictional 19th Century New England town, the narrative initially details the relationship and maturation of Edmund and William Torpor. But the two brothers quickly elicit the scorn and recrimination of an unamused public when they reveal their musical creations built from strange technologies and scavenged animal carcasses. Driven to seek a concealment for their aberrant activities, they make a startling discovery. Perhaps they will divine the mystery of the squirrel machine.

What is The Squirrel Machine?
• An immutably strange and haunting narrative that transcends known logics and presumptive dream-barriers;
• A distillation of subconscious beauty and inspired madness;
• A dangerous object for the incautious;
• A revelation for the undernourished crypto-seeker;
• The virgin caress of unconsummated apocalypse;
• The unspeakable thing that you always knew.

It’s also the legendary obscurantist cartoonist Hans Rickheit’s most ambitious graphic novel to date. Exquisitely rendered, strange, and hauntingly beautiful, this evocative and enigmatic book will ensure the inquisitive reader a spleenful of cerebral serenity that will require vast quantities of mediocrity to banish from memory.

192-page black & white 7.375" x 10.25" hardcover • $18.99
Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

Hans Rickheit drew this advertisement for The Squirrel Machine which appears in the new issue of The Comics Journal and posted it on his blog. Now I can re-post it here and plug 2 things at once!

For the world to see, Hans Rickheit presents 14 pages from an earlier, "primordial version" of his graphic novel The Squirrel Machine. (To be clear: this is not the story as it appears in the book.)

From poet and filmmaker Chad Parenteau: "The following is footage from time spent with cartoonist and graphic novelist Hans Rickheit while visiting his home in Philadelphia, as he discusses his influences, his New England hometown, and his upcoming graphic novel, The Squirrel Machine. Thanks to Hans for the opportunity to let me attempt something film-ish." (YouTube link)

We have a trio of new original graphic novels with coincidentally zoological titles, all now available for pre-order. All of them debuted to a great response at Comic-Con last month; they should be in stock here and ready to ship later this month, and in stores approximately 4 weeks after that. Click the links for each book below for more info and to access downloadable PDF excerpts!

Giraffes in My Hair: A Rock 'n' Roll Life by Bruce Paley & Carol Swain - A comics memoir of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, a life lived in the countercultural margins, from the optimism of the Summer of Love to the nihilism of the punk years, vividly brought to life with compelling visuals by the cartoonist Time Out called "the Raymond Carver of British comics."

The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book by Joe Daly - Set in sun-drenched Cape Town, South Africa, this book features two full-length stories, “The Leaking Cello Case” and “John Wesley Harding,” rife with mystery, suspense, action, adventure, conspiracy theories, cool cars and excellent weed. From the creator of the Eisner-nominated Scrublands.

The Squirrel Machine by Hans Rickheit - Meticulous, strange, and hauntingly beautiful, this evocative and enigmatic book will ensure the inquisitive reader a spleenful of cerebral serenity that will take exposure to vast quantities of mediocrity to dispel.

Let's see what kind of Online Commentary & Diversions the weekend held for us... a lot, apparently:

• Review: "Carol Tyler is a unique figure in the world of comics... She's now put together the first volume of what promises to be her masterwork, a 'graphic memoir' about her father's experiences in World War II that effortlessly mixes media in a charming, affecting, and devastating package. You'll Never Know goes beyond biography, autobiography and even as a means a therapy to ask a number of deeper questions that may well not have ready answers. It's a stunning achievement, a perfect marriage of form and content, and is my early contender for not only comic of the year, but comic of the decade." - Rob Clough

• Review: "Jordan Crane's Uptight series is a lo-fi throwback of a series... Crane's line is elegant but unfussy, with slightly scratchy character designs that have a grace and fluidity to them reminiscent of Jaime Hernandez." - Rob Clough

• Review: "Grotesque has been one of the most playful entries in the underappreciated Ignatz line. Sergio Ponchione has a very 'American' quality to his line in terms of his line (thick and rubbery) and character design (a series of homages to masters like EC Segar and more contemporary figures like Charles Burns)... Ponchione's sight gags in this issue were something to behold, like a dead baron's tombstone growing arms and legs and coming after his brothers." - Rob Clough (same link as above)

• Review: "Issue #4 of Delphine was the conclusion of the series, and it certainly did not disappoint... Delphine benefitted from the Ignatz format: big pages that let the backgrounds breathe, nice paper, and creepy one-tone color. It was a perfect format for a fairy tale gone horribly wrong." - Rob Clough (same link as above) 

• Review: "When life is on the skids, there are those who just lean into it and those who try to drive their way out. Some get run over, some step on the gas. In Pop. 666 [by Francesca Ghermandi, serialized in Zero Zero], fortunes change at moment’s notice, and events are never anything short of bizarre... This weird and creepy sci-fi horror crime comic is a loopy piece of work, and it deserves to be experienced by more readers..." - Jamie S. Rich, Robot 6

• Review: "I realize as I was reading the book that I’d previously thought of Val as a bit of a wimp due to his hairstyle, but nothing could be farther from the truth. In the first volume he kills a giant crocodile, wears a false mustache, scares an ogre to death, enters a jousting tournament in disguise, gets drunk, falls in love with a girl who already has a fiance, pursues girl with said fiance when she is kidnapped by vikings, and fights off a horde of vikings single-handed. That Prince Valiant is a busy guy!... It is really great seeing an essential part of comics history like Prince Valiant being treated so respectfully in this new edition." - TangognaT

• Review: "Imagine a book publisher had released a retrospective on 'The Graphic Novel' in 1976, or that a cinema hosted a look back at France’s nouvelle vague in 1957, or that a gallery exhibit somewhere spotlighted American Abstract Expressionism in, say, 1946. The experience would have been not unlike reading Abstract Comics: The Anthology today." - Sean Rogers, The Walrus

• Review: "[The Wolverton Bible] is a fascinating testimony to the peculiar vision of the life of an original artist and a somewhat unorthodox view of the 'holy book' by a faithful believer." - Iconoctlán (translation from Google)

• Review: "Popeye Vol. 1 would be enthralling if only for the change in the Thimble Theatre order of things, letting the reader watch as a new character takes over and reshapes the strip into his own image. Fortunately, what it's turned into is a thoroughly fun adventure strip that made me eager for more... There are so many fun newspaper reprint projects going on right now that it's easy to miss a lot of them. Now that I know how good Popeye is, I'm making it a priority to read the rest." - Greg McElhatton, Read About Comics

• Review: "[Bottomless Belly Button is a] wonderful book that I strongly recommend for every comic fan... Dash Shaw is a name to remember." - Laurent De Maertelaer, freaky.be (translation from Google)

• Plugs: "Abstract Comics: ...[I]t's fascinating to see what you can do with comics when you're dealing with non-representational, non-narrative imagery, stretching the limits of the medium... Locas II: Oh man, it's another huge collection of Jaime Hernandez's amazing stories from Love and Rockets... Greatness." - Matthew J. Brady

• Plug: "This third volume of Flora visual treats includes newly-discovered artwork that Irwin [Chusid] himself dug out of a time capsule that was buried in a top-secret location. Or maybe I made up that last part." - Liz Berg, WFMU's Beware of the Blog

• Plug: "...I have just started the new Fletcher Hanks collection, You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!, and am happy to see it is just as insane as the first one." - Tom Bondurant, Robot 6

• Plug: "Nobody else’s comics read like these [in You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!]. They’re savage and brutal but have moments of eerie and unexpected beauty... And don’t read this stuff right before bed: strange dreams are a documented side-effect." - Matt Maxwell, Robot 6 (same link as above)

• Plug: "Paul Karasik's Fletcher Hanks collections are the gift that keeps on giving." - Chris Sims, Chris's Invincible Super-Blog [the accompanying panel is one of my favorites too]

• Preview: Hans Rickheit has a peek at the hardcover of The Squirrel Machine

• Profile: "Michael Kupperman does funny very well... 'Right now, I'm working on two more short pieces for Marvel, one featuring the Avengers, and I'm going to try to get some of that Marvel spirit of the '70s, with the explosive, sound-effect laden fight scenes.'" - Gary C.W. Chun catches up with Kupperman in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin

• Interview: "I've greatly enjoyed Chicago-based cartoonist, artist and animator Lilli Carré's first few forays into the world of comics. Longer works such as Tales of Woodsman Pete and especially The Lagoon were stuffed with undeniably interesting formal techniques... There's a soulful element to Carré's writing that helps greatly to involve the reader in the surface narratives..." - Tom Spurgeon, introducing his Q&A with Lilli at The Comics Reporter

• Opinion: Another great (non-comics) NYT column from Tim Kreider

• Second thoughts: Gil Roth offers some regrets about a negative review he gave to Richard Sala's Evil Eye in The Comics Journal back in 1998

• Comic-Con Rhetorical Question of the Day: "...[H]ow many members of the 501st Stormtrooper Legion do you see at the Fantagraphics booth?" - Sean T. Collins (The Unneeded Answer: we had maybe 2 cosplayers, period, in the booth all week, and no Stormtroopers, although they are more than welcome.)